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Addressing Common Myths About Diversity and Equity in Faculty Recruitment and Hiring

Compiled by the Advancing Faculty Diversity Workgroup, 2020-2021, UC Santa Cruz

Efforts to pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of California on the grounds of social justice and true excellence in the production of knowledge, are essential to fulfill the primary mission of public university. Yet, these efforts have continued to be stymied in recent decades. The common myths discussed here are often shared by high level management, faculty and staff, i.e. you and me, and many of our colleagues. If these myths were less common or ubiquitous, perhaps the University of California's efforts to diversify the academy for greater equity and inclusion might result in more improved outcomes.

To understand what is at stake and what this truly means for us in the university, please read the following commonsensical myths and reactions to equity and excellence-oriented initiatives, as they are contrasted with substantial social science data showing how and why they are flawed, and why they are just unexamined biases -- biases whose power resides in their unquestioned obviousness and our willingness to uncritically accept and repeat them.

1. “There is no evidence of racism or sexism in my field or in the academy.”

There is overwhelming evidence that racism affects many aspects of academia and of the workforce. For example, 62% of Black and 42% of Hispanic employees in STEM have experienced discrimination in recruitment, retention and promotion (Pew Research Center, 2018). In addition, racism occurs in the form of microaggressions, which are commonplace, often unintentional slights, slurs and insults about people of color (Sue et al., 2007). There is also structural racism -- policies and practices that result in the exclusion of minoritized groups and women on the one hand, and the promotion of majority groups on the other. One example is defining “merit” based on metrics that favor majority groups (Hofstra et al., 2020; Heffernan, 2021). Also common is bias in evaluation and assessment, for example, in teaching evaluations, as well as a host of other biases that affect the recruitment, hiring, and promotion and progress of faculty of color. Solutions include improving university climate and sense of belonging for people of all identities, and, during hiring and promotion, emphasizing innovation, creativity, and meeting desired teaching and mentoring outcomes over traditional metrics. To better understand the effect of racism and sexism on the experiences of women faculty of color, check out Presumed Incompetent I: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, & Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia, by Yolanda Flores Niemann and colleagues.

References:

Flores Niemann, Yolanda et al. (2012). Presumed Incompetent I: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Utah State University Press.

Flores Niemann, Yolanda et al. Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia. (2020). Utah State University Press.

Heffernan, Troy. "Sexism, racism, prejudice, and bias: a literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching." Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (2021): 1-11.

Hofstra, Bas, et al. "The diversity–innovation paradox in science." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117.17 (2020): 9284-9291.

Pew Research Center, January 2018. “Women and Men in STEM often at odds over workplace equity

Sue, Derald Wing, et al. "Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice." American psychologist 62.4 (2007): 271.

 

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

It is important to distinguish between the “method” of science and the “enterprise” of science [1].The scientific method is an objective strategy to understand natural phenomena. The scientific enterprise describes how experiments are conceived, performed, and interpreted in real practice. While the scientific method is impartial, the scientific enterprise is subject to individual biases and societal values [1].

There is a large body of evidence demonstrating that racism, particularly anti-Black racism, is prevalent within the scientific enterprise. 62% of Black employees and 42% of Hispanic employees in the STEM workforce say they have experienced racial discrimination in recruitment, the hiring process, or competing for promotions [2]. Racial bias often manifests as microaggressions: commonplace indignities that (whether intentional or unintentional) communicate a hostile or derogatory message to BIPOC [3]. For example, women of color faculty report being frequently mistaken for university staff or graduate students [4]. Black professors are often perceived by their colleagues to have been hired primarily for their underrepresented minority status, and feel added pressure to prove their legitimacy as a scholar [5], [6]. The #BlackintheIvory tag on Twitter contains many more anecdotes of racial microaggressions in academia.

Microaggressions are examples of individual racism, a term that describes a person’s prejudices and behaviors (both conscious and unconscious). Racism can also manifest at the systemic level. Systemic racism refers to “the policies and practices entrenched in established institutions which result in the exclusion or promotion of designated groups” [7]. Importantly, systemic racism does not require individual intent; it is a status quo maintained by inaction and apathy, rather than overt acts of racism [7].

Black scholars are underrepresented in nearly every field of STEM, which reflects the existence of systemic racism [8]. For example, only 5.9% of non-international students enrolled in life sciences PhD programs in the U.S. are Black, despite making up nearly 13% of the U.S. population [8], [9]. This disparity is even greater at the college and university faculty level: only 0.7% of biology professors are Black, while 83.3% are white [9]. Black, Latinx, and Native American professionals are also underrepresented in Big Tech companies, a trend that has improved very little in the past 5 years [10].

Systemic racism is maintained by current faculty and administration, whether consciously or unconsciously. One study found that professors rated identical CVs less favorably when the applicant had a traditionally Black or Latinx name compared to a traditionally white or Asian name [11]. Black applicants are 13% less likely than White applicants to receive research funding from the NIH [12]. BIPOC, especially women of color, are less likely than other groups to be invited or assigned to give talks at scientific meetings, despite requesting to present posters more often than their counterparts [13]. In the STEM workforce, the salary levels of Black and Hispanic/Latinx professionals are substantially lower than their white counterparts at all educational levels, even when controlling for differences in field of occupation, experience, and degree-granting institution [14], [15].

The existence of racism in STEM does not only impact students and scientists. Science has a long history of mistreating Black people and other minorities as research subjects. This is evidenced by the experimental surgeries on Black enslaved women (without anesthesia) by “the father of modern gynecology” J. Marion Sims, the unconsenting and deceptive derivation and dissemination of tissue from Henrietta Lacks to create the HeLa cell line, and the blatant disregard of life and lack of consent from patients infected and untreated in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, among others [16].

The legacy of this unethical research is still felt today, as it contributes to prevalent distrust of the medical and scientific communities by BIPOC [17]. This distrust, combined with inadequate efforts to recruit BIPOC as research subjects, means that BIPOC are underrepresented among clinical trial participants and other human research cohorts [18], [19], [20]. As a result, the benefits of our research are not distributed equally; since the large majority of research subjects and tissue donors are white (even for many diseases that disproportionately affect BIPOC), biomedical research often has reduced relevance for BIPOC [19], [20]. For medical research to apply to ethnic minorities, health and research institutions must build trust with minorities in order to encourage participation [21].

Medical professionals today still discriminate based on false beliefs about race which can directly impact patient care. 40% of medical students reportedly believed that Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s. Students who held these false beliefs rated Black patients’ pain lower than white patients’ and made less accurate treatment recommendations [22]. Additionally, medical students are not taught to identify symptoms that may present differently on darker skin. When health care professionals diagnose medical conditions by the presence of rashes, skin becoming pale, or lips turning blue, BIPOC patients may be overlooked in initial screenings; their quality of care is lower even before treatment because their symptoms are less likely to be recognized [23]. Racial bias in medicine not only exacerbates distrust of biomedical research, but also entrenches systemic healthcare disparities between racial and ethnic groups [24], [25].

The existence of both individual and systemic racism within STEM institutions, as well as the role of scientists and medical professionals in perpetuating broader systems of racial inequity, have been thoroughly documented. It is our responsibility as scientists to acknowledge this body of evidence, take action to promote racial equity in our workplaces, and examine the impacts of our research on society.

References:

[1] An open letter: Scientists and racial justice (The Scientist, 2020)

[2] Blacks in STEM jobs are especially concerned about diversity and discrimination in the workplace (Pew Research Center, 2018)

[3] Racial microaggressions in the life experiences of Black Americans

(Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2008)

[4] Race, gender, and bodily (mis)recognitions: Women of color faculty experiences with white students in the college classroom (The Journal of Higher Education, 2011)

[5] (Re)Defining departure: Exploring black professors’ experiences with and responses to racism and racial climate (American Journal of Education, 2011)

[6] Undergraduate teaching faculty; The HERI faculty survey 2016-2017 (Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, 2019)

[7] Forms of racism (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre)

[8] NCSES survey of earned documents (NSF, 2016): Table of doctorate recipients by subfield of study, citizenship status, ethnicity, and race

[9] Representation and salary gaps by race-ethnicity and gender at selective public universities (Educational Researcher, 2017)

[10] Five Years of Tech Diversity Reports—and Little Progress (Wired, 2019)

[11] How gender and race stereotypes impact the advancement of scholars in STEM: Professors’ biased evaluations of physics and biology post-doctoral candidates (Sex Roles, 2019)

[12] Race, ethnicity, and NIH research awards (Science, 2011)

[13] Women from some under-represented minorities are given too few talks world’s largest Earth-science conference (Nature, 2019)

[14] Baccalaureate and beyond: A look at the employment and educational experiences of college graduates, 1 year later (U.S. Department of Education, 2019)

[15] Science and engineering indicators 2018 (NSF National Science Board, 2018)

[16] Research ethics timeline (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, 2020)

[17] More than Tuskegee: Understanding Mistrust about Research Participation (Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 2010)

[18] Diversity and inclusion in genomic research: why the uneven progress?

