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Data science is increasingly central to workforce development, policy and governance. With this rise have come critiques of data science's representativeness and commitment to justice and equity. Data science education could enhance the discipline’s commitment to social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (SJEDI). In this paper, we examine the language of two major education policy reports to discern how SJEDI concepts appear. We use qualitative and computational methods, including structural and thematic analyses, close reading, topic analysis, inferential statistics, text distribution modeling, and network analysis. These multiscale mixed methods show evidence that policy documents can initially evince strong commitment to social justice that weakens with revision, which can result in harm to minoritized communities they are meant to support. We call for professional organizations to make strong statements about the disciplinary expectations for disrupting vicious cycles of exclusion.

In its December 2019 edition, the \textit{Notices of the American Mathematical Society} published an essay critical of the use of diversity statements in academic hiring. The publication of this essay prompted many responses, including three public letters circulated within the mathematical sciences community. Each letter was signed by hundreds of people and was published online, also by the American Mathematical Society. We report on a study of the signatories' demographics, which we infer using a crowdsourcing approach. Letter A highlights diversity and social justice. The pool of signatories contains relatively more individuals inferred to be women and/or members of underrepresented ethnic groups. Moreover, this pool is diverse with respect to the levels of professional security and types of academic institutions represented. Letter B does not comment on diversity, but rather, asks for discussion and debate. This letter was signed by a strong majority of individuals inferred to be white men in professionally secure positions at highly research intensive universities. Letter C speaks out specifically against diversity statements, calling them "a mistake," and claiming that their usage during early stages of faculty hiring "diminishes mathematical achievement." Individuals who signed both Letters B and C, that is, signatories who both privilege debate and oppose diversity statements, are overwhelmingly inferred to be tenured white men at highly research intensive universities. Our empirical results are consistent with theories of power drawn from the social sciences., 21 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures; minor textual edits made to previous version

Fleeing poverty, disease and violence at home, thousands immigrated to New York City in the 1840s. In an unknown city, with little support, many became destitute. City officials responded by consigning immigrants to the Bellevue Hospital Almshouse. There they were diagnosed as “vagrant,” “destitute” and “recent emigrant” and incarcerated in New York’s nascent public health system. This paper uses computational methods to reconstruct the experiences of incarcerated immigrants. It demonstrates the (often archivally invisible) forces that structured immigrants’ lives. It also argues that, despite the violence they suffered at the hands of New York City, these men and women used the Almshouse to forge communities, demand medical care, and claim social support.

In 1847, Cherokee and Choctaws in Indian Territory raised over $800 to help victims of famine in Ireland. Their donations were part of one of the earliest instances of transnational disaster philanthropy, and Cherokees and Choctaws were extremely unlikely donors. Just over a decade earlier they had forced off of their lands in the American southeast and marched west along the “Trail of Tears.” These events cost much in both property and lives. In the aftermath of this trauma, American Indians found the resources – both monetary and emotional – to give to a suffering population an ocean away. While many American commentators considered these contributions as evidence of the success of missions to “civilize the Indian,” this article argues that these philanthropic acts should be read neither as acts of acculturative generosity nor as unconnected and unique charitable outbursts. Rather, I see them as engagements with American political culture, as ways to comment on missionaries’ projects and to engage with American Indian policy. These donations were products of intersecting loyalties, sympathies and animosities that grew out of parallels between Indians’ experiences at the hands of the American government, and Irish experiences at the hands of the British government. The Cherokee and Choctaw donations exemplified a new set of meanings that came to be ascribed to philanthropy in the nineteenth century. This article positions Native philanthropy as part of a constellation of familiar, but nonetheless deeply political practices that those excluded from formal politics were able to deploy in nineteenth-century America.