A Future Segregated by Science? -By Charles M. Blow

Let me say up front: I’m not a science guy.

I have always loved science, but I have always loved the arts — drawing, painting and, yes, writing — more.

My deepest foray into science came in high school when I won my way to the international science fair. (Don’t get too excited; that sounds more impressive than it was.) It was 1988, and I had produced a project about why the “Star Wars” missile defense system wouldn’t work. My project was a beautiful monstrosity made of stained and varnished plywood, with an insert for a diorama of missiles flying, lasers blasting and a midair explosion, and a cutout with space for a small television and a VCR (yes, I’m that old).

I won the district fair — in part, I suspect, because the judges’ pool was heavily populated by members of the military — even though I had violated one of the cardinal rules of science fairs: I hadn’t actually done an experiment. Mine was a fancy research project — like a 3-D opinion piece. But it didn’t matter. The airline lost the whole project when I flew to the international science fair, so I never got to compete.

Although my science dreams were dashed, I still loved science. And I’ve long been surrounded by science people. My ex-wife was a physics major. My oldest child is a biology major, and when my twins enter college next year, one wants to major in physics and the other in a scientific field to be determined.

But their interests defy a distressing disparity: Few women and minorities are getting STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees, although STEM jobs are multiplying and pay more than many other careers.

This raises the question: Will our future be highly delineated by who does and who doesn’t have a science education (and the resulting higher salary), making for even more entrenched economic inequality by race and gender?

According to the National Math and Science Initiative: “STEM job creation over the next 10 years will outpace non-STEM jobs significantly, growing 17 percent, as compared to 9.8 percent for non-STEM positions.”

And yet, the group says, we are not producing enough STEM graduates; other countries are moving ahead of us.

When you look at women and minorities, the situation is even more bleak.

Let’s start with high school. Last year, a Georgia Tech researcher analyzed which students took the Advanced Placement exam in computer science in 2013. The researcher, Barbara Ericson, found that in three states no women took it, in eight states no Hispanics did and in 11 states no blacks did. (In Mississippi only one person — not female, black or Hispanic, by the way — took the test that year. Oh, Mississippi.)

Now, on to college, where the disparities remain bleak.

The Associated Press said in 2011 that “the percentage of African-Americans earning STEM degrees has fallen during the last decade” and that this was very likely a result of “a complex equation of self-doubt, stereotypes, discouragement and economics — and sometimes just wrong perceptions of what math and science are all about.”

It continued: “Black people are 12 percent of the United States population and 11 percent of all students beyond high school. In 2009, they received just 7 percent of all STEM bachelor’s degrees, 4 percent of master’s degrees and 2 percent of Ph.D.s, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”

It doesn’t get better in the workplace. In a 2013 editorial, The New York Times pointed out: “Women make up nearly half the work force but have just 26 percent of science, technology, engineering or math jobs, according to the Census Bureau. Blacks make up 11 percent of the work force but just 6 percent of such jobs and Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the work force but hold 7 percent of those positions.”

Even when minority students do get STEM degrees, there seems to be a disproportionate barrier to their finding work in those fields. “Top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them,” an October analysis by USA Today found.

Furthermore, the paper reported in December: “In 2014, leading technology companies released data showing they vastly underemploy African-Americans and Hispanics. Those groups make up 5 percent of the companies’ work force, compared to 14 percent nationally.”

No matter what strides we make — or don’t — in the march toward racial and gender equality in this country, is this an area in which the future will feel more stratified, and in which the inequalities, particularly economic ones, will mount? Is science education a new area of our segregation?