(Journal of Community Genetics, 2017)

[19] Impact of limited population diversity on genome-wide association studies (Genetics in Medicine, 2010)

[20] Best strategies to recruit and enroll elderly Blacks into clinical and biomedical research (Clinical Interventions in Aging, 2018)

[21] More minorities needed in clinical trials to make research relevant to all (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2016)

[22] Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (PNAS, 2016)

[23] Mind the Gap: a handbook of clinical signs on black and brown skin (St George’s University of London 2020)

[24] Health, United States, 2015: With special feature on racial and ethnic health disparities (National Center for Health Statistics, 2015)

[25] How we fail black patients in pain (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2020)

[26] U.S. Census Quick Facts (2019)

[27] African Americans & Hispanics among physics & astronomy faculty

(American Institute of Physics, 2014)

[28] American Society for Engineering Education, 2018

[29] Statistical abstract of undergraduate programs in the mathematical sciences in the United States (Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences, 2005)

2. “Don’t politicize my field! Stick to the academic topic, not social issues.”

All disciplines are influenced by individual implicit biases and beliefs, which are brought into academic work spaces. A large body of research provides evidence that human cognition relies on processes that introduce implicit or unconscious assumptions that influence judgment and decision-making, which impact all aspects of academia (UC Davis, STEAD Workshop). For this reason, it is important to think about how to raise awareness and to employ policies and practices that minimize the impact of implicit bias. In addition, one goal of social justice activism in academia seeks to identify how systemic racism and implicit bias influence the topics we pursue, the research methods we use, the outlets in which we publish, and the outcomes we observe. For example, machine learning models are frequently built using racially biased datasets (Schatsky et al., 2019). This has led to widely-used algorithms (including for facial recognition or criminal recidivism) that are less accurate for BIPOC, perpetuating systemic racism in the criminal justice system (Grother et al., 2019; Larson et al., 2016; Public letter,2020).

References:

Grother, P., Ngan, M., & Hanaoka, K. (2019). Face Recognition Vendor Test (FVRT): Part 3, Demographic Effects. (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2019).

Larson, J. et al. (2016, May 23). How we analyzed the COMPAS recidivism algorithm. ProPublica https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-analyzed-the-compas-recidivism...

Coalition for Critical Technology. (2020, June 22). Public letter. Abolish the #TechToPrisonPipeline: Crime prediction technology reproduces injustices and causes real harm. Medium.com. https://medium.com/@CoalitionForCriticalTechnology

Schatsky, David et al. (2019, April 17). Can AI be ethical? Deloitte. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/signals-for-strategists/e... intelligence.html

Samantha and Drake Baer, “20 cognitive biases that screw up your decisions.” (2015) https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/trust_account...

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

Scientific research is influenced by societal values and priorities. Scientists are people, which means that their opinions, biases, and beliefs will be present in STEM workspaces – that makes science inherently political [1]. In addition, many scientific studies deal with politicized subject matter due to the implications of their findings (i.e., climate science and COVID-19) [2]. Scientific findings that have direct and immediate societal, health, or safety implications frequently require the recruitment of political institutions out of ethical concern. The goal of activism in science is to use data-backed claims to support understanding, awareness, and action in the public, political, and governmental spheres. This does not interfere with the rigor of scientific claims. If scientists avoid communicating the far-reaching implications of their science for public health and safety in an effort to solely avoid politicization, this is an ethical failing [2].

Additionally, in nearly all countries, especially the U.S., scientific research is inherently involved in politics, and public perception and support of science are divided by party affiliation [3]. This is noteworthy, as historically a quarter or greater of science funding in the U.S. (and half of all funding for basic research) comes from government agencies [4]. The U.S. scientific funding landscape changes with changing political party representation. In response to this, universities and scientific societies have historically lobbied in support of increased scientific funding [5]. The relationship between governmental funding, influence of science on public policy, and lobbying on behalf of scientific interests further positions science in the political realm.

Beyond institutions, scientific theories have also been used to justify racism by manufacturing biological differences between races, such as the division of human beings into racial taxa by Carl Linnaeus or the co-opting of Darwinist principles by eugenicists [6], [7]. This phenomenon is not relegated to the past; even today, genetic research is often co-opted by white supremacist groups, misrepresented, and weaponized in support of racist ideas [8], [9]. The biological sciences are not unique in perpetuating racism. For example, machine learning models are frequently built using racially biased datasets [10]. This has led to widely-used algorithms (including for facial recognition or criminal recidivism) that are less accurate for BIPOC, perpetuating systemic racism in the criminal justice system [11], [12], [13].

Scientists are responsible for generating data and interpreting results that direct the course of many aspects of society. We have a responsibility to confront both our own biases and those present in the scientific literature in order to ensure that the data and guidance we produce is not perpetuating or enabling inequality. We must hold ourselves and our peers accountable, not only in issues of scientific integrity, but in issues of ethical integrity.

References:

[1] Silence is never neutral; neither is science (Scientific American, 2020)

[2] Scientists who become activists: Are they crossing a line? (Journal of Scientific Communication, 2015)

[3] The Political Context of Science in the United States: Public Acceptance of Evidence-Based Policy and Science Funding (Social Forces 2015)

[4] Data check: U.S. government share of basic research funding falls below 50%(Science Magazine, 2017)

[5] Interest Groups, Political Party Control, Lobbying, and Science Funding: A Population Ecology Approach (Dissertation, UT Knoxville, 2014)

[6] A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy (The Washington Post, 2019)

[7] Toward the abolition of biological race in medicine (UC Berkeley Othering and Belonging Institute, 2020)

[8] “And we will fight for our race!” A measurement study of genetic testing conversations on Reddit and 4chan (International Conference on Web and Social Media, 2020)

[9] ‘It’s a toxic place.’ How the online world of white nationalists distorts population genetics (Science, 2018)

[10] Can AI be ethical? (Deloitte, 2019)

[11] Face recognition vendor test (FRVT) Part 3: Demographic effects (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2019)

[12] How we analyzed the COMPAS recidivism algorithm (ProPublica, 2016)

[13] Abolish the #TechToPrisonPipeline: Crime prediction technology reproduces injustices and causes real harm (public letter, 2020)

3. “I’m not racist, sexist, ableist, or other “ist,” -- so I don’t need to do anything differently.”

Statements like these imply that individuals who do not see themselves as explicitly “racist,” that is, they tend to reject the idea that racial groups are stratified by superior and inferior characteristics and traits, and they do not engage in explicitly racist acts, do not act in ways that are racist. They might believe that people who perceive race-based problems or concerns tend to be “oversensitive” or see problems that aren’t there, or that if those problems truly exist, someone else has the responsibility to fix them.

Yet, racial discrimination comes in many forms, and comprises both individual and institutional aspects. For example, denial of racism or of being “racist” can be a form of racial gaslighting. Critical race scholar Shannon Sullivan argues that middle-class whites buttress their sense of moral goodness by defining themselves as “good White people” (Sullivan, 2014), compared against more obviously racist “bad apples,” who are often stereotyped as working-class, rural, or politically conservative Whites. This logic denigrates Whites from lower class backgrounds who are deemed, by their liberal middle-class counterparts, to be exclusively responsible for ongoing White racism. The emphasis placed on colorblindness and “White middle-class goodness” cultivates a culture of silence, denial, and passivity around issues of race and power and, ultimately, carries on attitudes of White guilt, shame, and betrayal. Attitudes that distance people from confronting racial bias are also part of a racial history that is routinely downplayed, erased, and misrepresented in our education system, the media, and national mythmaking (Loewen, 2008). Racism is not simply an interpersonal dynamic. Attitudes about racial superiority are routine practices and ideas embedded in our institutions, including our laws and policies, families, education system, media, film, and television (mass incarceration, housing discrimination, redlining, policing, unequal schooling, poverty, etc.). Ibram X. Kendi shows that systemic White supremacy runs deep in both the political right and left in his book, Stamped from the Beginning (Kendi, 2016).

