Thank God that this doesn’t prevent me from making anti DEI software using python.
Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings
Submitted 5 months ago by brianpeiris@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/python_foundation_abandons_15m_nsf/
Comments
Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 5 months ago
DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
I should use python more. I like when people have principles.
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Jesus the current US administration our cartoonishly evil. History is not going to be kind to the United States. In 30 Years 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?”.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Discrimination in the name of anti-discrimination
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Political commissars will be present at all meetings.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
Congratulations for having a real spine and showing the world that money isn’t everything
Thank you python team
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
NSF: “We’ll give you money as long as you don’t hire minorities”.
Python: “Get fucked.”
Chad shit
metdollarrat@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Bad people might steal these advanced technologies to exploit slave communities around the world, causing global suffering. What if the entire world is enslaved?
NSF: “We’ll give you money as long as you don’t hire minorities”.
Python: “Get fucked.”
Chad shit
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Bad people might steal these advanced technologies to exploit slave communities around the world, causing global suffering. What if the entire world is enslaved?
lmao wut. lmfao even. roflcopter if you will. I know this is a troll account (joined today and has one (1) comment) but this is a hell of a comment. This is up there with that girl saying "Gay marriage is wrong because girls will want to marry other girls, which is what everyone wants to do, right?"
- It’s Python. It’s already open source. You can’t really steal it.
- It’s Python. Calling it an advanced technology is certainly a choice. Like, it’s a good language and it’s great for the layperson, but it’s Python. They teach it in schools. You may as well be saying that Bad people are going to steal writing. It’s Open source.
- It’s Python. How the fuck are you going to use Python to exploit slave communities around the world? Like are you gonna use it to automate your excel spreadsheets of your sweatshop. If you are, then you are more organised than 90% of sweatshops. Are you going to create a PyAI that will gain sentience and control the world for you? If you do, then frankly what you did deserves a Turing Prize because creating an AI in Python is impressive.
Jesus christ.
OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Braindead take
Honytawk@feddit.nl 5 months ago
If “bad people might use them” would be an argument, we would just do nothing ever again.
Bad people breathe oxygen, maybe you should stop doing the same.
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
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.
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
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.
x0x7@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The text actually required them to not violate anti-discrimination laws.
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Which under the current administration means not annoying the great all-powerful orange one. It certainly has no relation to the actual law.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 5 months ago
What’s the size of the rock you’ve been living under in the past 10 months or so?
Jason2357@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
They do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.
Try reading that again. There’s an “or” in that sentence.
libertyoftheforest@lemmy.wtf 5 months ago
That’s right. Fuck anti-DEI. DEI is the future and good.
PKscope@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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.
AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
DEI is nothing more than an acceptable form of racism.
Hiring people to meet quotas does not make a society better and does nothing to fix the root cause of inequalities.
Free access to quality education, healthcare and funding higher education for the people who can’t afford it is how you fix things for the better. This is the future and good.
DEI is the equivalent of a small band aid over a putrid, gaping wound.
Honytawk@feddit.nl 5 months ago
Quotas is just one small aspect of DEI.
Things like anonymous soliciting and punishing racism are others.
And even quotas are just a response to stupid people using their bias at their workplace while being blindly unaware of them.
The world is full of smart women and minorities. If there wasn’t a bias we would be closer to 50% of managers not being white males.
BrilliantantTurd4361@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
DEI has been found to be a net good to society by numerous studies. You just get your panties in a bunch because you are ignorant af.
luciferofastora@feddit.org 5 months ago
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.
Suavevillain@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Good for them. It is good to see people do something right for once.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Now this is concerning. FOSS is diverse by default, because of the international nature. They noted that FOSS software can be a viable alternative to the easily controllable IT giants, which is why they want to nip in the bud this way?
Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
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.
Toneswirly@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Good on ya, Gents.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 months ago
If they accepted it, saying “Diversity of libraries” could have get them into hot waters.
Mwa@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
based Python.
PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
This makes me love python (the programming language) even more.
daslfc@lemmy.world 5 months ago
In 2 days the White House will order every companie to stop using python because of woke or something
Reygle@lemmy.world 5 months ago
To them I say “good luck, fuckers”
ebolapie@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Imagining all the llm dorks suddenly trying to learn typescript over the weekend
daslfc@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It makes me very happy to think about
Crashumbc@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Or trying to control their mice population. Wait what?
