IMO you hit on the exact 'fly in the ointment': namely the rottenness of the US Education 'system'. As you state, fix the H1-B abuses but, more importantly, fix the behemoth that has fed the hunger for it and the excuses to profit by it.
You and your daughter are apparently completely unaware of companies going by the names of Infosys, Tata, and Cognizant. And no, it's not about working at 7-11s. You should try to educate yourself about a topic before writing about it. Your characterization of the "argument against" is ignorant.
You are right and that is because the HR departments that have been infiltrated by DEI woke heads. That has to be legally fixed to obtain parity. On the other hand let's also fix our educational institutions.
Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, Wipro, etc, have nothing to do with wokeness. They are companies whose sole reason for existence is to subvert the H1B visa program. Seriously! H1B is why they exist! They are Indian contractor farms. They hire Indians at low wages through H1B, then farm them out on demand to other companies. They use up the majority of allocated H1b visas. H1B visas are allocated entirely by lottery, and your chances of winning the lottery are just 10%! It has nothing to do with talent, or wokeness, or racism, or whatnot. The entire H1b visa system is corrupted.
It is a program that is almost entirely used for contracting out random Indians by lottery at low wages.
Only a small minority of H1Bs hire people outside of India, and the selection is done by lottery. Talent or wokeness or racism have nothing to do with it. The visa is used to select random Indians for IT subcontracting.
You and Roger and Elon and Vivek are arguing for what you all think the H1b visa program should be used for, but that is simply not the reality, not even close! All of you are clueless.
I'm not going to say I know the deal about H1b but if what you're saying is true evidentally Mr. Simon does not as well. In the past President Trump was vigorously against H1b. What has changed for him to change his mind? I'm guessing Elon Musk but that's just a guess. Speaking of changing his mind, in 2020 he is on record as saying TikTok was owned by the Chinese and needed to be banned immediately. He now supports it. Has TikTok changed ownership from the Chinese? No. Why, then, is it no longer a security risk. 4 years since President Trump said the Chinese were using TikTok to spy on America. If it truly is a security risk what security has been damaged in 4 years? But now, no longer a risk? Typical Washington politics, doesn't matter if a Dem or Republican is in the WH. Anyone who thinks Trump is a different leader needs to Google Executive order 13770 and Jared Kushner. Lol
Strangely enough I am a K-8th grade teacher coming on 25 years now.
Here’s what I’ve seen so far… Our students have absolutely the best access to educational material, all sorts of computer programs (coding, robotics, etc) amazing after school programs, teachers willing to tutor for free before school and after school, but what I see is absolutely zero parent involvement.
I’ve offered tutoring before and after school for years and rarely does anyone ever show up.
It seems that parents have no interest in their child becoming educated, except maybe in the latest fashions and being liked on social media.
If you want to change in the educational system, it must start with a parent(s) putting education first,
not only for their child, but for themselves as well.
Once upon a time, in a given classroom, the majority of parents were incredibly involved, now, we may get one or two parents stepping up but the majority of parents seem to ascribe to the “free range” parenting style - totally hands off.
Very sad.
Many students come to school in kindergarten, first and even second grade not knowing their name, not knowing the parts of their body, not knowing incredibly basic stuff.
Basic things a child would’ve learned if a parent was spending any time with them (talking, reading, interacting with them) but since many people choose to breed indiscriminately without counting the cost and preparing a proper home for their child, many children are left to raise themselves.
Criminal. 😡
So, if we’re going to import people from other countries, maybe they should be the type of folks that have proven that they value education and their child’s future.
This is my experience too, from working at an inner-city midwestern public school system. The idea that “wokeness” is what’s destroying our education system is just a clever talking point to brush aside the fact that neither party has any kind of actual solution to the problem. I have literally seen no examples of teachers trying to push political agendas at the middle school and high school I’ve worked at. I’ve seen teacher after teacher burnt out by classes plagued with behavior problems from students whose parents are an obstacle, not an ally.
I’ve never come across a parent who is trying to push their kid to be trans, but I’ve come across countless examples of abuse, neglect, and trauma inflicted on kids by their parents and families. It’s almost more common than not. These kids’ lives are so unstable, they can’t even begin to learn.
The most shocking thing is to look at a teenager’s handwriting. When I (age 44) was a teenager, the joke was that our handwriting was sloppy and hard to read. A current teenager’s handwriting looks like a kindergartener’s from my day. Some of the letters are backwards or made incorrectly. They don’t understand the difference between capital and lower case. Writing is so big they can only fit a few lines on the page. Spelling of even the most common words is completely random.
The problem isn’t wokeness. Studies have shown that quality of teachers, equipment, and education actually don’t make that big of an impact of student outcomes. What makes a difference is home life. And there is a really alarming number of kids who live in a permanent state of poverty and instability. I honestly don’t know how you would fix it.
I have not seen or heard teacher pushing any form of agenda.
They’re very restricted to teaching the curriculum.
Given the community that I work in, our district has not adopted any word-type agenda.
We just teach what a child would need be a well-rounded person of character motivated intrinsically to pursue happiness with the necessary, educational tools needed to strive forward.
Oh yeah, “here’s how you, personally, could have a more prosperous, healthy, successful life by working hard” is the only agenda 99% of teachers are pushing.