Many academics also need to bring anti-bias (anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-ableism, and others) into their experimental design. A long-standing insight of social science suggests that culture and environment play a significant role in how individuals perceive themselves and their environments (Wang, 2016). However, the widely held belief that human behavior, perception, and memory are innate and should not differ across cultural groups can discourage scientists from collecting or considering data about culture and ethnicity as part of their research design.  This often leads to non-representative studies that generalize the Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic experience to people from all cultures and ethnicities (Wang, 2016). Researchers across all fields have in this regard a key opportunity to exercise being inclusive and antibiased by designing representative and robust studies.

References:

Kendi, I. X. (2016). Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America. Hachette UK.

Loewen, J. W. (2008). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong. The New Press.

Sullivan, S. (2014). Good white people: The problem with middle-class white anti-racism. Suny Press.

Wang, Q. (2016). Why should we all be cultural psychologists? Lessons from the study of social cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 583-596.

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

If you do not experience systemic racism, it is possible you are likely benefiting from it, whether by being more generously supported by your institutions, being assumed to belong, or, importantly, not bearing the significant mental and emotional burden of being subjected to racism. Racist policies only exist because those in power benefit from oppression of the minority group. If you are benefiting from the oppression of others and choosing not to acknowledge and dismantle it, your compliance perpetuates the system. You cannot claim to be “not racist” and do nothing about it; rather, we must be actively anti-racist and take steps to combat racism in our lives (see our Call to Action) [1].

Academics who are not part of underrepresented groups can leverage their privilege to move beyond passive allyship and become active “coconspirators” against racism [2]. There are a multitude of ways to work against racism at every level of the social-ecological model; they all start with self-education on the experiences of BIPOC and self-reflection on where you can create change [3]. Self-education is crucial,

as the unpaid labor for anti-racism initiatives disproportionately falls upon faculty of color, who on average spend longer than their white colleagues promoting diversity-related initiatives [4], [5], [6]. In addition, Black faculty are more likely to engage in research addressing systemic healthcare disparities [7].

Many academics also need to bring anti-racism into their experimental design. A growing body of evidence suggests that culture and environment play a significant role in how individuals perceive themselves and their environments [8]. However, the widely held belief that human behavior, perception, and memory are innate and should not differ across cultural groups can discourage scientists from collecting or considering data about culture and ethnicity as part of their research design. This often leads to non-representative studies that generalize the Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic experience to people from all cultures and ethnicities [8]. Researchers across all fields that study human biology and behavior have a key opportunity to exercise being inclusive and anti-racist by designing representative and robust studies.

Even if you are actively anti-racist, it is important to note that some degree of racial bias is present in all of us (even if it is subconscious), which can manifest as unintentional microaggressions rather than overt racism (discussed in response #1) [9]. For example, faculty preconceptions of students’ learning ability –such as whether the ability to obtain and retain knowledge is fixed or flexible – can exacerbate achievement gaps in STEM via subtle situational cues that reinforce stereotypes about which groups are more likely to excel [10]. Additionally, implicit bias can manifest at the faculty hiring level, as academic hiring committee members tend to prefer candidates who mirror their own training, values, and research interests [10]. The failure of institutions to train and continually combat implicit biases supports the continuation of practices that directly harm BIPOC. Acknowledging our implicit biases is necessary to continually improve our teaching, mentoring, and hiring strategies.

References:

[1] How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi (NYT Bestseller)

[2] We want to do more than survive: Abolitionist teaching and the pursuit of educational freedom, by Bettina Love (2019)

[3] Being Antiracist (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

[4] The time tax put on scientists of color (Nature, 2020)

[5] Tips for easing the service burden on scientists from underrepresented groups (AAAS Letters to Young Scientists, 2019)

[6] Underrepresented faculty play a disproportionate role in advancing diversity and inclusion (Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2019)

[7] Topic choice contributes to the lower rates of NIH awards to African-America/black scientists (Science Advances, 2019)

[8] Why Should We All Be Cultural Psychologists? Lessons From the Study of Social Cognition

[9] Anterior frontal lobe tracks the formation of prejudice (Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017)

[10] STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes (Science Advances, 2019)

4. “I only hire/award/cite based on merit; that is what really counts for research and knowledge production; I don’t need to consider race, gender, or other social grouping.”

We consider academia to be an institution that practices objective meritocracy, which rewards all academics equally in terms of citations, jobs, and awards. After all, that is how we would like to think we all achieved our success! This misconception sets us up for a false dichotomy between merit/excellence and diversity. Unfortunately, the reality is that our conceptions of merit and excellence are often subjective, flawed, and themselves the product of implicit bias and/or structural bias (Ford et al., 2018; Guarino & Borden, 2017). For example, biomedical research that focuses on health disparities, which is more commonly pursued by Black scientists than White ones, is often assessed as less impactful and meritorious by grant reviewers (Hoppe et al., 2019), despite its demonstrated importance in our multi-racial society.

In another example of academia’s inconsistency, minoritized scholars innovate at higher rates than well-represented ones but these novel contributions are more likely to be discounted and less likely to earn them academic positions (Hofstra et al., 2020). Indeed, our reliance on flawed proxies for merit or excellence, like where a scholar has published (Bendels et al., 2018) and/or trained (Clauset et al., 2015), further maintains marginalization, given that these proxies themselves reproduce bias and maintain homogeneity. Finally, considering minoritized identities, allows for a more holistic and equitable evaluation of scholars and their scholarship by acknowledging the often challenging experiences that minoritized scholars have had to navigate (Funk & Parker, 2018), and the wider array of expertise that they have had to develop (Zuroski, 2018), during their training and careers. This expertise should be reflected in our hiring and promotion decisions, as well as in how we cite research work and grant awards.

References:

Bendels, M. H., Müller, R., Brueggmann, D., & Groneberg, D. A. (2018). Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS one, 13(1), e0189136. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189136

Clauset, A., Arbesman, S., & Larremore, D. B. (2015). Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science advances, 1(1), e1400005. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005?hc_location=ufi

Ford, H. L., Brick, C., Blaufuss, K., & Dekens, P. S. (2018). Gender inequity in speaking opportunities at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. Nature Communications, 9(1), 1-6.

Funk, C., & Parker, K. (2018). Blacks in STEM jobs are especially concerned about diversity and discrimination in the workplace. Pew Research Center, available at: www. pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/blacks-in-stem-jobs-are-especially-concerned-about-diversity-and-discrimination-in-theworkplace/(accessed 14 February 2019).

Guarino, C. M., & Borden, V. M. (2017). Faculty service loads and gender: Are women taking care of the academic family? Research in Higher Education, 58(6), 672-694.

Hofstra, B., Kulkarni, V. V., Galvez, S. M. N., He, B., Jurafsky, D., & McFarland, D. A. (2020). The diversity–innovation paradox in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(17), 9284-9291. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9284

Hoppe, T. A., Litovitz, A., Willis, K. A., Meseroll, R. A., Perkins, M. J., Hutchins, B. I., ... & Santangelo, G. M. (2019). Topic choice contributes to the lower rate of NIH awards to African-American/black scientists. Science Advances, 5(10), eaaw7238. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/10/eaaw7238

Zuroski, E. (2018). Holding patterns: On academic knowledge and labor. Medium. April 5. https://medium.com/@zugenia/holding-patterns-on-academic-knowledge-and-l...

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

Arguments that support the objective consideration of merit without the overarching context of external factors are often weaponized against diversity efforts. One recent example is an opinion piece by Tomas Hudlicky that was published (and quickly retracted) in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie [1], [2]. Hudlicky argued that the consideration of factors besides “merit” will result in candidates from underrepresented groups being chosen over more qualified candidates, thereby compromising scientific progress. (He also felt that such initiatives place non-minority candidates at an unfair disadvantage; this topic is discussed in response #6.)

Hudlicky’s argument and others like it rely on the assumption that academia is a meritocracy, wherein factors such as grades, awards, and publications depend solely on talent and effort, and therefore we can use these metrics to objectively select the best candidate. In reality, success in academia is highly influenced by factors outside one’s control, including race, ethnicity, class, and gender (among many other things) [1]. Students of color are subject to both explicit and implicit acts of racial discrimination, which add an extra barrier to their success. The stress of everyday racism contributes to a heavier cognitive load for BIPOC, which is associated with both mental and physical illnesses, as well as reduced academic productivity [4], [5].

