“Decolonising Math”: Durham U Asks Professors to Consider Race of Mathematicians
This is the &quot;Decolonisation&quot; statement on the Durham University math department&#x27;s web site:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.durham.ac.uk&#x2F;departments&#x2F;academic&#x2F;mathematical-sciences&#x2F;equality-diversity--inclusion&#x2F;decolonisation&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.durham.ac.uk&#x2F;departments&#x2F;academic&#x2F;mathematical-s...</a><p>As an example, from the section labeled &quot;Suggestions and resources&quot;: &quot;Consider giving short biographies of the mathematicians whose work you present in your modules. If in doing so you realise that they are almost entirely (or even completely) white and&#x2F;or male, ask yourself why this is. See if you can find contributions to the field from mathematicians of other genders&#x2F;ethnicities.&quot;<p>From some of the other comments here, maybe the original article gave the impression of coerced or repressed speech, but I don&#x27;t see that in this statement. The section is labelled &quot;Suggestions and resources&quot;. The quote above uses wording like &quot;Consider giving&quot;, &quot;ask yourself&quot;, &quot;See if you can&quot;. The tone of the statement as a whole is similar.<p>I was a math professor for 38 years. I&#x27;m actually kind of opinionated about my teaching, and never cared for people telling me what to say or do. But there was nothing here that pushed my buttons - and in fact, some of the suggestions seemed pretty reasonable.