And from my more extensive experience in higher education, here’s my take on that: wokeness is being pushed on the professor by the students, not the other way around.
The fact is, 99% of professors are poor, in debt, and have a great deal of trouble finding a job. If you’re lucky enough to get on the tenure track, you’ll realize the (bloated) administration is obsessed with “running it like a business” with a hyper-focus on things like class-by-class enrollment numbers. Every department is competing with every other department for students — who, as paying customers, are well aware of their ability to take their business elsewhere. The way to success as a professor is by pandering to the students and administration, not forcing your own agenda on them.
College students, especially those at elite schools, grew up in a different universe from inner city public school kids. And most smart kids from stable families go through a bit of a radical phase in their teens and twenties. They’re idealistic, believe in moral absolutes, and want to experiment with new ideas. Social media galvanizes them in their hot takes and points of view before they ever see the inside of a college classroom. So if you are teaching, say, Ancient Greek literature, you are going to attract more students with a class called “Queerness and Gender In Greek Tragedy” than “Sophocles on Human Nature.”
But you’re just as terrified of your own students as you are of the administration. All it takes is one 15 second video clip of you saying the wrong thing to end your career. So you roll your eyes at trigger warnings and pronouns in your bio, but you put them there out of fear you’ll get in trouble for not doing it. If this happens the administration will happily make you the scapegoat and sweep you into the bin and replace you with one of the throngs of other underemployed PhDs drowning in student debt.
And yet to society, it’s radical professors who set the agenda for universities and corrupt the youth with wokeness. In my opinion, blaming this on professors is like blaming your waiter for what’s on the menu.
I love profs. I would say that I agree in some cases, but not all. It seems "later stage" when the kids (mimic their leaders to) advocate for behaviors and values. I mean, WHERE MIGHT THEY HAVE LEARNED TO ACT THIS WAY? It was not like this; "all" advocacy, "no" sense-making.
Excellent comments. These match my perceptions...so some confirmation bias is possible! How we read and write "trains our neural networks" (like AI, which mimics this").
I believe that DEI filled a massive VACUUM. We had ZERO competition and therefore little visibility towards "needs". At the same time, "automation" proliferated and government expanded (as did money supply to fill gaping holes and reward bad behaviors). Respectfully, what might we have otherwise expected?
Excellent comments! From my vantage point, a tech executive of small companies in Advanced Tech (like Semi, Robotics, AI, and the like), the issue is one of communications. I was born in 1967. I'm an Engineer (BS, MS) and a Businessman (MBA, too). When I was in my first grad school experience, of the ~40 people in our department, maybe four were AMERICANS. This was the early-90s, end of the cold war. Americans just didn't care to "'work hard". (vast majority were the sons and daughters of elite Indian and Chinese - they used to stay in the US...that's basically over...please consider this.)
In my undergrad, prior to the Berlin Wall and Communism falling, Americans loved Tech and we had the Shuttle, burgeoning Semi, Energy, and other areas. The end of the Cold War decreased engineering opps. The lack of competition in coming years decreased access to engineering jobs. By 2000, Semiconductor was basically off-shored and my engineering buddies began working for PE funds of various types. I stuck with it. Brutal.
There used to be a "tick-tock" between Semi and Defense. No longer.
As a COO of a DC-area based company and a CEO of a small Tucson company, I was involved in H1-B visas. Fact is, because some of our work was considered to be Defense-controlled (by the ITAR (regs)), I was in competition for US Persons (citizen or green card). US Persons commanded ~20% more salary than non-US persons. (H1-Bs became financially valuable!) Policy poorly supportive in many ways, but the elites self-enriched as we massively plastered over losses with monetary expansion...it is intended to allow lesser impeded growth, not to reward failure (pardon my directness).
Kids today see safety AND HUGE MONEY in government positions. Not a joke. Who is serious about knpwledge? Most now look into a phone or PC screen and ask the "magic 8 ball" (aka "AI", which is still "RD"(Real (ly still pretty) Dumb) - we do AI in Vision) rather than thinking and working.
We are at the end of a political cycle (Carter kicked off the last). It is time to plan for change...on the supply side - of Human Capital (our kids). In these transitions, we move from "cronyism" and "easy money by relationships" to "merit" and "hard work". Competition has returned! Are our kids prepared to make their futures bright? Always happy to share knowledge and ideas from and with others.
If I remember correctly, there was a case in California where American employees were replaced with H1-B people hired to replace the civil servants. Is that a fair use of H1B.
Also look at the case of the TVA (Tennesse Valley Authority) a government agency which also tried this. One of the most famous cases was Walt Disney Co. There is testimony in front of Congress regarding Disney. There is lots of abuse in the H1B visa program. This article skips over it.
Much ado about nothing; making a mountain out of a mole hill... standard divide and counter tactics. Interesting to note that the loudest voices crying in outrage are leftists (naturally), and never-trumpers (also, naturally)...
Some on the right need a history lesson on immigration. Our freedoms and values have always attracted Some of the best and brightest to our shores. This and our faith in God are the main reasons America is great.
Two American engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are the creators and founding executives of Tesla in 2003. Elon Musk was a series-A funding shareholder. This suggests that America does have talent as in this case the immigrant took a good idea and used his connections to get US taxpayer subsidies to create a successful company.
