Red Emma’s

Since earning her PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 2016, Piper Harron has become a highly-influential political figure in the mathematics community, forcing a re-evaluation of the effectiveness of its commitments to diversity and inclusion. She’s also been the target of alt-right smear campaigns, for instance after writing a blog post for the American Mathematical Society suggesting that certain people in positions of power should “get out the way.” Any attempt to summarize Harron’s unique discursive contributions inevitably degrade them, so let me “get out the way” and instead let Harron speak for herself, with the following excerpt from the prologue to her PhD thesis, which first introduced the broader mathematical community to “the liberated mathematician”:"Respected research math is dominated by men of a certain attitude. Even allowing for individual variation, there is still a tendency towards an oppressive atmosphere, which is carefully maintained and even championed by those who find it conducive to success. As any good grad student would do, I tried to fit in, mathematically. I absorbed the atmosphere and took attitudes to heart. I was miserable, and on the verge of failure. The problem was not individuals, but a system of self-preservation that, from the outside, feels like a long string of betrayals, some big, some small, perpetrated by your only support system. When I physically removed myself from the situation, I did not know where I was or what to do. First thought: FREEDOM!!!! Second thought: but what about the others like me, who don’t do math the “right way” but could still greatly contribute to the community? I combined those two thoughts and started from zero on my thesis. What resulted was a thesis written for those who do not feel that they are encouraged to be themselves. People who, for instance, try to read a math paper and think, “Oh my goodness what on earth does any of this mean why can’t they just say what they mean????” rather than, “Ah, what lovely results!” (I can’t even pretend to know how “normal” mathematicians feel when they read math, but I know it’s not how I feel.) My thesis is, in many ways, not very serious, sometimes sarcastic, brutally honest, and very me. It is my art. It is myself. It is also as mathematically complete as I could honestly make it.

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I’m unwilling to pretend that all manner of ways of thinking are equally encouraged, or that there aren’t very real issues of lack of diversity. It is not my place to make the system comfortable with itself. This may be challenging for happy mathematicians to read through; my only hope is that the challenge is accepted."