Social Justice and the Objectivity of Mathematical Reasoning: A Dilemma for Policymakers

In this chapter, I chart out a topology of the epistemic environment in which policy debates about social justice in mathematics are being had. This topology reveals a dilemma for those of us who hold that social injustices have partially shaped contemporary mainstream mathematical reasoning. Proposing policies to rectify these injustices requires arguments in an epistemic environment which is hostile towards the conclusion of these arguments and may result in backlash and hinder social justice efforts more generally. Not proposing such policies, however, fails a moral imperative to call out and seek to rectify injustices where one is able. I suggest that this dilemma is tragic in that it has no higher-order resolution.