In the late 18th century, mathematician and physicist Joseph-Louis Lagrange made a shocking discovery: his star student, a Monsieur Le Blanc, was actually a woman.
Lagrange taught at France鈥檚 脡cole Polytechnique, which allowed students to听receive lecture notes and submit work without attending the university in person. This was particularly beneficial to Sophie Germain, who longed to study mathematics despite objections from her parents. She took up the identity of a lapsed student and might have got away with it, but Lagrange noticed the vast and sudden improvement in Le Blanc鈥檚 work and demanded to meet in person.
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Germain isn鈥檛 the only person to note how the name we use changes the way we are perceived. As psychologist Keon West explains here, experiments using identical job applications show that those with names assumed to belong to a Black person are听less successful than those with names thought to belong to a white person.
In recent years, many organisations have adopted measures to combat the biases that lead to these outcomes, such as听removing names from job applications. These measures fall under the umbrella of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Now, however, US President Donald Trump has听ordered government agencies to dismantle听DEI programmes, promising in his 20 January inauguration speech that society would be 鈥渕erit-based鈥�.
Trump's approach to diversity, equity and inclusion is unlikely to produce a meritocracy
Some DEI initiatives have firmer grounding in evidence than others. As the r茅sum茅 test demonstrates, merit听alone isn鈥檛 enough to overcome people鈥檚 biases, and a number of studies听have shown that for disadvantaged groups. On the other hand, unconscious bias training, in the form of one-off sessions that aim to make employees aware of snap judgements they may make about people based on their race and gender, has .
Trump鈥檚 heavy-handed approach to DEI, based in ideology rather than evidence,听is unlikely to produce his desired outcome of a meritocracy. Instead of developing an organisation where the best people are encouraged to flourish, the current efforts seem to be fostering a culture of fear, with being warned of 鈥渁dverse consequences鈥� for failing to identify and end DEI work.
Thankfully for Germain, there were no听such consequences. Lagrange accepted听her for who she was and championed her mathematical development. Despite this, she still used the Le Blanc pseudonym in some correspondence, most notably with mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, who, on discovery of her true identity, wrote that she had 鈥渘obler courage, quite extraordinary talents, and superior genius鈥�. If we want more Germains to听flourish, we must acknowledge and address the barriers they face, not pretend听that they don鈥檛 exist.
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