In addition, the wage gap (and even more so, the wealth gap) between white people and BIPOC in the U.S. means that students of color are less likely to have financial support from their families during college [6]. The median net worth of white households is 10 times that of Black households and 8 times that of Hispanic households [7]. Even among households with the same annual income, the wealth of white households greatly exceeds that of Black and Hispanic households [7]. This is because wealth takes into account the sum of a household’s total assets, including investments and real estate. Wealth accumulates over generations via gifts and inheritances. The racial wealth gap represents the legacy of slavery in the U.S. and subsequent racist practices such as Jim Crow laws, redlining, and mass incarceration. These forces have prevented Black Americans from accumulating generational wealth while offering white Americans a 400-year head start [8].

The wealth gap can limit the ability of students of color to pursue undergraduate research, internships, and other unpaid opportunities in STEM, or to accept low-paying positions as graduate students or postdocs. The wealth gap is also closely linked to why BIPOC tend to score lower on standardized tests, including the GRE and SAT: individuals who identify as BIPOC may have fewer opportunities to enroll in expensive preparatory classes or to take required entrance exams multiple times [9]. In these ways, the racial wealth gap prevents a truly meritocratic system in STEM from existing by placing disproportionate barriers on BIPOC [3].

More broadly, the criteria that define “merit” possess inherent bias. For instance, research that focuses on systemic healthcare disparities (which is more commonly pursued by Black than white researchers) is rated as less impactful by NIH grant reviewers, despite its critical importance for biomedical research [10]. Furthermore, the publications of Black scientists tend to have fewer coauthors and receive fewer citations, suggesting that Black scientists may face barriers to establishing professional networks [11]. Judging applicants on “soft skills” can also perpetuate racial bias. BIPOC at Big Tech companies are frequently perceived by their employers as not fitting in with the “workplace culture.” In many cases, BIPOC report that this perception arose from coworkers excluding them from social interactions [12].

Race-conscious decision-making does not compromise our ability to select the best candidate for a position - in fact, it is quite the opposite. If our goal is to select the most talented and hard-working candidate, then we must account for the external factors that could impair an individual’s efforts from translating into standardized measures of success. Individuals who claim they are “color-blind” or “don’t see race” for the sake of upholding a nonexistent meritocracy are perpetuating the discriminatory status quo by failing to acknowledge the systemic inequities facing BIPOC [13].

We do not live in a post-racial era where race has no implications. While race itself is a social construct, the racially-centered policies and organizational structures that frame our world are real. To quote Ibram X Kendi, “To be anti-racist is to focus on ending the racism that shapes the mirages, not to ignore the mirages that shape people’s lives” [14].

References:

[1] From scientists to scientists--Moving Angewandte into the future

(Angewandte Chemie, 2020)

[2] Confronting racism in chemistry journals: An opinion on the Angewandte Chemie scandal from a female, POC, doctoral student (blog post, 2020)

[3] Academia is not a meritocracy (Nature Human Behavior, 2019)

[4] Stress and the mental health of populations of color: Advancing our understanding of race-related stressors (Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2018)

[5] Stressing out: Connecting race, gender, and stress with faculty productivity (The Journal of Higher Education, 2016)

[6] Examining the Black-white wealth gap (Brookings Institute, 2020)

[7] How wealth inequality has changed in the U.S. since the Great Recession, by race, ethnicity, and income (Pew Research Center, 2017)

[8] America’s racial wealth gap was aided by a 400-year head start (MLK50 Memphis, 2019)

[9] New GRE data illustrate trends on future grad students (Inside Higher Ed, 2013)

[10] Topic choice contributes to the lower rates of NIH awards to African-America/black scientists (Science Advances, 2019)

[11] Publications are predictors of racial and ethnic differences in NIH research awards (PLoS One, 2018)

[12] Is Silicon Valley using culture fit to disguise discrimination?

[13] Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America (2013)

[14] How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi (NYT Bestseller)

5. “The bottom line is, there just aren’t as many Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), or members of other historically marginalized groups, who want to work in my field or apply for our positions.”

Statements such as this refer to what is colloquially known as the “leaky pipeline.” There are at least two problems with this argument. One is that the pipeline isn’t as leaky as we think it is, and the second, is that the solution to this argument is both to fix the leak and to fix the filter that creates this problem in the first place (i.e., to redouble our efforts to stop the practice of letting only certain people through the “pipe”). By using evidence-based practices associated with “slow thinking” in evaluation and assessment, we can limit the impact of cognitive biases in faculty recruitment and hiring to give historically marginalized job candidates a fair shot at success, by truly considering their merits and the full scope of our needs.

Let’s talk about the pipeline for BIPOC scholars as an example. While it is still true that in most fields in academia the underrepresentation of minoritized populations continues to be a significant issue, it is also true that, historically speaking, there have never been as many qualified Ph.Ds of color as there are now (American Academy of Arts and Sciences). In all fields the problems stem, instead, from some common sources: program barriers that weed people out early instead of cultivating their potential, the lack of faculty of color that can most effectively function as role models for BIPOC students, and the inability in many fields to properly assess BIPOC academic candidates.  

Now let’s talk about the fair shot at success. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019) “In 2015, the share of humanities doctorates completed by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups was 10.5%, four percentage points greater than in 1995 and the largest share recorded over the time period.” In other words: in ten years the number of Ph.Ds of color in the Humanities had almost doubled. The same source adds that: “In 2015, the share of humanities master’s degrees awarded to students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups was 14.9%, up from 8.2% in 1995.” The data points t  the potential already within reach and the need to strengthen the pipeline from the masters to the doctoral level. In many fields we already have more qualified BIPOC candidates than ever before, but we seem to have difficulty hiring them in sufficient numbers to make a difference. The way out of this loop is giving BIPOC job candidates a fair shot at success, by truly considering their merits and the full scope of our needs.

References:

American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (2019). Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Advanced

Degrees in the Humanities. https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher- education/racialethnic-distribution-advanced-degrees-humanities

Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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As stated above, only 14% of Black scientists and 18% of Hispanic scientists believe that a lack of interest is a major reason for under-representation of Black and Hispanic individuals in STEM [1]. However, the majority of Black and Hispanic scientists believe that a lack of educational access, discrimination in recruitment and promotions, and/or not being encouraged to pursue STEM from an early age are the main reasons for the disparity [1]. The data backs up these opinions. While it is true that a STEM interest gap exists between white and BIPOC youth, the magnitude of this discrepancy is fairly small. A survey of U.S. high school seniors found that 45% of white students are interested in a career related to science, compared to 40% of Hispanic students and 39% of Black students [2]. Some studies even report greater STEM interest among BIPOC. One survey reported that Black girls in high school were more likely than white girls to say that math or computer science was their favorite subject [3].

Despite similar levels of interest, students of color face numerous barriers to achieving a career

in STEM. As discussed in response #7, public schools that primarily serve Black students are greatly under-funded compared to primarily-white schools. In addition, 39% of Black children and 35% of Hispanic children in the U.S. are living below the poverty line (compared to 12% of white children) [4]. Black and Hispanic children are also more likely than white and Asian children to have lived through traumatic experiences [5], [6]. Exposure to poverty and emotional or physical trauma during childhood are associated with an increased risk of academic, behavioral, and health problems [6]. These factors, in combination with the racial wealth gap (discussed in response #4), contribute to the “achievement gap”: the observation that Black and Hispanic children consistently score lower on standardized academic tests than white and Asian children [7], [8].

On top of all this, the school-to-prison pipeline stymies the educational and career aspirations of many students of color. The school-to-prison pipeline is the practice by schools of removing “problem children” from classrooms as a form of punishment, which impairs their ability to keep up in school and often exacerbates behavioral problems [9], [10], [11]. Schools are also increasingly likely to involve the police in minor disciplinary incidents as part of their “zero tolerance policy.” This creates a vicious cycle that places these students on a fast track to juvenile detention, and eventually the criminal justice system [9], [10]. The school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately affects students of color, who are more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled from school or to be arrested as children [9], [10]. This is due to multiple factors, including racial bias among educators and school administrators, the increased risk of behavioral issues arising from childhood poverty and trauma, and schools’ emphasis on rigid obedience, which clashes with the value many BIPOC families place on questioning authority and speaking freely [12],[13]. School disciplinary systems, paralleling the criminal justice system, emphasize punishment over treatment, thereby exacerbating the youth achievement gap [14].

