Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings
Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings
Foundation says it won't compromise policy of inclusivity even if that cash would've really helped
To make matters worse, the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have voilated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds, Crary explained. "This would create a situation where money we'd already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk," the PSF director added.
Nobody in their right mind would sign such a travesty.
"We think you've hired too many black people, you now owe us millions of dollars."
The fact that having money and simply convincing someone to accept it with terms means someone gets to do that in this system is fucking wretched.
And that's what made me finally donate to Python after a little over a decade of using it.
I don't really like Python, but I'm also tempted to donate just to support them for this.
the terms included a provision that if the PSF was found to have voilated that anti-DEI diktat, the NSF reserved the right to claw back any previously disbursed funds, Crary explained.
"This would create a situation where money we'd already spent could be taken back, which would be an enormous, open-ended financial risk," the PSF director added.
"Part of the problem here is all the uncertainties," Crary told us. "Even if we wanted to give up anything that might be considered [DEI] work - which we don't - part of the risk here is that all these restrictions are new, the language is very broad ... I had no interest in being the test case."
Sounds like a really awful deal; get some funding, but the unpredictable and corrupt US government gets opportunities to bankrupt you.
Fuck yes. Nerds with basic fucking integrity. Mad respect.
My favourite kind of person
DEI was a solution to a problem. When you remove the solution, what remains is the problem.
DEI was a solution to a problem.
It was strategy for industry and government with an international focus. JP Morgan hires Japanese businessmen to acquire equity in Japanese firms and Samsung hires American bankers to negotiate loans with Wall Street. Nigerian oil executives shake hands with African American State Department staffers to negotiate trans-Atlantic trade deals. Korean native speakers in Seoul make sure American military bases don't create political headaches for Korean politicians. Middle Eastern dictators in Egypt and Israel and Saudi Arabia met with counterparts who knew their customs and spoke their language.
The goal remained consolidation of wealth into the hands of a handful of (primarily white, American based) oligarchs. But the scope of global commerce required regional HQs and middle-men who had to navigate a kaleidoscope of local organizations and logistics partners.
Trumpism is pulling all that back and trying to return to the old Colonial model of capitalism. Your hierarchy is primarily predicated on your physical identity - White. Christian. Fuckable. Man. - in that descending order. Now we put Donald Trump and Tony Blair into the chairmanship of the Gaza Peace Plan, because we don't trust any Arabs or Israelis to get the job done. We fuck with India, China, and Mexico on a daily basis, because their heads of state don't meet our definition of Real Person.
When you remove the solution, what remains is the problem.
The objectives of the current government have shifted substantially from the Nixon to Obama neoliberal era. We are a white nationalist government first and foremost. It isn't that we still have the same problem. It's that we have a totally different set of goals.
I very rarely do any python development, but it sounds like it's time to make a donation.
Paying companies to be racist, what a world.
White women are the biggest beneficiaries of DEI. So who's being racist by being against DEI exactly?
The DEI people are against are policies that mandate discriminatory practices, making someone's race/gender a qualification. It's wild that people here actually support discrimination in hiring.
I've met Guido (founder of the language) a few of times and I've never seen anyone care as much about community and diversity in the programming world as he does. Guido mentored people personaly to fill in diversity gaps so needless to say diversity is very important to the Python community, even after Guido himself stepped down from Python Foundation, the community never faltered in remaining true to these issues.
Anyone who has ever been to a pycon can confirm this and won't be surprised. Some of the most inclusive and accepting events I've ever been to. And this was 10 years ago already.
Wait, Guido stepped down??
What part of "for life" he didn't understand??
EDIT: it happened in 2018,holy cow I'm behind the news...
DEI is just the easiest way for the administration to be racist and commit hate based firings without repercussions.
Glad people are refusing to sign an agreement with the fascists as THEY WILL take money back at any moment in time. They are very fragile people trying to compensate for being cucks.
I don't believe that NSF had any ability to fire people from PSF.
Even if they will take the money back, isn't that just a interest-free loan? It doesn't seem like there is any drawback in your hypothetical.
What about the people who make DEI a condition of getting money? Im all for equality etc, but Im 100% against people getting preferential treatment/consideration because of what they look like, have between their legs, or who they love. More often than not, these programs are little more than boxticking to wash the public profile. See Activision for example.
We keep on talking about racism in hiring, but never actually address the main issue in places like the US, which is that historic racism set black families back half a centaury in terms of wealth accumulation. This in turn has limited access to higher education, which limits the ability to compete in the market against an over whelming white population that has had access. The way forward seems to have been clear for a very long time, reparations. Any families that were held back through systemic racism, should be getting money from the banks and companies that discriminated against black families, causing multiple generations of inequality. Levelling up families allows them to send their kids to better schools, grow up in better areas, and compete in the work place at an equal level.
