Despite carrying more than $20 trillion in debt and some $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities, the federal government has decided that spending more of your money studying critically important things like “gender microaggressions” in engineering must go on. And so, the taxpayer-funded “National Science Foundation” just announced a quarter-million dollar grant to some nutty professors at the Iowa State University to investigate the alleged problem.
What in the world is a “gender microaggression?,” you might be wondering. And you’re not alone. Normal people, of course, do not worry about “gender microaggressions,” at least in part because they are out making an honest living, producing wealth, paying taxes for politicians to squander on “microaggression” studies, caring for their families, and more. But in the bubble of insanity that passes for American “education,” obsessing over “microaggressions” is all the rage today.
For normal people who do not follow the lunacy their taxes finance on college campuses, here is the definition of a “microaggression” from Merriam-Websterdictionary: “a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.” A “gender microaggression,” presumably, involves a “microaggression” perpetrated against somebody over their “gender.”
Basically, the tax-funded legions of social-justice warriors, in need of more tax money to continue living large without doing anything productive, have developed a whole tax-funded industry around these imaginary slights. And according to the abstract for the new tax-funded microaggression, studying microaggressions in engineering should supposedly somehow “contribute to diversifying engineering programs.”
“The research is motivated by the persistently low representation of gender and racial minorities in engineering education and seeks to study the subtle behaviors, or microaggressions, that students experience in engineering programs,” the funding documents read, suggesting, without providing a shred of evidence, that “minority students” do not “feel safe” while studying engineering.
The NSF grant, announced last month, will go to Iowa State Assistant Professor and far-left feminist Cristina Poleacovschi, whose research “focuses on the social and human issues in civil engineering education and infrastructure.” One of her goals is to “increase inclusion of the marginalized groups in project-based organizations,” according to her LinkedIn biography. Two other “academics” are involved as well.
The study, which could have easily been a parody of itself, is titled “An Intersectional Perspective to Studying Microagressions in Engineering Programs.” “Using an intersectional perspective that considers race and gender identities as unique identities, this research asks ‘How do gender and race microaggressions affect students’ success and persistence in engineering programs?’”
This is just one example among countless others of the absolute idiocy being subsidized by taxpayers at institutions of so-called “higher learning.” If you are tired of working hard to pay for “gender” theorists and fringe ideologues to study imaginary problems like “microaggressions,” call your congressman today and demand that the “National Science Foundation” be de-funded in the upcoming budget.