The barriers to a STEM career do not end once students have made it to college. Large national datasets have documented no differences between entry rates of white, Black, and Latinx students in STEM as undergraduates. However, Black and Latinx STEM majors are much more likely to switch majors or drop out, demonstrating a clear disparity in retention. This pattern is not observed in the social sciences and humanities [15]. Furthermore, Black individuals are more likely than other racial groups to pursue careers unrelated to STEM after earning their Ph.D. [17]. This “leaky pipeline” of BIPOC student disengagement is partially attributable to the scarcity of BIPOC role models among STEM faculty; mentorship from individuals of a common racial identity has been shown to promote feelings of belonging while providing advice for navigating the unique problems that scientists of color face [18], [19].

This pattern continues at the faculty level. A survey of academic search committees found that most members believed the diversity of their applicant pool was outside of their control, and made no attempt to engage applicants from diverse backgrounds [20]. Despite this widely held belief, numerous strategies have been demonstrated for enhancing the applicant pool diversity of faculty candidates, which should also be combined with more equitable hiring and retention practices [21]. The true issue is not a lack of qualified BIPOC candidates, but a lack of active effort among academia to seek out and support these candidates.

There has been considerable research focused on the lack of supply of Black scientists as a result of the leaky pipeline in STEM, but there is also a continued lack of demand for Black scientists within academia. Only 14% of Black scientists work in academia, as opposed to nearly 30% of white scientists [22]. Hypotheses to explain this disparity center around the normalized whiteness of institutions and the (often unconscious) attempts by white academics to maintain institutional whiteness and associated privilege [23]. For BIPOC, this may result in social exclusion, which would prevent access to resources and opportunities as those in power often seek newcomers who are socially similar to themselves [23]. Research suggests that this sense of social connectedness plays a key role in success, in contrast to dominant beliefs emphasizing only the role of hard work and personal motivation [24]. BIPOC are often concerned about their connectedness and perceived belonging, and feeling isolated and unsupported contributes to their increased likelihood of leaving STEM

[24].

The reasons for underrepresentation of BIPOC in STEM are far more complex than a lack of interest. From K-12 education up through faculty hiring, BIPOC face systemic barriers at every stage of their career which place them at a disadvantage compared to white colleagues. Furthermore, a lack of institutional support for BIPOC results in poor retention rates at the student and faculty levels. To address these issues, we must move beyond the passive view of a leaky pipeline and actively dismantle the structures that limit BIPOC participation in STEM.

References:

[1] Blacks in STEM jobs are especially concerned about diversity and discrimination in the workplace (Pew Research Center, 2018)

[2] Among high school seniors, interest in science varies by race, ethnicity (Pew Research Center, 2017)

[3] How to get more African American girls into tech (Forbes, 2016)

[4] Childhood poverty among Hispanics sets record, leads nation (Pew Research Center, 2011)

[5] The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, nationally, by state, and by race of ethnicity (Child Trends, 2018)

[6] Toxic stress and children’s outcomes (Economic Policy Institute, 2019)

[7] Racial and ethnic achievement gaps (Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis)

[8] Addressing the African American achievement gap: Three leading educators issue a call to action (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2018)

[9] School-to-prison pipeline (The African American Policy Forum)

[10] Dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline (NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund)

[11] Call to action: A critical need for designing alternatives to suspension and expulsion (Journal of School Violence, 2012)

[12] Teachers are people too: Examining the racial bias of teachers compared to other American adults (Educational Researcher, 2020)

[13] What’s lost when Black children are socialized into a white world (The Atlantic, 2019)

[14] Examining the achievement gap and school-to-prison pipeline: Tier 2 behavior interventions for African American and Hispanic students in secondary schools (dissertation, 2014)

[15] Does STEM stand out? Examining racial/ethnic gaps in persistence across postsecondary fields (Educational Researcher, 2019)

[16] What matters in college for retaining aspiring scientists and engineers from underrepresented racial groups (Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 2014)

[17] Leaving STEM: STEM Ph.D. holders in non-STEM careers (American Institutes for Research, 2014)

[18] Exploring identity-safety cues and allyship among Black women students in STEM environments (Psychology of Women Quarterly, 2019)

[19] “Don’t leave us behind”: The importance of mentoring for underrepresented minority faculty (American Educational Research Journal, 2015)

[20] Effectively recruiting faculty of color at highly selective institutions: A school of education case study (Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 2011)

[21] Institutional barriers, strategies, and benefits to increasing the representation of women and men of color in the professoriate (Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, 2020)

[22] Black Scientists: a history of exclusion (Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 1998)

[23] Discriminatory organizational contexts and Black scientists on postsecondary faculty (Research in Higher Education, 1999).

[24] A question of belonging: race, social fit, and achievement (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007).

6. “Diversity initiatives are unfair to Whites or non-minorities; it’s reverse discrimination.”

For this statement to capture accurately the relationship between diversity initiatives and bias against Whites, demographic data should demonstrate a dramatic decrease in White faculty and a dramatic increase in non-White faculty, especially over the last two decades, when significant efforts have been made by higher educational institutions to diversity their faculty. In other words, if reverse discrimination was in fact operating, then the number of White faculty would have decreased after decades of diversity work, specifically at the University of California. The truth is that diversity initiatives lessen only marginally, the disadvantages minority groups face, while preserving opportunities for non-minority groups. For example, the National Science Foundation has a fellowship program that is focused on increasing the representation of minority scholars in higher education, yet 80% of the Graduate Research Fellowship Program awardees are White (NORC, 2014). Notably, this percentage is the same percentage as thirteen years earlier (Sheppard et al., 2001). Many programs and initiatives reveal similar findings. To increase BIPOC faculty in higher education will take a concerted, deliberate effort to level the playing field: Minoritized people face many kinds of biases in academia, including biases in performance evaluations, recommendation letters, citations, and funding from grant agencies. We can work to counteract these biases, including using simple techniques that have been shown to decrease bias. For example, when making hiring decisions, we can establish procedures and rubrics that are deployed consistently across all candidates; for example, search committees can decide to spend five minutes listing plusses relevant to their search criteria and five minutes listing negatives, and then use these lists in thinking about candidates’ performances (Bauer & Baltes, 2002). Decreasing bias can allow everyone to participate in a more level playing field.

References:

Bauer, C. C., & Baltes, B. B. (2002). Reducing the effects of gender stereotypes on performance

evaluations. Sex Roles, 47(9), 465-476.

Hoffer, Tom and Kirby, Sheila Nataraj. (2014). Evaluation of the National Science Foundation’s

Graduate Research Fellowship Program. NORC at the University of Chicago.

Sheppard, E., Rutledge, J., & Johnson, J. (2001). Merit Criteria, Eligibility and Diversity in the

NSF Graduate Research Fellowships. Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for

Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition.

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The belief that race-conscious policies place the majority group at an unfair disadvantage is not rare. 57%of white Americans believe that white people face the same degree of racial discrimination as BIPOC, compared to only 29% of Black Americans and 38% of Hispanic Americans [1]. Belief in anti-white bias has been steadily increasing among white Americans since the civil rights movement [2]. This mindset stems from viewing racial equity and tolerance as a “zero sum game,” where more rights for BIPOC must come at the expense of white people’s rights [2]. The idea of white victimhood remains a central tenet of modern white supremacist groups [3].

Initiatives that promote racial justice and equity in STEM are not a barrier to white scientists; rather these programs are designed to partially remove a systemic barrier that has been placed on scientists from underrepresented groups. Ibram X. Kendi discusses this idea in How to Be an Antiracist [4]. Kendi argues that racial discrimination itself is not inherently racist; the question is whether the consideration of one’s race perpetuates inequity or equity. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun described it in this way: “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.” These initiatives are created to address long-standing barriers to entry and inequity in the STEM and academic workplace (discussed further in response #5). Temporarily assisting an underrepresented racial group to achieve equity is not the same thing as perpetuating inequality of wealth and power of the over-represented group [1].

In fact, the concern that minority students are overrepresented in funding is contradicted by data showing that white students are still more likely than Black, Hispanic/Latinx, or Asian students to receive merit-based scholarships. One report found that white students receive 76% of institutional merit-based awards, despite making up only 62% of the student population [5]. Another study reported a similar trend: 16.4% of all white undergraduates are supported by at least one merit-based award, compared to only 11.6% of Black undergraduates and 8.1% of Hispanic/Latinx undergraduates [6]. Race-conscious university admissions policies have been shown to promote proportional representation of BIPOC without causing under-representation of white students [7]. Even the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, which has an explicit goal of increasing diversity in STEM, still awards 80% of its fellowships to white applicants [8].