This issue is more complex than is being discussed here. I have a close relative who was a software eng. for a tech company. He quit because of they needed people to work way over 40 hrs per week. Many times 24 to 36 straight. All the other people on his team were from India. They weren't very good at coding, and one of these employees couldn't even write code at all. These companies hire these h1b workers not because they are talented, it's because the tech companies can get them and basically they are indentured servants. The jobs pay well but they send all the money back to their families. Major reform needed.
I have seen some of this, but it wasn't the case for any of the companies I led. H1-B was useful for plugging the massive hole in very advanced tech that was caused by policy prescriptions...or at least these were "unintended consequences" of those.
I don't deny your claim at all. I offer my experience and the way I HAD to lead this (to survive against large Universities and Defense Contractors - esp. when "contracts came in"...we eventually sought info on "contract end dates"... Can't create without talent...and it was "slim pickin's" as I describe above.
back in the late 80's and 90's I was a member of group of hi-tech management (Andy Grove of Intel was the chair) that lobbied congress to increase H1B visas as we could not hire enough competent talent in the US for the growth of our companies. US Computer Science (and in fact STEM as whole, which later became an education initiative) was woefully short in meeting the hi-tech's growth. Hence we opened offices around the world, and engaged in outsourcing to meet our growth needs. Education is still not producing enough qualified STEM students, especially when you subtract out the "social science" elements. Yes there are H1B abuses (we had 4 Pakistani engineers "disappear" while in our employment here in the states). No help from the Fed in pursuing, in fact they were not really interested. If you look at the number of US CS, Engineers, Physics, Math, or any hard science you will find that a great number of graduate students in those fields are foreign and that US bord students do not fulfill the needs of the industry.
My thoughts exactly. Thanks for putting our thoughts to exquisite, perfect words. Oversight of programs like the H1-B controversy is lacking just as it is in most government entities. How is it possible for anyone not to see the worth, even necessity, of finding bright minds and inviting those brilliant people to come to America? Until and unless we clean up the mess that is our present education system, “controversies” like this one will continue to be front and center—fueled by those with little minds.
No. From a retired microchip designer, lifetime Republican, Musk admirer, and, since 2016 a Trump supporter, who personally saw Globalist predators and "H-1b Visa Guy" turn Silicon Valley from a center of creativity into an underpaid high tech ghetto - while Mr. Simon was down in Hollywood.
Mr. Simon knows nothing about H-1b Visas nor, apparently, about "Big Tents" and his argument that everyone supporting Trump and the GOP must fall into lock step on every issue creates a Democrat like ideology system. The H-1b system is GROSSLY corrupt and fixing it should be a priority of DOGE and Congress. Messrs Musk, Trump and Ramaswamy at least seem open to fixes. Unfixed it's an indication the "Establishment" GOP still calls the shots on this issue and it will remain and fester.
Attached in line below is a sampler of letters, articles, and rebuttals re H-1b Visas put up by this reader - who has a lot more of same. As an aside when the below was written the WSJ, once the World's foremost information source, was in decline and drifting left after having been sold to Newscorp. Their response to detailed rebuttals was to limit comment length to the point only troll posts could be done. After 30+ years this reader dropped the paper in 2019.
Read with humorless amusement the 14 June WSJ article
flacking for importing more cheap engineers into the US.
In particular Mr. McNealy is planning massive layoffs at
Sun so one wonders why the "qualified Americans" in his
own company are "unavailable". Maybe the BSEE-3-to-5s
are now expensive enough that they are eating into
executive compensation and so the crop needs to be
rotated. So much for upward mobility at Sun.
In fact there are plenty of engineers in the US. The
root problem is that to cut costs most companies try to
staff positions with engineers with less than five years
of experience. This makes the imports of five years
ago obsolete regardless of their technical abilities.
Flooding the country with minimum capability engineers for
the sole purpose of lowering the "prevailing wage" has made
it steadily more difficult to induce bright kids to major in
engineering. And who can blame them - 65,000 entry level
imports is probably equal to a good fraction of the entire
university output in a year. Lack of home grown talent has
been peddled as a justification for the H-1B visa program
but as my attached 27 March email shows that argument
doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
One of the big con games in the H-1B visa argument is the
idea that these immigrants are so valuable that they are
really well compensated. While a small minority do move
up the ladder to stock option success that group is
very much in the minority. Most work 50-60 hour weeks for
options that might buy a new car someday and for perhaps
$70k - which doesn't go far in San Jose, CA. They live in
apartments and very few can afford a Prius. In fact I have
never seen an engineer with a Prius. There is a character
in the novel "State of Fear" who was rich, drove a fine
car, and provided the maid with a Prius so he could claim
to be "Green". It certainly fits in this case. I have
seen one place in Silicon Valley that had cots in the back
and I got the definite impression that some of the troops
were discouraged from leaving the site. Would this
constitute a kind of slavery?
It seems that good journalism would include researching
some of the above issues rather than generating copy from
press releases and internet blogs. Maybe we ought to
import 65,000 journalists every year. That way we would
have a more multilingual, multicultural press corps who
could actually talk to a cross section of engineers and
get accurate data. They probably could also work in
places like Iraq outside the press hotels. We might
then be able to find out what's really going on.
I have a son who finished middle school with straight As
including honors Pre-AP algebra. In 49 months he will
be ready to start on a major in college. Do you think
I should tell him to pick engineering? Lack of an
answer from you will tell me all I need to know.
