‘Grave concern’: Soviet-educated professor resigns association membership over DEI statements

A professor who grew up under the Soviet Union resigned his membership in the American Mathematical Society due to the group’s failure to oppose DEI statements as a requirement for job applications.

Alexander Barvinok, a Russian emigrant and tenured mathematics professor at the University of Michigan, told The Atlantic in a Dec. 13 article that he has seen the pressure to conform to DEI ideology mounting since the early 2000s.

“University and college policies in hiring, and to some extent promotions and merit raises, were increasingly motivated by the desire to effect some positive social changes, in the form of a contribution to DEI,” Barvinok told the magazine.