Physics is a global enterprise and the labor market for
physicists has global reach. The United
States has always benefited from being able
to attract top talent from around the world to our graduate programs and scientific workforce. But NSBP is concerned about the over-reliance that the US
physics enterprise has on foreign-born personnel. When countries like India
and China can
provide more physicists than the US
could possibly employ, and America
has a long and sad history of giving preferences to immigrant labor over
African American labor [1], there is clear a policy conundrum that has to be
carefully considered. Labor economists Sharon Levin and Paula Stephan analyzed the
role of immigrants on the changing career outcomes of scientists in
academe [2]. They found US
citizens are being displaced from "choice" positions in academe, especially in
physics and astronomy. A recent GAO report of employment practices at DOE weapons labs indicated that the labs recruitment practices tend to overlook HBCUs where most African American physics students are being trained [3]. In 2002 George Jones of Emory University relayed in an essay published in Science, that a colleague once said to him that given a choice between a graduate applicant from a historically black institution and an applicant from China with exactly the same credentials, he would choose the Chinese student every time [4].
The availability of a huge supply of highly educated foreign
workers reduces the incentives for the US
to take the difficult steps to be sure that all citizens are afforded
every opportunity to develop into a globally competitive scientist. The presence and ready availability of foreign
doctoral students does not provide the needed incentives to fix our American
educational systems to provide better opportunities. Often those who often have had access to
higher education in many countries overseas represent a privileged elite that
have had access to better education opportunities than the majority of Americans, and
especially better education opportunities than African Americans and low income
Americans in general. Other research on the effects of immigrants on African
American, which has mainly focused on low-skilled workers, can nevertheless be
applied to the physics labor market. The
oft identified problem of Americans giving preferences to immigrant labor over
African American labor is most intense when the competition is the greatest for
the shrinking number of positions in the American economy, such as the current
market for physics jobs, especially in academe. African American physics students, most of whom
are being trained at HBCUs that have been historically under-resourced, are at a
relative disadvantage in a marketplace where there are clear discriminatory contexts, and where they are competing against applicants from
other countries that are judged to be from better educational backgrounds. This raises some
serious equity and democracy questions for US policy makers. Clearly then, the US
needs to invest in its education and research sectors to develop more
scientists and engineers from its own citizenry. Every policy decision, e.g., land use and tax
policy, at every level of government needs to be evaluated for its impact on
this national imperative. Recently the
Congress and Administration seemed to recognize this fact and took direct
action by enacting and signing the America COMPETES Act. But unfortunately the enthusiasm for America
COMPETES was not met with enough funding for its full implementation. Several science and engineering professional societies have
opposed increases in the number of H-1B visas. NSBP advocates a balanced approach to a globally competitive physics
workforce. Increases in H-1B visa levels
must be matched by increased investments in the US
labor force at all levels. Federal,
State and local governments must enact and enforce laws and regulations that
will squeeze overt and covert discriminatory contexts out of the labor market.
[1] Frank Morris, American
Immigration and African American Interests, Testimony before the Committee on
the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, US House of
Representatives, March 11, 1999, http://www.diversityalliance.org/docs/MorrisTestimony.html
[2] Sharon G. Levin, Grant C. Black, Anne E. Winkler, Paula E.
Stephan, The Changing Career Outcomes of Scientists and Engineers in Academe: The
Role of Immigrants, Paper presented at AAAS Annual Meeting: Science as a Way of Life, Denver, CO, February 13-18, 2003, http://www.nber.org/%7Esewp/events/2003.02.13/aaas0203.html
[3] General Accountability Office, DOE Weapons
Laboratories: Actions Needed to Strengthen EEO Oversight, GAO-02-391, April 22, 2002 [4] George Jones, Editorial: Minorities in the Scientific
Workforce, Science, Vol. 296. no. 5566, p. 217, 12 April 2002