Assuming the consistent one sided slant of these H-1B visa
articles arises from an attempt to placate executives who
can cancel corporate subscriptions to the WSJ, I don't
expect to see real research anytime soon. I will however
keep up my policy of shooting off letters to my Senators
and Congressman whenever I see one. If enough of us
start doing it perhaps we can replace the program with
a visa program for graduates of US universities - or
kill the entire program.
- Reference -
The Wall Street Journal
OPINION
June 6, 2013, Page A15
Immigration Reform And the Skills Gap
By ROSARIO MARIN
...
- Reply -
Posted 20130607 by Taylor re above article
Once again, now that immigration reform looks as though legislation might be enacted, the drumbeat for more, cheaper, and less documented high tech visas is becoming deafening. The Marin article attempts to enlist Hispanics in support of more H-1B visas, presumably since it is assumed Hispanics will support any immigration bill.
In fact, it is hard to imagine any government program that is a greater threat to the upward mobility of traditional American minorities including Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans, than H-1B visas. In many minority families parents work long hours in low paying jobs so that their children can get a college education, and in the STEM field if possible. When those children finally make it through to their degree, usually with loans to pay off, they will find that their own government has admitted one H-1B visa recipient (three if the current legislation passes) to compete with each of them for their first job. And, overwhelmingly, it will be for their job since most H-1B visa recipients are not in highly placed critical positions, but in lower paid entry level positions.
The US currently issues 65,000 H-1B visas every year, and the major beneficiaries of this program are big corporate executives and venture capitalists who get cheap labor, and immigration law firms, who harvest legal fees. While adding justification for hiring H-1B recipients is a step in the right direction, the best solution would be to stop issuing H-1B visas and convert all existing H-1B visas to Green Cards.
Green Cards, unlike H-1B visas, do not indenture the recipient under threat of deportation to the issuing company. These new Green Card holders will then be free to seek higher paying jobs, industry pay scales will rise, and more existing STEM majors will be able to find a job in their field, instead of being underemployed. Additionally, more students will seek STEM degrees, the STEM educational pipeline will expand, and no future shortage of STEM majors will emerge, as is a real possibility at present.
As an aside, this respondent has always thought that visas should be awarded, not for high tech, but to cultural experts like journalists and academics who speak uncommon foreign languages, and who grew up in their native cultures. That way we would get international insight from people not afraid to go out in the country in, say, Mali, or Afghanistan, who understood the local people, and who can speak the language. These people might even help the US to not do things like bomb a wedding because people were firing guns in the air to celebrate - which actually happened. Readers should not, however, hold their breath waiting for a big push for these visas - likely they will pass out.
Mr. Simon doesn't know what he's talking about. I spent my entire career working in corporate IT, and over the course of the last 25 years of it, I witnessed multiple waves of outsourcing where many of my American coworkers were let go and replaced with H-1B visa holders who were no more qualified than the people they replaced. That is a fact. The only reason I survived all those years is because although I'm not part of the 1%, I was high enough on the aptitude scale that I had value to my employer.
Always liked Roger Simon. Will never read him again. Because his flesh and blood is part of the H1B program, he joins in the chorus that Americans should just STFU. (There IS a larger cultural war going on, Roger.....it's called "GET WHITEY!") Now we know how you feel about everything, and that is valuable to know.
shucks. I appreciate your opinion. Seriously. I appreciate equally that you're speaking up!
But, are you trying to browbeat your opinion? I mean no disrespect, but isn't this the same sort of excess advocacy that has brought us to this point?
I do hope that Roger will still be able to digest your opinion. But, I would not blame him for any delay, I suppose. Still, your expression and content are valid and useful. Thanks.
IMO you hit on the exact 'fly in the ointment': namely the rottenness of the US Education 'system'. As you state, fix the H1-B abuses but, more importantly, fix the behemoth that has fed the hunger for it and the excuses to profit by it.
You and your daughter are apparently completely unaware of companies going by the names of Infosys, Tata, and Cognizant. And no, it's not about working at 7-11s. You should try to educate yourself about a topic before writing about it. Your characterization of the "argument against" is ignorant.
You are right and that is because the HR departments that have been infiltrated by DEI woke heads. That has to be legally fixed to obtain parity. On the other hand let's also fix our educational institutions.
Seems like there are some people who are aware of how h1b really works: https://x.com/HayekAndKeynes/status/1873387858721223128
Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, Wipro, etc, have nothing to do with wokeness. They are companies whose sole reason for existence is to subvert the H1B visa program. Seriously! H1B is why they exist! They are Indian contractor farms. They hire Indians at low wages through H1B, then farm them out on demand to other companies. They use up the majority of allocated H1b visas. H1B visas are allocated entirely by lottery, and your chances of winning the lottery are just 10%! It has nothing to do with talent, or wokeness, or racism, or whatnot. The entire H1b visa system is corrupted.
It is a program that is almost entirely used for contracting out random Indians by lottery at low wages.
Only a small minority of H1Bs hire people outside of India, and the selection is done by lottery. Talent or wokeness or racism have nothing to do with it. The visa is used to select random Indians for IT subcontracting.
You and Roger Simon and the rest have no idea. See here for starters: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873174358535110953
You and Roger and Elon and Vivek are arguing for what you all think the H1b visa program should be used for, but that is simply not the reality, not even close! All of you are clueless.