This cherry picking, and surface level tokenism does not work. It has worked for the past 50 years, and a new approach is needed. One that isnt just "You need a random black face in your team.". Actual real, and lasting change, cant happen that way. The change needs to be at the roots of the issue. And that means money going to families, that gives their kids better access to education and to making friends too. As a lot of their future will also be "Not what you know, who you know.".
DEI isn't preferential treatment. It's a methodology for correcting past, and preventing future preferential treatment.
And yes, I read your entire comment. The last 2 paragraphs are fine, but your first paragraph misses the mark by miles. What you describe in the first paragraph isn't DEI.
You are proposing a solution that has no real way to be implemented. How would you distribute the reparations? Would just having one ancestor who was a slave be enough? What if you also have an ancestor who was a wealthy merchant? What if your family immigrated after slaver, but before Jim Crow? Does having multiple ancestors stack? What if the company that took advantage of your ancestors doesn't exist anymore? There is no perfect system, but I think you're underestimating how many problems your system has.
You don’t understand dei. You don’t know what you are talking about.
Wrongggggggggggg
These terms included affirming the statement that we 'do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws,'
Insane. I can't even fathom adding such a condition. And to a well established org with a positive track record.
Toxic offer. Wouldn't even be able to say that inclusivity is a good thing.
wait. so its not just about spending the money they are giving on dei? its saying they won't even with other funds. What if the other funds are mandated to be used for dei? This is just disingenuous. Having a grant that dictates how other donations and grants are used is ridiculous and it was intended to not be taken.
Not only that, but if they do engage in "DEI activities" (definition not included) then they reserve the right to take back the entire grant and and previous money the python foundation had recieved from them in the past. Its a total poison pill, and if this sort of language is widespread in government grants its going to completly gut research in the USA.
Yeah seriously, imagine saying that out loud. No being fair and including everyone!
Good on them to stick to their guns!
Ever since Guido stepped down I'm glad I rowed in behind Python. I like the guy, but the leadership there now has just been unimpeachable on issues like this, same with the local chapter in my country.
Hugs to Python Foundation.
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.
Reminder that "anti-DEI" isn't about upholding meritocracy but about upholding the status quo.
My country Hungary started to villainify "DEI"-like practices from 2010, primarily to combat "anti-white racism". Since it came from the far-right, the other parts also came with it, especially the infamous yearly retesting of people on disability benefits, because failed game dev turned far-right blogger Tamás "Tomcat" Polgár wrote about "Roma drug dealers pretending to be amputees and Rtrded to get money for Mercedeses" (at some point it turned out almost all of them belonged to old rich people like lawyers).
At least one place I applied as a Java deveoper for thought I was not up for the job because my autism, because Forrest Gump and Chris-chan memes. However, according to my brother, they hired at least 3 really bad Javascript developers they had to eventually get rid of, all because they "looked competent enough". They also got an easier time on the interviews.
Anti-DEI is racism personified. They coat it in a glossy shade of "equality for white people too" but since white people have literally always been favored, this is not only disingenuous but outright bullshit. The right wing racists have been trying to obliterate affirmative action ever since it was first implemented. They've been working tirelessly for over 40 years to set the table across the world for the right wing takeover that is occurring right now. And the only way to defeat it is to fight back with every ounce of strength we have.
They coat it in a glossy shade of “equality for white people too”
No they don't. The biggest beneficiaries of DEI are white women.
It's about ending discriminatory practices designed to benefit underrepresented races and genders. The DEI debate is rife with people who are speaking different languages and willfully ignoring the other side.
My development policy is to use black.
Honestly I'm all on board with formatters that just make decisions for you. I don't give a fuck if it's my preferred style. I just want the entire codebase to be consistent.
Ruff ftw
I do not use Python for anything, but I donated. Any project, willing to stand up for its morals and against BS rules, is worth supporting.
How do donations come with strings? I've never...
Grants aren't donations.
I think that's just a bribe in that case isn't it?
No. It's called earmarking. It's super common. I can do it at my local university.
Here's $100 but you have to spend it on materials for research, not executive salaries. It's called a restricted donation. You may hear that colleges and universities have million dollar endowments but still send out fundraising emails. This is because you might get a $200k donation from an alumni that is only to be used on tuition for student athletes and, yeah, you take that money because that means $200k that you don't need to spend there... But that you can only spend there.
So you've got to keep that money around unless you use it for those things.
All grants come with strings. You can go to grants.gov and click on hundreds of them.
Here's my $1000 donation, but you must remove one testicle from each member of your team...regardless of their assigned sex at birth. For $2000, we would like two. Thank you!
Imagine, despite pythons coming in all sorts of diverse patterns, having to hire only albino ones.
