Massachusetts’ Williams College segregates students for ‘New’ Voices Science and Tech symposium
Williams College in Massachusetts is making national headlines for instituting or allowing a form of segregation ahead their “New Voices in Science and Technology Studies: A C3 Symposium.”
Set for November, Williams has invited scholars to submit papers if they represent a “historically underrepresented group.”
The call for papers specifies that means either “African Americans, Alaska Natives, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.”
To go further, the applicants are asked to write a few sentences to identify themselves as a member of a “historically underrepresented group.”
Chosen scholars will receive a $500 honorarium and be hosted by Williams College as they present their papers to the audience, organizers state, adding “we aim to create an inclusive, intellectually enriching experience for all involved, including the visiting speakers and the faculty and students of Williams.”
Williams College Associate Professor of Political Science and Chair of Science and Technology Studies Laura Ephraim is the contact for the event, but for weeks is reportedly ignoring media inquiries from outlets like The College Fix.
“The Program in Science and Technology Studies (STS) aims to provide students with an interdisciplinary framework through which to appreciate the complex interactions between science, technology and society, and with which to analyze and understand the ways science and technology give shape to, and are in turn given shape by, society, culture and history,” the website states.
The program also works on “critical dialogue” issues.
“The STS Program furthermore serves as a forum in which students from all divisions are invited to partake in critical dialogue on a range of pressing issues: scientific controversies, expert knowledge, innovation and sociohistorical transformation, politics and policy, media and communication infrastructure, public understanding of science and technology, and philosophical questions,” according to its website.