I'm not going to say I know the deal about H1b but if what you're saying is true evidentally Mr. Simon does not as well. In the past President Trump was vigorously against H1b. What has changed for him to change his mind? I'm guessing Elon Musk but that's just a guess. Speaking of changing his mind, in 2020 he is on record as saying TikTok was owned by the Chinese and needed to be banned immediately. He now supports it. Has TikTok changed ownership from the Chinese? No. Why, then, is it no longer a security risk. 4 years since President Trump said the Chinese were using TikTok to spy on America. If it truly is a security risk what security has been damaged in 4 years? But now, no longer a risk? Typical Washington politics, doesn't matter if a Dem or Republican is in the WH. Anyone who thinks Trump is a different leader needs to Google Executive order 13770 and Jared Kushner. Lol
Strangely enough I am a K-8th grade teacher coming on 25 years now.
Here’s what I’ve seen so far… Our students have absolutely the best access to educational material, all sorts of computer programs (coding, robotics, etc) amazing after school programs, teachers willing to tutor for free before school and after school, but what I see is absolutely zero parent involvement.
I’ve offered tutoring before and after school for years and rarely does anyone ever show up.
It seems that parents have no interest in their child becoming educated, except maybe in the latest fashions and being liked on social media.
If you want to change in the educational system, it must start with a parent(s) putting education first,
not only for their child, but for themselves as well.
Once upon a time, in a given classroom, the majority of parents were incredibly involved, now, we may get one or two parents stepping up but the majority of parents seem to ascribe to the “free range” parenting style - totally hands off.
Very sad.
Many students come to school in kindergarten, first and even second grade not knowing their name, not knowing the parts of their body, not knowing incredibly basic stuff.
Basic things a child would’ve learned if a parent was spending any time with them (talking, reading, interacting with them) but since many people choose to breed indiscriminately without counting the cost and preparing a proper home for their child, many children are left to raise themselves.
Criminal. 😡
So, if we’re going to import people from other countries, maybe they should be the type of folks that have proven that they value education and their child’s future.
Just a thought.
This is my experience too, from working at an inner-city midwestern public school system. The idea that “wokeness” is what’s destroying our education system is just a clever talking point to brush aside the fact that neither party has any kind of actual solution to the problem. I have literally seen no examples of teachers trying to push political agendas at the middle school and high school I’ve worked at. I’ve seen teacher after teacher burnt out by classes plagued with behavior problems from students whose parents are an obstacle, not an ally.
I’ve never come across a parent who is trying to push their kid to be trans, but I’ve come across countless examples of abuse, neglect, and trauma inflicted on kids by their parents and families. It’s almost more common than not. These kids’ lives are so unstable, they can’t even begin to learn.
The most shocking thing is to look at a teenager’s handwriting. When I (age 44) was a teenager, the joke was that our handwriting was sloppy and hard to read. A current teenager’s handwriting looks like a kindergartener’s from my day. Some of the letters are backwards or made incorrectly. They don’t understand the difference between capital and lower case. Writing is so big they can only fit a few lines on the page. Spelling of even the most common words is completely random.
The problem isn’t wokeness. Studies have shown that quality of teachers, equipment, and education actually don’t make that big of an impact of student outcomes. What makes a difference is home life. And there is a really alarming number of kids who live in a permanent state of poverty and instability. I honestly don’t know how you would fix it.
Well said!
This is exactly my experience as well.
I have not seen or heard teacher pushing any form of agenda.
They’re very restricted to teaching the curriculum.
Given the community that I work in, our district has not adopted any word-type agenda.
We just teach what a child would need be a well-rounded person of character motivated intrinsically to pursue happiness with the necessary, educational tools needed to strive forward.
👍🏻
Oh yeah, “here’s how you, personally, could have a more prosperous, healthy, successful life by working hard” is the only agenda 99% of teachers are pushing.
And from my more extensive experience in higher education, here’s my take on that: wokeness is being pushed on the professor by the students, not the other way around.
The fact is, 99% of professors are poor, in debt, and have a great deal of trouble finding a job. If you’re lucky enough to get on the tenure track, you’ll realize the (bloated) administration is obsessed with “running it like a business” with a hyper-focus on things like class-by-class enrollment numbers. Every department is competing with every other department for students — who, as paying customers, are well aware of their ability to take their business elsewhere. The way to success as a professor is by pandering to the students and administration, not forcing your own agenda on them.
College students, especially those at elite schools, grew up in a different universe from inner city public school kids. And most smart kids from stable families go through a bit of a radical phase in their teens and twenties. They’re idealistic, believe in moral absolutes, and want to experiment with new ideas. Social media galvanizes them in their hot takes and points of view before they ever see the inside of a college classroom. So if you are teaching, say, Ancient Greek literature, you are going to attract more students with a class called “Queerness and Gender In Greek Tragedy” than “Sophocles on Human Nature.”
But you’re just as terrified of your own students as you are of the administration. All it takes is one 15 second video clip of you saying the wrong thing to end your career. So you roll your eyes at trigger warnings and pronouns in your bio, but you put them there out of fear you’ll get in trouble for not doing it. If this happens the administration will happily make you the scapegoat and sweep you into the bin and replace you with one of the throngs of other underemployed PhDs drowning in student debt.