In January 2025, the PSF submitted a proposal to the US government National Science Foundation under the Safety, Security, and Privacy of Open Source Ecosystems program to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI. It was the PSF’s first time applying for government funding, and navigating the intensive process was a steep learning curve for our small team to climb. Seth Larson, PSF Security Developer in Residence, serving as Principal Investigator (PI) with Loren Crary, PSF Deputy Executive Director, as co-PI, led the multi-round proposal writing process as well as the months-long vetting process. We invested our time and effort because we felt the PSF’s work is a strong fit for the program and that the benefit to the community if our proposal were accepted was considerable.
I don't do software development, but I am enough of a nerd to know what python.
Good on them. The American far-right (and it's proxies) need to be shown that they are compromised individuals that lack integrity.
Was going to go into just Rust and GDScript more but you what I am going to go into Python now too. Massive respect to them
Good
that pic is me when someone offers me to learn javascript
Can I interest you in learning Brainfuck?
ive played with it before
Sent a donation! For as much as I’ve used python probably should have donated sooner but better late than never
I'd do the same
This encouraged me to work more in Python (though it is hard to beat Matlab in some applications).
Matlab is great, but I've never seen it used outside of an academic setting. Mathworks offers relatively affordable licensing to academia in the hopes of training future graduates to advocate for its use in a professional setting. However, their corporate licensing is crazy expensive, so it's usually worthwhile to just learn numpy/pandas or R instead.
One toolbox that I think Matlab is really excellent in is image analysis. I used it a ton on microscope images during grad school, doing image registration, and nothing I've tried since has made it as easy.
While Matlab is very convenient for modeling (what can be done as easy in Python), it excels in control engineering, navigation, and related problems. While very popular in academia, it's pricing causes that only the biggest companies can use more than a few toolboxes (Airbus, BMW, U$ "defense" molochs). I cooperate with a robotic company using Matlab (though large and government-owned). Great feature is the automatic C code generation (which is high quality when compared to the AI slop), however this toolbox is very expensive for industry. Symbolic computations are decent, but you can have the same with SymPy or maxima for free. Overall, for my purposes it's too good to abandon it completely.
What’s the nodei type if it’s not a string?
NSF - National Socialist Fund.
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
The PSF was smart to walk away - those grant terms were vague legal landmines that could mean anything from "no diversity goals" to "fire your existing minority staff." But watching y'all melt down over meritocracy is peak comedy.
I've worked with brilliant devs from every background. The good ones succeed because they can solve problems and write clean code, not because of their melanin levels. The whole "systemic racism in hiring" cope ignores that maybe different groups have different interests and aptitudes. Engineering talent isn't equally distributed across all demographics just because you wish it was.
The historical guilt trip about wealth gaps doesn't make hiring less qualified people logical. I'm supposed to tank my codebase quality because someone's great-grandfather got screwed? Merit-based hiring optimizes for results. Everything else is expensive virtue signaling that makes products worse while executives pat themselves on the back for being "inclusive."
I'm on the fence about this. I think that it's true the most hiring decisions aren't merit-based, nor do they necessarily need to be. Most jobs can be sufficiently done by the average-skilled person, it's only the most skilled positions were you can argue that one person is just simply the best (and sufficiently that it matters). I think DEI practices would be fine in the former case since it's just another biasing metric like nepotism.
As for highly skilled positions, most people in those positions grow up saturated in the culture from a young age, typically from parents in that field themselves. I think there is arguments to be made that DEI practices now can produce a larger skilled pool in the next generation.
The questions are 1. How much does it help the next generation? 2. Is it worth the cost of lower standards now?
So let me get this straight - we should hire less qualified people TODAY so that maybe their kids will be inspired to enter tech TOMORROW? And somehow this creates a "larger skilled pool"?
The logic is beautiful: "Let's lower standards now so future generations can... have lower standards too?" How exactly does seeing unqualified people get promoted inspire excellence? If anything, it teaches kids that competence is optional.
Yeah, but your code will be culturally one-sided! You need diverse coding practices, like three-space indentation!
My favorite was companies like IBM setting a goal for 50% female engineering representation even though barely 20% of the respective college grads were female. Like, they're just blatantly picking from a smaller pool, making it statistically inevitable that they're bypassing more qualified people.
But people here evidently support this sort of gender/race based discrimination. 🤷
Cultural bias for indentation styles, lol. Your math checks out though, statistics say women earn about 20-25% of CS/engineering degrees so if companies set a 50% target then they're either:
Removed by Moderator — Modlog
It does not matter how much money you do or don't have, there is no sense pretending there is any sustainable path forward without a conscious commitment to inclusivity.
That's just it: a sustainable path isn't in it. They want that to not even be an option. They want to burn it all twice as fast so they can buy bigger yachts.