2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In 1950, as Europe reckoned with the aftermath of the Holocaust, the German professional engineering society Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI) published an Engineer’s Creed (Bekenntnis des Ingenieurs) including the tenet: “The Engineer does not bow to those who disregard human rights…,” presumably in response to the fact that many engineers had done exactly that in facilitating Third Reich atrocities.

This paper asks what it would take to live out VDI’s tenet in the present-day United States, amid authoritarian assaults on many institutions, including higher education, science, and public health, and amid legislative and judicial actions that undermine democratic ideals including academic freedom, freedom of expression, and equal opportunity, all of which are essential for advancing STEM.

Because demographic change threat is a key driver of the present situation, this paper seeks to reckon with white supremacy as a root cause and a force to which engineers ought not bow. Using national data on educational access by race and ethnicity, Slaton’s historical analysis of the color line in 20th century engineering education, social scientific analyses of ideologies of merit, rigor, and depoliticization in STEM education, and commentary on the rise of the alt-right and the anti-DEI movement, this paper seeks to urgently identify new strategies to educate and empower more engineering students, educators and practitioners to face this reality head-on and work for change.

The paper then considers how critical pedagogies can transform engineering education from a practice of compliance to a practice of freedom, drawing on case studies from other countries where engineering education and practice have suffered under authoritarian regimes. We consider how curricula must change to prepare engineers for the present moment, broadly educating engineers in the social and political contexts of their work, and radically strengthening ethics education, professional principles, and practical strategies for engineers to individually and collectively refuse to bow.

At the same time, engineering educators must also refuse to bow. Possible strategies include defending academic freedom and liberal education principles, deploying moral imagination, organizing a variety of creative challenges to anti-DEI efforts, and doing what we as educators do best: facilitating learning, fostering critical thinking, building community, and constructing persuasive arguments. Examples drawn from a defunded Center for Engineering Equity will further illustrate adaptive change strategies in the shifting engineering education landscape.