And yet to society, it’s radical professors who set the agenda for universities and corrupt the youth with wokeness. In my opinion, blaming this on professors is like blaming your waiter for what’s on the menu.
I love profs. I would say that I agree in some cases, but not all. It seems "later stage" when the kids (mimic their leaders to) advocate for behaviors and values. I mean, WHERE MIGHT THEY HAVE LEARNED TO ACT THIS WAY? It was not like this; "all" advocacy, "no" sense-making.
Excellent comments. These match my perceptions...so some confirmation bias is possible! How we read and write "trains our neural networks" (like AI, which mimics this").
I believe that DEI filled a massive VACUUM. We had ZERO competition and therefore little visibility towards "needs". At the same time, "automation" proliferated and government expanded (as did money supply to fill gaping holes and reward bad behaviors). Respectfully, what might we have otherwise expected?
Excellent comments! From my vantage point, a tech executive of small companies in Advanced Tech (like Semi, Robotics, AI, and the like), the issue is one of communications. I was born in 1967. I'm an Engineer (BS, MS) and a Businessman (MBA, too). When I was in my first grad school experience, of the ~40 people in our department, maybe four were AMERICANS. This was the early-90s, end of the cold war. Americans just didn't care to "'work hard". (vast majority were the sons and daughters of elite Indian and Chinese - they used to stay in the US...that's basically over...please consider this.)
In my undergrad, prior to the Berlin Wall and Communism falling, Americans loved Tech and we had the Shuttle, burgeoning Semi, Energy, and other areas. The end of the Cold War decreased engineering opps. The lack of competition in coming years decreased access to engineering jobs. By 2000, Semiconductor was basically off-shored and my engineering buddies began working for PE funds of various types. I stuck with it. Brutal.
There used to be a "tick-tock" between Semi and Defense. No longer.
As a COO of a DC-area based company and a CEO of a small Tucson company, I was involved in H1-B visas. Fact is, because some of our work was considered to be Defense-controlled (by the ITAR (regs)), I was in competition for US Persons (citizen or green card). US Persons commanded ~20% more salary than non-US persons. (H1-Bs became financially valuable!) Policy poorly supportive in many ways, but the elites self-enriched as we massively plastered over losses with monetary expansion...it is intended to allow lesser impeded growth, not to reward failure (pardon my directness).
Kids today see safety AND HUGE MONEY in government positions. Not a joke. Who is serious about knpwledge? Most now look into a phone or PC screen and ask the "magic 8 ball" (aka "AI", which is still "RD"(Real (ly still pretty) Dumb) - we do AI in Vision) rather than thinking and working.
We are at the end of a political cycle (Carter kicked off the last). It is time to plan for change...on the supply side - of Human Capital (our kids). In these transitions, we move from "cronyism" and "easy money by relationships" to "merit" and "hard work". Competition has returned! Are our kids prepared to make their futures bright? Always happy to share knowledge and ideas from and with others.
If I remember correctly, there was a case in California where American employees were replaced with H1-B people hired to replace the civil servants. Is that a fair use of H1B.
Also look at the case of the TVA (Tennesse Valley Authority) a government agency which also tried this. One of the most famous cases was Walt Disney Co. There is testimony in front of Congress regarding Disney. There is lots of abuse in the H1B visa program. This article skips over it.
That would indeed be an abuse of the H1B process as it is tied to qualifications.
If I remember correctly, it was local government jobs that were lost.
It is if all you focus on is quality.
Much ado about nothing; making a mountain out of a mole hill... standard divide and counter tactics. Interesting to note that the loudest voices crying in outrage are leftists (naturally), and never-trumpers (also, naturally)...
Some on the right need a history lesson on immigration. Our freedoms and values have always attracted Some of the best and brightest to our shores. This and our faith in God are the main reasons America is great.
Two American engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are the creators and founding executives of Tesla in 2003. Elon Musk was a series-A funding shareholder. This suggests that America does have talent as in this case the immigrant took a good idea and used his connections to get US taxpayer subsidies to create a successful company.
This issue is more complex than is being discussed here. I have a close relative who was a software eng. for a tech company. He quit because of they needed people to work way over 40 hrs per week. Many times 24 to 36 straight. All the other people on his team were from India. They weren't very good at coding, and one of these employees couldn't even write code at all. These companies hire these h1b workers not because they are talented, it's because the tech companies can get them and basically they are indentured servants. The jobs pay well but they send all the money back to their families. Major reform needed.
I have seen some of this, but it wasn't the case for any of the companies I led. H1-B was useful for plugging the massive hole in very advanced tech that was caused by policy prescriptions...or at least these were "unintended consequences" of those.
I don't deny your claim at all. I offer my experience and the way I HAD to lead this (to survive against large Universities and Defense Contractors - esp. when "contracts came in"...we eventually sought info on "contract end dates"... Can't create without talent...and it was "slim pickin's" as I describe above.
Yes !
The DOE cannot teach what it does not know.
Colleges of Education should be abandoned forthwith.
Any teaching certificate should be within the Liberal Arts Community,with the same rigor as a Math Or Physics major.
Then you have teachers that know what to teach. STEM should pay more.
The USA is successful because it attracts and keeps intelligent people: because of FREEDOM.