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
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.
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
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.
jmsy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
what would happen if they took the money and didn’t comply?
deathbird@mander.xyz 5 months ago
The way it’s written it’s impossible to know if you’re complying or not. They might have just said “don’t be woke” or “don’t piss us off”.
elvis_depresley@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
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
jj4211@lemmy.world 5 months ago
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…
hayvan@feddit.nl 5 months ago
I think at this point it’s not about money, it’s about sending a message.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 5 months ago
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Go team snake 🐍
daggermoon@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Fucking hell, good for the PSF for maintaining their values. I’ll make a donation when I get paid. I’m sure they would appreciate it if any one else can spare a dollar or two.
nulluser@lemmy.world 5 months ago
This should be the top comment. Now, excuse me. I’ve got a donation to go make.
ZiemekZ@lemmy.world 5 months ago
In response to which I suddenly found the energy to go find the checkbook and an envelope. Who on Earth actually still uses checks? Is it 2005?
NinjaTurtle@feddit.online 5 months ago
“… do not ,and will not … operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology…”
Aren’t these contradictory?
pHr34kY@lemmy.world 5 months ago
No. Employment is finite. Including someone means excluding someone else.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 months ago
What DEI does (among others) is if there’s two candidates for the same opening with the same exact qualifications, the more marginalized will be hired. Before that, it wasn’t a random choice of lottery, but who looked “more trustworthy” (white) or “more competent” (neurotypical). White nationalists want to undo not only this, but to go back the days when blacks (etc.) were actually discriminated against, because their feelings and memories of calling someone “working like a n****r” (context: slavery + blacks in the segregation era often had to work way more for way less).
AnxiousDuck@feddit.it 5 months ago
Dremor@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Not necessarily. But your reaction is a good illustration of what the conservative narrative is when it comes to DEI.
DEI isn’t about excluding a majority to promote a minority, but to make sure being part of a minority doesn’t handicap someone.
But some people feels that it is in their right to exclude people they don’t like, which can be understable when it comes to not recruit someone who stole from you previously, but in most case it is based on prejudices against specific minorities. And that’s the main problem.
Those prejudices, most of the times based on misunderstandings, fear of the unknown, if not jealousy (antisemitism in Europe is often based on the idea that Jews perceived overall wealth is stolen from others).
Those prejudices greatly diminishes (or, as you wrote, “steals”) their chance to be chosed for well paid work (if not work at all), and to be represented in media like videogames (because of knee jerk reaction like that game where you steal back artifacts from museum got).
DEI, when not exaggerated to the extremes, is beneficiary for everyone involved. Recruiters find talents they wouldn’t have previously considered, people broadens their horizon by learning others culture, philosophy and history. Who in their right mind would refuse that, other that self-centered bigots?
In my case I’m gladof the diversity of people I meet at work. I don’t care if they are black or white, gay or straight, male, female, or anything in between. They are competent and hardworking, that’s the only metrics that should matters.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They’re really pulling the ‘We’re just going to make up a fake acronym using DEI’ card in an official government communication?
This is a clown show
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Eh, some DEI programs were discriminatory by having quotas, most were not. The one at my company was great, which was basically minorities giving talks about difficulties getting hired, promotions, etc. We didn’t have quotas, just reports.
deathbird@mander.xyz 5 months ago
This exemplifies why the provision is so bad. DEI is a term of art, not a specific thing. Everyone is proud of PyPI for standing up for whatever they think DEI means, but they don’t define or explain it so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Or rather it can mean anything at all. That’s the danger to the organization.
judgyweevil@feddit.it 5 months ago
Based
obinice@lemmy.world 5 months ago
How is it legal to basically say “We’ll give you some money if you promise to keep the blacks out of your organisation”
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Because the Congress and the Supreme Court have been captured by fascists.
gian@lemmy.grys.it 5 months ago
“We’ll give you some money if you promise to keep the blacks out of your organisation”
I suppose that this would be against the other part, the one relative to the federal anti-discrimination laws.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Because conservatives convinced people that DEI was literally about filling a quotas at the cost of competency, because “controlling the narrative”.
bhamlin@lemmy.world 5 months ago
You frame it as “don’t discriminate based on skin color, as in don’t hire a black person because they’re black” while not saying any more of the quiet part out loud.
obinice@lemmy.world 5 months ago
In a perfect world where nobody doing the hiring was ever even a little subconsciously racist, that would be perfectly reasonable, yeah.