Finally, an important part of what makes discrimination harmful is an associated power dynamic that allows the discriminator to stifle the victim. Considering that white students and faculty have maintained an exclusive community within higher education for centuries (the legacy of which still negatively impacts BIPOC), it is impossible for actions taken by and for BIPOC to amount to “reverse racism” within academia –they do not have the same powers of oppression [9], [10], [11].

References:

[1] White Republicans think whites, blacks, and Hispanics face about the same amount of discrimination (The Washinton Post, 2019)

[2] Whites see racism as a zero-sum game that they are now losing (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2011)

[3] The victim ideology of white supremacists and white separatists in the United States (Sociological Focus, 2000)

[4] How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi (NYT Bestseller)

[5] The Distribution of Grants and Scholarships by Race

[6] Merit aid for undergraduates: Trends from 1995-96 to 2007-08 (U.S. Department of Education, 2011)

[7] Here’s what happens when you ban affirmative action in college admissions (FiveThirtyEight, 2015)

[8] Evaluation of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NORC at the University of Chicago, 2014)

[9] “Reverse racism” (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre)

[10] “The c-word” meets “the n-word”: The slur-once-removed and the discursive construction of “reverse racism” (Linguistic Anthropology, 2018)

[11] Being White: Stories of Race and Racism, by Karyn D. McKinney

7. “Education is the great equalizer.”

United States citizens and North Americans, including immigrant populations, tend to believe that schooling and education function as “great equalizers.” Particularly in the post-Brown v. Board of Education era, public schools aspire towards multicultural diversity as an emblem of goodness and indicator of upward economic progress. However, the literature on the relationship between upward mobility and educational attainment challenges this basic tenet. . Not only are children in the United States “tracked,” such that the likelihood that a child will or will not attend college can be predicted with reasonable accuracy as early as preschool (Putnam 2015), children and young adults’ experiences of m school itself can vary profoundly by race, class, and gender (Shange 2019; Bastedo and Jaquette 2011).

In general, the U.S. has seen slowed economic growth since the 1970s; the “concentration of that growth among the wealthy [has] slowed the pace of U.S. social mobility (Beller and Hout 2006).” Globally we see that “[l]arger social inequalities set limits on what education can achieve” (Marginson 2016). In the absence of broader efforts to ensure social equality, education, far from being “the great equalizer,” often reproduces profound inequity.

References:

Bastedo, Michael N. and Jaquette, Ozan. (2011). Running in Place: Low-Income Students and the Dynamics of Higher Education Stratification. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. 33(3). 318-339.

Beller, Emily and Hout, Michael. (2006). Intergenerational Social Mobility: The United States in Comparative Perspective. The Future of Children. 16(2). 19-36.

Marginson, Simon. (2016). The worldwide trend to high participation in higher education: dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. High Educ. 72. 413–434.

Putnam, Robert D. (2015). Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Shange, Savannah. (2019). Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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This phrase was coined by Horace Mann, a pioneer of the U.S. public school system during the 1800s, and remains popular today [1]. It suggests that access to education is sufficient to remove the effects of inequities between groups of people, such as barriers due to race or socioeconomic status. In other words, oppressed groups need only prioritize their education in order to pull themselves onto equal footing with more privileged demographics. Thus with the existence of free K-12 education and need-based college loans and scholarships in the U.S., any remaining inequities must be due to those individuals’ failure to take advantage of the available educational resources [1]

First, it's important to recognize that access to STEM education is not equal. For example, 81% of Asian American students and 71% of white students have access to a full range of math and science courses during high school [2]. In contrast, less than 50% of Native American or Native-Alaskan students have access to a comprehensive offering of STEM classes, along with 57% of Black students and 67% of Latinx students [1]. This discrepancy is due in large part to “redlining,” a practice of discriminatory mortgage lending that has led to continued segregation between majority-white and majority-Black neighborhoods [3]. Since public schools are funded by local property taxes and Black households have one-tenth the median net worth of white households, school districts that primarily serve Black students are greatly under-funded [4], [5], [6].

The racial wealth gap (discussed in response #4) also contributes to unequal educational access at the college level. Black students on average take out the largest loans to complete a bachelor’s degree when compared to any other racial group, putting them at a financial disadvantage after graduation [7]. And Black graduates are more likely than any other demographic to be unemployed one year after the completion of their bachelor’s degree. This is due in part to hiring discrimination; one widely cited study found that resumés with “white-sounding” names received 50% more callbacks than identical resumes with “Black-sounding" names [8]. Another study found that companies were twice as likely to call back minority applicants who had “whitened” their resumes by concealing or downplaying any indicators of their race, as opposed to those who disclosed their race [9].

Among the employed, Black people have the lowest median annual earnings of any racial group across all education levels (from Associate’s degree to PhD), even when controlling for differences in field, experience, and degree-granting institution [7], [10]. Continued disparities in income mean that education cannot act as a remedy for the wage gap experienced by Black Americans. The existence of systemic racism means that no level of education or income can truly equalize experiences and opportunities for people of color; BIPOC cannot escape pervasive discrimination by holding advanced degrees.

Rather than relying on education to be an automatic equalizer, we must examine and combat the structures that perpetuate racial inequity. In order for education to equalize, access to education, opportunities, and outcomes must first be equalized. Explicit changes must be made to address systemic racism at every level, including equitable access to K-12 education and employer-supported initiatives that increase career prospects and promote fair compensation of BIPOC in STEM.

References:

[1] The decline of the ‘great equalizer’ (The Atlantic, 2012)

[2] Expansive survey of America’s public schools reveals troubling racial disparities (U.S. Department of Education, 2014)

[3] A ‘forgotten history’ of how the U.S. government segregated America (NPR, 2017)

[4] Nonwhite school districts get $23 billion less than white districts despite serving the same number of students (EdBuild interactive resource)

[5] How wealth inequality has changed in the U.S. since the Great Recession, by race, ethnicity, and income (Pew Research Center, 2017)

[6] Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s schools (1991)

[7] Baccalaureate and beyond: A look at the employment and educational experiences of college graduates, 1 year later (U.S. Department of Education, 2019)

[8] Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination (American Economic Review, 2004)

[9] Whitened Résumés: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market

(Administrative Science Quarterly, 2016)

[10] Science and engineering indicators 2018 (NSF National Science Board, 2018)

8. “I don’t agree with racist sentiments, but people should be allowed to express their opinions and have debates.”

In a public institution of higher learning, “hate speech” and other types of biased statements and biased belief systems play no part in healthy and generative dialogue and debate. Rigorous and honest debate in a university context involves discussion, research, data, expertise and experiences, rather than provocation, incitement, and uninformed opinion (Rupert, 2017). For example, while people may be legally allowed to express racist opinions, they are not free of the responsibility and consequences of these statements within educational public institutions, the students they serve, and the campus climate to which they contribute.

Consider too that the view that biased statements should be permitted as not only a matter of free speech, but of scholarly debate, may stem itself from a position of privilege. For example, White people may have the privilege of being able to discuss and debate racism as a detached scholarly exercise because they are not directly harmed by racism. For others, racism is not some theoretical concept, but a concrete reality, which precludes an emotionless debate. BIPOC should never be forced to explain and defend their lived experiences and racial trauma for the sake of “debate.” The facts and the data clearly speak for themselves in validating the reality of racism and thus, the experience of those who suffer it.

In 1995, the UN released a Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, which proclaims that tolerance is not only a moral imperative, but a political and legal requirement (Unesco). The declaration notes that “the practice of tolerance does not mean toleration of social injustice.” This clause upholds Karl Popper’s “paradox of tolerance” – the idea that being completely tolerant of all ideas will allow the emergence of intolerant groups which, if left unchecked, will in turn stifle and destroy the entire framework of tolerance that permitted their formation (Popper). To act in accordance with these ideas, racist sentiments cannot be tolerated; they perpetuate discrimination and injustice, which threaten a tolerant society. They are also blind to the facts and data on the ground.

References:

Rupert, Maya. “I’m Done Debating Racism With the Devil: White people playing devil’s advocate in conversations about race are completely counterproductive to actual progress, 2017.