There is more to be said but the gist is here. IMO
back in the late 80's and 90's I was a member of group of hi-tech management (Andy Grove of Intel was the chair) that lobbied congress to increase H1B visas as we could not hire enough competent talent in the US for the growth of our companies. US Computer Science (and in fact STEM as whole, which later became an education initiative) was woefully short in meeting the hi-tech's growth. Hence we opened offices around the world, and engaged in outsourcing to meet our growth needs. Education is still not producing enough qualified STEM students, especially when you subtract out the "social science" elements. Yes there are H1B abuses (we had 4 Pakistani engineers "disappear" while in our employment here in the states). No help from the Fed in pursuing, in fact they were not really interested. If you look at the number of US CS, Engineers, Physics, Math, or any hard science you will find that a great number of graduate students in those fields are foreign and that US bord students do not fulfill the needs of the industry.
Many elite universities "cap" the number of students that can take computer science courses. Why is that?
Whither the MANY folks that are trained STEM resources that are displaced by H1-Bs.
See my link above which shows that this is mainly an attempt to lower costs.
My anecdotal experience from several companies is quite contrary to yours, fwiw.
yup.
My thoughts exactly. Thanks for putting our thoughts to exquisite, perfect words. Oversight of programs like the H1-B controversy is lacking just as it is in most government entities. How is it possible for anyone not to see the worth, even necessity, of finding bright minds and inviting those brilliant people to come to America? Until and unless we clean up the mess that is our present education system, “controversies” like this one will continue to be front and center—fueled by those with little minds.
yes, indeed. Excellent. Thanks.
"Indeed. Is everybody happy?".
No. From a retired microchip designer, lifetime Republican, Musk admirer, and, since 2016 a Trump supporter, who personally saw Globalist predators and "H-1b Visa Guy" turn Silicon Valley from a center of creativity into an underpaid high tech ghetto - while Mr. Simon was down in Hollywood.
Mr. Simon knows nothing about H-1b Visas nor, apparently, about "Big Tents" and his argument that everyone supporting Trump and the GOP must fall into lock step on every issue creates a Democrat like ideology system. The H-1b system is GROSSLY corrupt and fixing it should be a priority of DOGE and Congress. Messrs Musk, Trump and Ramaswamy at least seem open to fixes. Unfixed it's an indication the "Establishment" GOP still calls the shots on this issue and it will remain and fester.
Attached in line below is a sampler of letters, articles, and rebuttals re H-1b Visas put up by this reader - who has a lot more of same. As an aside when the below was written the WSJ, once the World's foremost information source, was in decline and drifting left after having been sold to Newscorp. Their response to detailed rebuttals was to limit comment length to the point only troll posts could be done. After 30+ years this reader dropped the paper in 2019.
- Reference -
Subject: Re H-1B Visas
From: Taylor <taylor@taylor123.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:38:57 -0600
To: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Read with amusement your 27 March editorial extolling the
virtues of H-1B visas and, based on my 30+ years in high
tech, I think it's a bunch of rot. The idea that K-12
education is somehow responsible for the decline in
"home-grown" US engineering graduates is patently absurd.
The overwhelming majority of US secondary schools produce
some graduates that can get into an engineering school
somewhere if they want to.
The root problem is that students that are smart enough
to get an engineering degree see little utility in spending
4+ years in school on a tough curriculum followed by a
(usually) mandatory relocation over long distances for
a wage they could get sooner and for less effort. H-1B
visas make college engineering recruitment more difficult
by advertising that tens of thousands of competitors are
being imported every year. If you seriously think that
this doesn't drive down the "prevailing wage" then you
might want to interview a few dozen "home-grown" working
level engineers in Silicon Valley.
In the corporate environment H-1B visas keep engineering
costs low since the immigrant engineer is locked into that
"prevailing wage". If he/she starts to look for a better
job the company can threaten to report him/her for
deportation. Seen in that light it could be
considered a form of indentured servitude.
If you're really concerned about the supply of engineers
in the US you should keep the H-1B visa cap as it is,
limit it to advanced degrees, and tighten, rather than
weaken, Sarbanes-Oxley. Engineering is overwhelmingly a
corporate career and engineers are intelligent enough to
know that long term technical and career commitments make
no sense when companies are being compromised for the
short term enrichment of executives.
- Reference -
Subject: Re H-1B Visa Article of 14 June
From: taylor@taylor123.com
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:33:34 -0500
To: business@wsj.com
Gentlemen,
Read with humorless amusement the 14 June WSJ article
flacking for importing more cheap engineers into the US.
In particular Mr. McNealy is planning massive layoffs at
Sun so one wonders why the "qualified Americans" in his
own company are "unavailable". Maybe the BSEE-3-to-5s
are now expensive enough that they are eating into
executive compensation and so the crop needs to be
rotated. So much for upward mobility at Sun.
In fact there are plenty of engineers in the US. The
root problem is that to cut costs most companies try to
staff positions with engineers with less than five years
of experience. This makes the imports of five years
ago obsolete regardless of their technical abilities.