Though that said we end up with a lot of nuance in the real world. Let’s say there’s a traditionally marginalised, opposed racial group. Let’s say times have changed somewhat and people suddenly accept them.
Well, the generational and cultural weight is still going to have a lasting effect even if times have changed, and it may be more difficult for people from that group to afford a good education, good job, good home, etc.
The point being that even if we all stopped being racist today and hired purely based on how good an employee someone will be, we’re likely still unknowingly skewing our decisions based on past social racial issues.
I’m probably not putting it very well but hopefully you get the idea! It’s probably pretty common knowledge anyway I guess haha, seems pretty obvious to me and I don’t even think about this stuff much :-)
Anyway, point is, we do still need to work as a society on ensuring diversity and fairness even when we’re not racist at all - I think the saying might be “Equity over Equality”, or such?
Obviously the USA Government are fascists, so they’re more interested in wiping out groups they don’t like, but they’re just another in a long line of evil governments that will eventually fall, no point thinking too deeply about why they’re being evil. They’ll eventually die off as all fascist regimes do. Hopefully we won’t have to fight a World War against them this time.
beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
One of our geology grants got hit for mentioning mineral inclusion. Total clown show.
deathbird@mander.xyz 5 months ago
An administration that uses LLMs and Ctrl + F and vibes for policy decisions that don’t sound good even before you realize they don’t make sense, and ignores courts and due process… it’s a hazard to touch.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
It is all just so unbelievably stupid.
PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
for real? Mentioning the wrong (key-) word gets you cancelled like this?
echodot@feddit.uk 5 months ago
We now get to experience what it would have been like if the Nazis had a negative IQ. Which is impressive to say, because some of them would totally deranged.
All they’re doing here is ensuring that all of the really intelligent people leave and go live somewhere else.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 5 months ago
Yep. And Universities had to edit their papers to remove any “bad words”.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Ooh I know what I’m using as variable names this week
khannie@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Honestly this is magnificent. 🤡
umbraroze@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
One of my recent software projects has an “ignore” list feature, but I guess I have to update the terminology to “include/exclude” if that means chuds will stay away.
Chozo@fedia.io 5 months ago
Rocks are woke now.
PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
The diversity of rocks you can find in the environment is truly stunning
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Unironically yes ❤️
portifornia@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yeah, since rocks went all woke and stuff, they have really been rolling down hill…
recked_wralph@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I bet if they solicit crowd funding to replace this grant they’d easily surpass its dollar value.
Is there an existing way to donate to the Python Foundation?
Speculater@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Thanks for doing the research for us lazy folks, donation sent!
deathbird@mander.xyz 5 months ago
Especially in light of how incompetent this administration is, and how bad it is at clearly communicating ideas, they made the only sensible choice. Maybe there’s more details in the grant terms itself, but from the article it looks like it just says “don’t advance or promote DEI”, and without explicitly defining what they mean by that they are setting up a trap.
PyPI is smart not to take the money.
gian@lemmy.grys.it 5 months ago
For the record, it also say that they should not violate any anti-discrimination federal laws.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 5 months ago
It’s a purchase of No DEI, not a donation.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 5 months ago
Good for them, standing on principle 😁
pHr34kY@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I get that hiring practices should not discriminate, but in practice, what I have seen is the opposite of meritocracy. My company had many DEI hires, and they were the first to go when the money got tight.
morriscox@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Maybe they were the first to go because your company didn’t want them around no matter how skilled they might. It seems odd that all of them would be let go. That implies that your company decided to only hire incompetent people because of the color of their skin and refused to hire any minorities that were competent.
bluesocks@lemmings.world 5 months ago
Good.
I’m glad that the people offering this money did not compromise on their ideals.