(RepublicanInformer.com)- An Indian/American chemistry professor has said he was denied two grants over the last two years because he refused to adequately pledge allegiance to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Patanjali Kambhampati was born in India and raised in the United States. Since 2003, he has conducted cutting-edge research in chemistry and physics while serving in the Chemistry department at McGill University in Canada.
Over the last 15 years, Kambhampati has received funding from the Canadian government and various organizations, provinces, and corporations raising nearly $7 million to further his research. But two years ago some of that funding dried up.
Kambhampati said federal grants now require statements supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion. If these “EDI statements” aren’t to the government’s satisfaction, regardless of how crucial the research may be, the grants will be denied.
One EDI statement Kambhampati submitted to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada extensively outlined the cultural and intellectual diversity of students in his lab and highlighted the importance of “improving access and retention for underrepresented groups” in the STEM fields. In his statement, Kambhampati also called attention to the fact that he is a racial minority from a third-world country.
His grant was denied because his EDI statement wasn’t “sufficient.”
In rejecting his grant application, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s director of research partnerships stated that his EDI statement was too vague or generic.
In an interview with The College Fix, Kambhampati marveled at the irony of an Indian/American working in Canada being denied funding due to insufficient equity, diversity, and inclusion.
He pointed out that he has dealt with racism throughout his life and because of that, now treats people as individuals and equals. But “that wasn’t good enough.” Kambhampati told the College Fix he is being expected to “pledge allegiance to language” that he can’t even articulate because it is so different from his “core values,” arguing these EDI statements are “in opposition” to what “Martin Luther King taught us.”
Read Kambhampati’s interview with the College Fix HERE.
