Is Math Racist?

<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW263550201 BCX4"> <p><span data-contrast="none">Few subjects seem less political than math. There is little room for subjective judgment because its truths are universal. No matter what you look like or where you’re from or how you feel about it, two plus two will always equal four, and the area of a circle will always be π r². Math is so objective, in fact, some</span> <a href= "https://math.dartmouth.edu/~carlp/PDF/extraterrestrial.pdf"><span data-contrast="none"> scientists have theorized</span></a> <span data-contrast= "none">that prime numbers could offer the basis of communication with supposed intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos. </span><span data-ccp-props= "{"201341983":0,"335559731":720,"335559739":0,"335559740":480}"> </span></p> <p><span data-contrast="none">However, even if aliens know that math has no racial or gender bias, some educators on Earth seem to think otherwise.</span> <a href= "https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ltt/2023/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsflash"> <span data-contrast="none">Even amid plummeting math scores in the latest Nation’s Report Card data</span></a><span data-contrast= "none">, a growing chorus of progressive voices insists that racism and sexism are the biggest problems we face in how to teach math. </span><span data-ccp-props= "{"201341983":0,"335559731":720,"335559739":0,"335559740":480}"> </span></p> <p><span data-contrast="auto">A couple years ago, in an article in the</span> <a href= "https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematics-confronts-its-white-patriarchal-past/"> <em><span data-contrast="none">Scientific American</span></em></a><span data-contrast="none">, Rachel Crowell complained about the racial and gender disparities among those who make a career out of mathematics. She pointed out, for instance, that “fewer than 1 percent of doctorates in math are awarded to African Americans” and that only 29.1 percent “were awarded to women.” More mathematicians, she writes, have been pushing to discus