NSF: "We'll give you money as long as you don't hire minorities".
Python: "Get fucked."
Chad shit
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
1388 points (99.3% liked)
Technology
76581 readers
2565 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Besides the anti-woke bullshit, it's just a bad idea to accept. It is absolutely not normal for a grant to have stipulations that if you violate some vaguely defined criteria somewhere in your organization, it can be clawed back at a later time. That's a huge liability for an organization to take on that they may suddenly owe a million dollars some time in the future.
I mean basically yeah, "DEI" and "Woke" are right wing buzzwords that basically can mean whatever, and the Trump admin et al know this. They could say "letting x people use this is woke" or "hiring y people is DEI". The Anti-DEI movement is just an excuse for actual discrimination because now we have people being fired not because they are unfit for their job, but because they're from a minority who was deemed more qualified than someone who was White, Male and Cishet.
I mean Hegseth fired the Chief of Naval Operations because she was a woman. Straight up.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(13 replies)
Congratulations for having a real spine and showing the world that money isn't everything
Thank you python team
Jesus the current US administration are cartoonishly evil. History is not going to be kind to the United States. In 30 Years there is going to be a museum with a little plaque on the wall and it'll say "did you know the United States used to be a relevant world power?".
There's an often repeated theme in philosophy that any gift that comes with conditions is actually just business.
I would use the term extortion, but yup.
Oh for sure, Trumps business style is about extortion rather than collaboration. He has to win and they have to lose.
It baffles me that any business is prepared to get into bed with him. It's practically a meme at this point that he screws everyone over and doesn't pay his debts and with him now being president of the United States, there is zero chance you'll be able to put a lien on him.
"getting bought" is more fitting imo.
And a nice little view behind the curtains how the fascists operate.
load more comments
(2 replies)
I should use python more. I like when people have principles.
The Seattle zoo also rejected federal funding with these strings. My wife lost her job because of it. Because it was just for one program and the no-DEI was organization wide…
Apparently the Portland Zoo signed it… No one expected that shit. We both let her parents know that this is because of their vote in another state.
In 2 days the White House will order every companie to stop using python because of woke or something
Imagining all the llm dorks suddenly trying to learn typescript over the weekend
Or trying to control their mice population. Wait what?
It makes me very happy to think about
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Good for them. It is good to see people do something right for once.
After growing up watching things like Bill Nye, seeing names like the NSF saying shit like this is like an actual fucking nightmare reality. It's just so incredibly wrong.
The python foundation should have asked them to define the terms of the contract in a document. At least that way we would have had a legal definition of what woke means in their eyes. Because I'm reasonably confident that even they don't know.
That's right. Fuck anti-DEI. DEI is the future and good.
Uncritical application of DEI methods without due consideration for the objectives isn't reasonable.
But signing a contract that says "if you do anything we can construe as DEI we can demand payback of all the support you falsely relied on" is like stepping on a landmine and hoping the fuse stops working before you have to step off.
DEI, otherwise known as hiring the right person for the job, regardless of label. It's wild that meritorious hiring principles aren't the norm in this country. Have to find out what you are before who you are matters.
load more comments
(7 replies)
what would happen if they took the money and didn't comply?
the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have violated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds
So even if they didn't violate the anti-DEI, whoever controls the US gov could just decide to claw back money PSF already spent...
Yeah, this is one of those terrible ideas even if you thought that, in theory, you were onboard with 'anti-DEI'.
Out of the blue the wrong person gets randomly pissed at you and invokes the highly subjective clause and suddenly you owe them $1.5M...
I think at this point it's not about money, it's about sending a message.
load more comments
(1 replies)
If they accepted it, saying "Diversity of libraries" could have get them into hot waters.
Discrimination in the name of anti-discrimination
view more: next ›