Flooding the country with minimum capability engineers for
the sole purpose of lowering the "prevailing wage" has made
it steadily more difficult to induce bright kids to major in
engineering. And who can blame them - 65,000 entry level
imports is probably equal to a good fraction of the entire
university output in a year. Lack of home grown talent has
been peddled as a justification for the H-1B visa program
but as my attached 27 March email shows that argument
doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
One of the big con games in the H-1B visa argument is the
idea that these immigrants are so valuable that they are
really well compensated. While a small minority do move
up the ladder to stock option success that group is
very much in the minority. Most work 50-60 hour weeks for
options that might buy a new car someday and for perhaps
$70k - which doesn't go far in San Jose, CA. They live in
apartments and very few can afford a Prius. In fact I have
never seen an engineer with a Prius. There is a character
in the novel "State of Fear" who was rich, drove a fine
car, and provided the maid with a Prius so he could claim
to be "Green". It certainly fits in this case. I have
seen one place in Silicon Valley that had cots in the back
and I got the definite impression that some of the troops
were discouraged from leaving the site. Would this
constitute a kind of slavery?
It seems that good journalism would include researching
some of the above issues rather than generating copy from
press releases and internet blogs. Maybe we ought to
import 65,000 journalists every year. That way we would
have a more multilingual, multicultural press corps who
could actually talk to a cross section of engineers and
get accurate data. They probably could also work in
places like Iraq outside the press hotels. We might
then be able to find out what's really going on.
I have a son who finished middle school with straight As
including honors Pre-AP algebra. In 49 months he will
be ready to start on a major in college. Do you think
I should tell him to pick engineering? Lack of an
answer from you will tell me all I need to know.
Assuming the consistent one sided slant of these H-1B visa
articles arises from an attempt to placate executives who
can cancel corporate subscriptions to the WSJ, I don't
expect to see real research anytime soon. I will however
keep up my policy of shooting off letters to my Senators
and Congressman whenever I see one. If enough of us
start doing it perhaps we can replace the program with
a visa program for graduates of US universities - or
kill the entire program.
- Reference -
The Wall Street Journal
OPINION
June 6, 2013, Page A15
Immigration Reform And the Skills Gap
By ROSARIO MARIN
...
- Reply -
Posted 20130607 by Taylor re above article
Once again, now that immigration reform looks as though legislation might be enacted, the drumbeat for more, cheaper, and less documented high tech visas is becoming deafening. The Marin article attempts to enlist Hispanics in support of more H-1B visas, presumably since it is assumed Hispanics will support any immigration bill.
In fact, it is hard to imagine any government program that is a greater threat to the upward mobility of traditional American minorities including Hispanics, Blacks and Native Americans, than H-1B visas. In many minority families parents work long hours in low paying jobs so that their children can get a college education, and in the STEM field if possible. When those children finally make it through to their degree, usually with loans to pay off, they will find that their own government has admitted one H-1B visa recipient (three if the current legislation passes) to compete with each of them for their first job. And, overwhelmingly, it will be for their job since most H-1B visa recipients are not in highly placed critical positions, but in lower paid entry level positions.
The US currently issues 65,000 H-1B visas every year, and the major beneficiaries of this program are big corporate executives and venture capitalists who get cheap labor, and immigration law firms, who harvest legal fees. While adding justification for hiring H-1B recipients is a step in the right direction, the best solution would be to stop issuing H-1B visas and convert all existing H-1B visas to Green Cards.
Green Cards, unlike H-1B visas, do not indenture the recipient under threat of deportation to the issuing company. These new Green Card holders will then be free to seek higher paying jobs, industry pay scales will rise, and more existing STEM majors will be able to find a job in their field, instead of being underemployed. Additionally, more students will seek STEM degrees, the STEM educational pipeline will expand, and no future shortage of STEM majors will emerge, as is a real possibility at present.
As an aside, this respondent has always thought that visas should be awarded, not for high tech, but to cultural experts like journalists and academics who speak uncommon foreign languages, and who grew up in their native cultures. That way we would get international insight from people not afraid to go out in the country in, say, Mali, or Afghanistan, who understood the local people, and who can speak the language. These people might even help the US to not do things like bomb a wedding because people were firing guns in the air to celebrate - which actually happened. Readers should not, however, hold their breath waiting for a big push for these visas - likely they will pass out.
‘“…H1-B, the temporary visa for highly-trained people from abroad.”
Highly trained nonsense. Of the order that was used to talk about “horse dewormers” etc.
Mr. Simon doesn't know what he's talking about. I spent my entire career working in corporate IT, and over the course of the last 25 years of it, I witnessed multiple waves of outsourcing where many of my American coworkers were let go and replaced with H-1B visa holders who were no more qualified than the people they replaced. That is a fact. The only reason I survived all those years is because although I'm not part of the 1%, I was high enough on the aptitude scale that I had value to my employer.
Always liked Roger Simon. Will never read him again. Because his flesh and blood is part of the H1B program, he joins in the chorus that Americans should just STFU. (There IS a larger cultural war going on, Roger.....it's called "GET WHITEY!") Now we know how you feel about everything, and that is valuable to know.
shucks. I appreciate your opinion. Seriously. I appreciate equally that you're speaking up!
But, are you trying to browbeat your opinion? I mean no disrespect, but isn't this the same sort of excess advocacy that has brought us to this point?
I do hope that Roger will still be able to digest your opinion. But, I would not blame him for any delay, I suppose. Still, your expression and content are valid and useful. Thanks.
There is currently a lawsuit against Disney specifically in regards to workers being replaced by cheap H-1B labor.