I will elaborate, for the intentionally obtuse and for people who have not lived in the world of academia. When writing NIH grants you typically have a section describing prior foundational work in the field or in the lab itself that the grant proposes to fund.
In our lab, at the time I was there, the majority of our publications were from 2 white and a chinese male. When writing grant proposals to continue this work (to be continued by the same 3 chemists) the gender/racial characteristics of other members of the lab who were female and of other racial backgrounds were described in great detail, even though they had not contributed to the prior work and were not going to continue the project in the future. Our backgrounds were left unmentioned. This was the way to secure funding was what the PI in our lab told me when I inquired about the glaring discrepancy.
It is my opinion that backgrounds should be irrelevant and funding should be granted on the strength of the proposal. That's not the case today.
EDIT: I left academia in 2013, maybe things have changed.
> This was the way to secure funding was what the PI in our lab told me when I inquired about the glaring discrepancy.
I'm not saying that what your PI told you was wrong, but I will say that it would've been useful to get some additional information about why your PI decided that was the right thing to do. It might have been useful at some particular time or in some particular situation.
> EDIT: I left academia in 2013, maybe things have changed.
That's an important piece of information, as when I read your original post, "even in 2013" made me think that you were still in academia.
In our lab, at the time I was there, the majority of our publications were from 2 white and a chinese male. When writing grant proposals to continue this work (to be continued by the same 3 chemists) the gender/racial characteristics of other members of the lab who were female and of other racial backgrounds were described in great detail, even though they had not contributed to the prior work and were not going to continue the project in the future. Our backgrounds were left unmentioned. This was the way to secure funding was what the PI in our lab told me when I inquired about the glaring discrepancy.
It is my opinion that backgrounds should be irrelevant and funding should be granted on the strength of the proposal. That's not the case today.
EDIT: I left academia in 2013, maybe things have changed.