Liberal media outlets have a bad habit of trying to find an excuse to tie the issue of race and gender into multiple issues. A new New York Times piece claimed in its headline that “The Fed, long dominated by white men, is trying to change.”
The Times reported: “The Federal Reserve’s research staff is far less diverse than the American population it is meant to serve, a reality that the central bank is trying to change as a reckoning over inclusion sweeps through the economics profession.” The Oct. 2, report cites research from Peterson Institute and Brookings Institution, both of which have received significant funding from liberal mega-donor George Soros.
Between 2003-2016, Brookings received at least $1,193,360 from Soros’ Open Society Network. The Peterson Institute had received $182,000 between 2010-2014. Both amounts from each respective institute were based on data taken from Foundation Directory Online.
The newspaper noted that Fed “managers would often prioritize highly ranked programs and would sometimes insist that students had earned good grades in a high-level math course called real analysis.”
Okay, so the Times complained that the Fed cared about math.
“While the Fed cannot legally hire based on race and gender, it could make sure a broader swath of applicants were considered,” wrote The Times. So, the Fed cannot hire on the basis of race and gender, but The Times encouraged consideration on the basis of intersectionality.
The Times cited Peterson Institute senior fellow David Wilcox, who stated that requiring math had unintentionally skewed the candidate pool in favor of those who “gravitated towards the desired class” and “who could afford top universities.” Wilcox said that this “group seemed to be heavily made up of white men from privileged backgrounds.”
A Brookings Institution report showed that only 34 percent of the Federal Board of Governors’ research assistants were women, and 23 percent were minorities, The Times noted. It also noted that there was a limited supply of female economics Ph.Ds, which makes it harder to get a more balanced-group of economists. “Macroeconomics and finance fields are especially male dominated, and they are the Fed Board’s chief areas,” argued The Times.
Brookings has promoted intersectionality in the recent past. In 2017, it held a discussion panel podcast on “How investing in girls’ education can help fight climate change.” And in 2018, it published an op-ed by liberal Brookings Fellow Noha Aboueldahab, who stated that “Intersectionality, as many have convincingly argued, requires that the multiple layers of oppression faced by women in diverse contexts be seriously addressed.”
The Times also extended its whining to the issue of race:
“Diversity extends beyond gender, and the Fed is making improvements — albeit slow ones — when it comes to hiring minority economists.”
“About 25 percent of doctoral-level economists were from those underrepresented groups in 2018, up slightly from 22 percent in 2013.”
One Brookings researcher even stated that “Walking into an economics department filled with white men can be ‘daunting,’” reported The Times.
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There were barely any qualifying explanations for these statistics other than that they were the reason why the Fed is changing its hiring strategies to diversify their workforce to be less dominated by “white males.”
Editor’s Note: Since publishing, The New York Times updated their headline to read “How the Fed Is Trying to Fix Its White Male Problem.”
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