Unesco. United Nations Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, 1995 Unesco. (1995). Declaration of principles on tolerance. In 28th Session of the General Conference.

Popper, Karl. (1945) The Open Society and Its Enemies

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The view that racist statements should be permitted as not only a matter of free speech, but of scholarly debate, stems from a position of privilege. White people have the privilege of being able to discuss and debate racism as a detached scholarly exercise because they are not directly harmed by racism. In contrast, BIPOC have to bear the mental load of racism as a constant force in their lives; racism is not some theoretical concept, but a concrete reality, which precludes an emotionless debate. BIPOC should never be forced to explain and defend their lived experiences and racial trauma for the sake of “debate.”

Expressing racist opinions creates a hostile environment for BIPOC, which is detrimental to their mental and physical health and success [1], [2]. Such expressions are an example of racial microaggressions (discussed in response #1), which reinforce themes such as “You do not belong,” “You are intellectually inferior,” and “You are abnormal” [2]. This messaging, whether covert or overt, compounds to produce an environment that can negatively impact physiological responses, self-esteem, and quality of life for BIPOC [3], [4]. Perceptions of racial discrimination are related to increased rates of stress, depressive symptoms, and long-term physical health effects [5].

A truly tolerant community or workplace cannot abide by the perpetuation of racist actions or sentiments. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly signed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to Article 1 of this document and the collective agreement of the signers and their endorsing nations, the humanity and dignity of all people is simply not up for debate [6]. In 1995, the UN also released a Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, which proclaims that tolerance is not only a moral imperative, but a political and legal requirement [7]. The declaration notes that “the practice of tolerance does not mean toleration of social injustice.” This clause upholds Karl Popper’s “paradox of tolerance” – the idea that being completely tolerant of all ideas will allow the emergence of intolerant groups which, if left unchecked, will in turn stifle and destroy the entire framework of tolerance that permitted their formation [8]. To act in accordance with these ideas, racist sentiments cannot be tolerated; they perpetuate discrimination and injustice, which threaten a tolerant society.

In addition to its direct harm against scientists of color, humoring debates about the existence or racism can serve to legitimize racist opinions. By engaging in “scholarly” debates with racists, we acknowledge their views as worthy of attention and discussion. This carries particular weight for scientists, who are perceived as intellectual or moral authority figures by many members of the public [9], [10]. Arguments that claim the nonexistence of racism are simply not worthy of debate, as their opinions are not only hateful, but also blatantly incorrect in the face of a large body of research (see response #1)

To illustrate this point, let us consider a historical case study. By the mid-twentieth century, a large body of evidence demonstrated the dangers of cigarettes and public health organizations launched ad campaigns to discourage smoking. In a desperate attempt to maintain revenues, the tobacco industry invoked the Fairness Doctrine, insisting that mainstream broadcasting services were required to present both sides of the "smoking debate" in a way that was honest and balanced. Pushing industry pseudoscience onto major television and radio channels legitimized their inaccurate claims and sowed seeds of doubt against decades of peer-reviewed science [11]. Much like the case against smoking, there are dozens of studies that confirm the existence and severity of racism in STEM. While it is crucial to think critically about these studies, blatantly opposing or denying countless data is uninformed. People who deny the existence of racism are not entitled to equal time and consideration for an opinion that directly contradicts facts.

References:

[1] Racism and Mental Health: the African-American Experience (Ethnicity and Health, 2000)

[2] Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice (American Psychologist, 2007)

[3] Effect of ethnic group membership on ethnic identity, race-related stress, and quality of life (Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 2002)

[4] The adverse impact of racial microaggressions on college students’ self-esteem (Journal of College Student Development, 2014)

[5] Racial Microaggressions and Psychological Functioning Among Highly Achieving African-Americans: A Mixed-Methods Approach (Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2010)

[6] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948

[7] United Nations Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, 1995

[8] The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

[9] Trust, honesty, and the authority of science (Society’s Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine, 1995)

[10] Most Americans have positive image of research scientists, but fewer see them as good communicators (Pew Research Center, 2019)

[11] Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

9. “Focusing on anti-Black racism ignores the experiences of non-Black POC, in addition to ignoring the adverse effects of sexism, ableism, and other forms of oppression.”

It’s unfortunate that there are so many forms of discrimination and bias in academia. And it’s entirely accurate that we should attempt to address as many forms of bias as possible when trying to make academia more equitable, along the lines not only of race, but also of gender, sexual identification, disability status, and ethnicity, among other ways (Crenshaw 1991). However, the attempt to address the bias these minoritized identities experience as distinct from one another obscures some realities about historical and contemporary racial discrimination. First, as a continuing legacy of slavery and colonialism, anti-blackness is a foundational but rarely acknowledged organizing principle of our country and our institutions (Hannah-Jones & Elliot, 2019). The existence of colorism in marginalized communities is another example of its debilitating effect (Dixon & Telles, 2017). Because we are reluctant to discuss this uncomfortable reality, we often seek to decenter race in our discussions about bias (DiAngelo, 2018), as this question illustrates. Last of all, and perhaps most importantly, these attempts to segregate minoritized identities and their experiences deliberately shifts the focus away from a common reality of the experience of most minoritized groups: that able-bodied, heterosexual White men have historically and systematically benefitted from how our universities and academic structures have been constructed, at the expense of the success of members of many minoritized groups. The data are clear in this regard. Focusing on anti-Blackness, and validating its effect on our institutions, provides an opportunity to better understand and ameliorate how racism and other forms of minoritization intersect to produce inequity.

References:

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299. doi:10.2307/1229039

DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

Dixon, A. R., & Telles, E. E. (2017). Skin color and colorism: Global research, concepts, and measurement. Annual Review of Sociology, 43, 405-424.

Hannah-Jones, N., & Elliott, M. N. (Eds.). (2019). The 1619 project. New York Times.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?origin=crossref&seq=1#metadata_info...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-sla...

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

Black scientists are the focus of many STEM diversity and inclusion initiatives in the current moment. This is due in part to several recently documented instances of police brutality against Black people, which have sparked conversations on anti-Blackness within academia. These initiatives do not overshadow nor compete with efforts to combat sexism, ableism, or discrimination against other underrepresented groups. Initiatives that focus on anti-Black racism simply intend to address a specific, prevalent form of racism within STEM.

Discrimination is not monolithic, and members of different racial identities experience racism in a multitude of ways [1]. As such, addressing all forms of racism at once is not always helpful. In some cases, conflating different racial groups’ experiences of racism can cause direct harm, as in the case of the “model minority” myth that has been used to drive a wedge between Black and Asian American communities [2], [3]. Instead of viewing racism one-dimensionally, we must educate ourselves on the unique experiences of different racial and ethnic groups so that we can understand their historical and modern contexts.

One factor that influences the experience of racism is colorism, a form of prejudice in which people with lighter skin are treated more preferentially than people with darker skin [4]. Colorism exists both within and across racial groups. For example, immigrants of any racial identity with lighter skin color earn more than immigrants with darker skin [5], and the resumés of lighter-skinned Black men are preferred over darker-skinned Black men [6]. Colorism illustrates the fact that white supremacy and colonialism are built on anti-Blackness. As such, anti-Blackness serves as the basis to uphold many other forms of discrimination [7].

The concept of intersectionality is also relevant to this discussion. Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how multiple aspects of one’s identity (such as race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual identity, class, culture, and age) contribute to compounding experiences of discrimination [8]. In studies of intersectional inequity, racism dominates other aspects of identity in explaining instances of discrimination [9]. This does not mean that racism is the only aspect of identity that matters, nor does it mean that race is always the most important aspect of identity in any given case. Rather, it means that race remains an important lens through which to consider the compounded and intersectional experiences of BIPOC. Thus intersectionality is not only a descriptor, but serves to both explain these ompounding experiences and to unite movements for anti-discrimination across group lines [9].

By confronting anti-Blackness, validating it, and exploring its effects, we can better understand how racism and other forms of discrimination compound to produce inequality [9]. For example, any discussion of the gender wage gap is incomplete without considering intersectionality with race. White women earn 79 cents for every dollar earned by white men, but Hispanic, Native American, and Black women earn only 54, 57, or 62 cents, respectively [10].

By ignoring how intersectionality contributes to experiences of discrimination, social justice movements can invalidate and exclude groups, while claiming to speak for the experiences of all in a particular group. This is evidenced in the women’s suffrage movement, which worked in opposition to the freedom of Black women [11], [12]. Anti-Blackness continues to influence white feminist attitudes to this day [11], [12].

