alt Hacker NewsIt's not propaganda, it's all the normal people on the left in my life who have in the last 5-6 years started calling anyone to their right on social justice issues racist. You're doing a lesser form of it here with "Clearly, nakedly something that anyone with a decent moral compass..." That makes a moral issue out of something that's clearly within the realm of politics in a healthy society (where to direct tax dollars). It's perfectly reasonable to think that I'd rather have slightly higher dollars spent on Medicaid funding than do that research study. If you agree with that, then it's clearly a political question, not a moral one.
Sounds quite reasonable when you put it that way, but unfortunately the entire domain of such research has been demonized and turned into a right wing meme, essentially disqualifying any such research from being funded at all. “DEI” is a rhetorical hammer and any funding for research that involves equity is the porcelain that the hammer is smashing.
So it’s no longer about whether we allocate funding to this or that, as a political compromise, it’s about the culture war.