“Can women and minorities think rigorously?” The SJW say “No”

Old-time racists and sexists said: “Clear thinking — it’s not for woman, minorities, and gays.”
Social-Justice Wokists today say: “Exactly!!”

Rigorous thinking, according to some, is a virtue that leads to safe high-voltage electrical systems, pharmaceutical doses that are precisely calibrated, and bridges that stay up. Not so, says engineering Professor Donna Riley. Rather it leads to “[1] disciplining, [2] demarcating boundaries, and [3] demonstrating white male heterosexual privilege.”

Here is the full abstract to Riley’s academic-ish 2015 article published in an engineering education journal:

“Rigor is the aspirational quality academics apply to disciplinary standards of quality. Rigor’s particular role in engineering created conditions for its transfer and adaptation in the recently emergent discipline of engineering education research. ‘Rigorous engineering education research’ and the related ‘evidence-based’ research and practice movement in STEM education have resulted in a proliferation of boundary drawing exercises that mimic those in engineering disciplines, shaping the development of new knowledge and ‘improved’ practice in engineering education. Rigor accomplishes dirty deeds, however, serving three primary ends across engineering, engineering education, and engineering education research: disciplining, demarcating boundaries, and demonstrating white male heterosexual privilege. Understanding how rigor reproduces inequality, we cannot reinvent it but rather must relinquish it, looking to alternative conceptualizations for evaluating knowledge, welcoming diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being, and moving from compliance to engagement, from rigor to vigor.”

Translation: Math is hard. Some groups do it well and some don’t. Instead of flunking the failures, we’ll make them equal by pushing non-mathy ways of doing stuff.