To best support underrepresented scientists of all identities, it is crucial that we recognize how race drives continued marginalization and discrimination. This acknowledgement strengthens, rather than detracts from, efforts to achieve equity. In addition, in order to better address inequality, we must recognize how prejudice compounds through intersectionality and recruit voices from diverse backgrounds in diversity and equity efforts, so as not to paint individuals’ experiences with a broad brush.

References:

[1] Racial and ethnic identification, official classifications, and health disparities (Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life, 2004)

[2] ‘Model minority’ myth again used as a racial wedge between Asians and Blacks (NPR, 2017)

[3] Struggle and conformity: The white racial frame (Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism, 2016)

[4] Skin color and colorism: Global research, concepts, and measurement

(Annual Review of Sociology, 2017)

[5] Profiling the New Immigrant Worker: The Effects of Skin Color and Height (Journal of Labor Economics, 2008)

[6] Colorism in the Job Selection Process: Are there Preferential Differences within the Black Race? (Emory University, 2004)

[7] Dismantling anti-Blackness together (North American Congress on Latin America, 2020)

[8] Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color (Stanford Law Review, 1991)

[9] Intersectionality, critical race theory, and the primacy of racism: Race, class, gender, and disability in education (Qualitative Inquiry, 2015)

[10] Quantifying America’s gender wage gap by race/ethnicity (National Partnership for Women and Families, 2020)

[11] How the suffrage movement betrayed Black women (NY Times opinion, 2018)

[12] Struggling to connect: white and black feminism in the movement years

[13] Work experience: People 15 years old and over, by total money earnings, age, race, Hispanic origin, sex, and disability status (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018)

10. “Improving racial equity and inclusivity does not benefit my field as a whole.”

Diversifying our faculty will have an enormous positive impact on our fields, including benefitting everyone’s research and everyone’s students’ prospects. For example, women and scholars of color produce reliably more innovative scientific contributions, as assessed using data science techniques that measured newly-created relationships between concepts in research work (Hofstra et al., 2020). The researchers assessed almost all U.S. Ph.D. recipients across all science fields over a 38-year period. While the individuals who created this new knowledge were under-rewarded, the impactful discoveries and knowledge significantly advanced research. As another example, in an assessment of citations to law review articles over a 60-year period, those produced after a diversity policy was implemented were of demonstrably higher quality – they were cited more often (Chilton et al., 2022). The researchers included any diversity policy, from reserving seats on an editorial board for a member of a minority group to consideration of potential editors’ diversity statements. Racial equity and inclusivity have been repeatedly shown to advance fields and help all of us. After all, the research and editorial teams assessed in just these two studies included people from minority and majority groups. Everyone’s work was cited more and had more impact.

References:

Chilton, A., Driver, J., Masur, J. S., & Rozema, K. (2022). Assessing Affirmative Action's

Diversity Rationale. Columbia Law Review, 122(2).

Hofstra, B., Kulkarni, V. V., Galvez, S. M. N., He, B., Jurafsky, D., & McFarland, D. A. (2020).

The diversity–innovation paradox in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(17), 9284-9291.

Keep reading for more on this topic below, sourced from "Responses to 10 Common Criticisms of Anti-Racism in STEM"…

Racial equity in higher education is, first and foremost, a moral imperative. It is the responsibility of non-BIPOC to promote distributive justice even when it does not benefit us, or when it requires us to sacrifice the unjust benefits of our racial privilege. In addition, it is important as professionals to be aware of the policies that shape our workplaces and fields, and actively work to dismantle structures that are discriminatory or promote inequality.

As ethical scientists, we cannot tolerate the persistence of racial discrimination in our workplaces. Beyond being a moral obligation, promoting diversity and inclusion directly benefits all of STEM. Diversity fosters novel ideas, effective problem-solving, and creative solutions. Given a set of problems to solve, groups that are diverse in their demographic characteristics, ethnicities, and cultural identities outperform groups that are demographically homogeneous [1]. This is true in an academic context as well; a study of more than 1 million U.S. doctoral recipients found that students from under-represented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty [2]. Another study of more than 9 million scientific papers found that ethnic diversity of the authors strongly correlated with impact [3]. Scientific advancement cannot reach its full potential without uplifting and incorporating the work of people who have historically been silenced.

Furthermore, many of the complex global health issues that science aims to solve affect minority populations more severely. For example, Black individuals in the U.S. represent a disproportionate amount of cancer diagnoses, are more susceptible to the effects of climate change, and have suffered a disproportionate amount of deaths due to COVID-19 [4], [5], [6]. As individuals whose communities are affected by these public health crises to a greater degree, BIPOC can draw on their personal experiences to offer unique perspectives on how to address them.

a case study, one can consider climate science. Climate science and the associated environmental movement has been largely composed of white leaders [7] who have been relatively ineffective in enacting policy change [8], [9], [10]. However, a study found that Black and Hispanic people are more concerned than white people about climate change, and are more likely to join campaigns in support of climate action [11]. This may have to do with the different approaches between the academic climate change movement and the Environmental Justice (EJ) movement, which is founded by and primarily composed of BIPOC. The EJ movement traces its roots to Warren County, North Carolina, where protests sparked in response to a hazardous waste landfill being placed in the middle of a poor, majority Black town. Since then, EJ activists have identified and sought justice for the disproportionate burden of pollution, environmental degradation, and hazardous waste sites on communities of color [12].

In 1991, the EJ movement held a summit where hundreds of environmental leaders from indigenous communities and other communities of color joined to produce the founding documents of the EJ movement. This later resulted in the Clinton Administration’s establishment of the National Environmental Justice Advisory [13]. The EJ movement recognizes the current effects of environmental degradation and pollution, organizing efforts to address injustices that continue to disproportionately affect BIPOC, such as the Flint water crisis and the Keystone pipeline. While climate scientists have traditionally framed climate change through an academic and theoretical lens (focused on ice caps, weather patterns, and animal extinctions), the EJ movement frames climate change through a lens of personal impact, driven by grassroots organizing focused on addressing the effects of environmental racism on individuals and communities of color [7].

The EJ movement exemplifies why the inclusion of BIPOC in STEM is so crucial. Academics and institutions, in ignoring the experiences and opinions of the people who are most affected by these issues, may continue to perpetuate perceived solutions that do not adequately address minority community needs. More concerning yet, by ignoring present issues in representation and diversity, science may produce outputs that exclude groups or perpetuate racism in society. Examples of this range from soap dispensers which are unable to recognize the presence of darker-skinned hands [14] to artificial intelligence algorithms that perpetuate racial prejudice in the criminal justice system (discussed in response #2). A diversity of voices can help scientists to foster effective communication, design unbiased solutions, put forth just policy recommendations, and effectively recruit and engage public audiences [9].

References:

[1] Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers (PNAS, 2004)

[2] The diversity-innovation paradox in science (PNAS, 2020)

[3] The preeminence of ethnic diversity in scientific collaboration (Nature Communications, 2018)

[4] Cancer statistics for African Americans, 2019 (CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 2019)

[5] High ambient temperature and mortality: a review of epidemiologic studies from 2001 to 2008 (Environmental Health, 2009)

[6] CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) (CDC, 2020)

[7] Everybody’s movement: Environmental Justice and Climate Change

(Environmental Support Center, 2009)

[8] Diversity and the Future of the US Environmental Movement. (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, 2007)

[9] How Americans see climate change and the environment in 7 charts (Pew Research Center, 2020)

[10] A Social Trap for the Climate: Collective action, trust and climate change risk perception in 35 countries (Global Environmental Change, 2018)

[11] Race, Ethnicity, and Public Responses to Climate Change (Yale University and George Mason University, 2010)

[12] Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States (Commission for Racial Justice, 1987)

[13] Environmental Justice Timeline (US EPA)

[14] Bigotry encoded: Racial bias in technology (RIT Reporter, 2019)

By reading this webpage, you have already made a good start at better understanding equity issues at the University of California. You can find more resources in five bibliographies put together by UC Santa Cruz’s Advancing Faculty Diversity Workgroup of 2020-2021. Each paper in these bibliographies was identified and collated by your colleagues during the 2020-2021 year. The bibliographies cover (1) Top Twelve Articles, (2) Recruitment, (3) Hiring Processes, (4) Service Contributions, and (5) Retention.