John Rosenberg, with his usual perspicacity, writes here about a finding that has the diversiphiles in a dither. It seems that the very students they want more of in STEM fields (women and minorities) are much more likely to drop out of academic careers in them. Frustrating! The central planners work so hard to get “underrepresented” groups into STEM only to have many of the favored individuals undo their handiwork. Now those groups are “overrepresented” in another statistical category.

Of course, the work in STEM won’t be the slightest bit better if we could somehow achieve perfect “diversity” with every subfield reflecting the right percentages of people from every one of the groups the diversity obsessed regard as important. But playing at this silly quest gives meaning to the lives of so many people. Take away that obsession and they’d have to find something productive to do.