Talking about Race and Inequity in Science - Guide for Faculty

It is important to think about and recognize your own biases and how those biases may impact how you show up in the space.

Resources to get you started:

• Implicit Bias - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Implicit Bias: Scientific Foundations
• Reducing Implicit Bias Through Curricular Interventions

It is crucial to maintain the integrity of Black and historically marginalized individuals’ experiences and voices, and to do this throughout the conversation and continuously as part of your lab’s culture. It takes a lot of energy for Black and historically marginalized individuals to be open about their experiences and to speak from their hearts, especially when they may fear the consequences of doing so.

Therefore, it is imperative that you acknowledge and celebrate their experiences. You may also consider ways that your team can better understand the moral principles that guide one another through important conversations.

It takes courage to 1) be vulnerable, 2) be open to feedback, and 3) really listen.

1. Courage is necessary for all involved in the conversation, but the vulnerabilities will vary among your team members. Don’t assume what those vulnerabilities may be, but also do not force people to share those vulnerabilities if they are not ready. Instead, aim to create a safe environment where everyone feels safe to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable may mean that one is willing to make mistakes in front of others. Making mistakes is part of the learning process, but you have to set the tone that mistakes are okay, so long as we learn from those mistakes and grow. You can demonstrate vulnerability by being willing to facilitate these conversations while acknowledging that you too make mistakes and have room to grow. **There are important things to consider when certain mistakes are made to avoid inflicting more harm on others involved (See section below.)**
2. Feedback can be difficult, because it is far too easy for feedback to be perceived as a personal critique. It is one thing to say you are open to feedback and another thing to receive feedback with grace. If you feel yourself reacting personally to feedback, try to take a step back and critically examine why you may be reacting personally. It is okay to say, “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” or “Can you tell me more about that?” One strategy you could give your team is to use “I language.” (for example, “when x happened, I felt...,” or “when you do x, I feel...”).
3. Listening is not the same as hearing. Active listening is “a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker and improves mutual understanding without debate or judgement.”¹ It can be hard to not think about how you want to respond to each point someone makes, but it is important that you signal to the speaker that what they have to say is more important than you being able to respond along the way. Active listening does not mean you can’t speak at all. At times, you may need to ask questions of the speaker to help you understand where they are coming from or what they mean by something.

¹ Speaking Truth and Acting with Integrity: Confronting Challenges of Campus Racial Climate. Kezar et al. American Council on Education, 2018.

These conversations are necessary to build trust among colleagues and to promote healing for historically marginalized individuals. Trust is earned and it takes work. By having these important conversations, you are signaling to your team that these are things you value. Signaling your values and doing the work to integrate them into your lab culture can be very powerful.

This is an important piece that can become lost. It is critical to acknowledge others’ experiences, even if it is not your own personal experience. Consider verbally acknowledging what someone has shared by asking them questions to keep the conversation going, or by simply thanking them for what they shared.

Honing and integrating the above qualities – awareness of biases, integrity, courage, vulnerability, trust, and affirmation – will enable you to lead important conversations.

Open the discussion by providing context for why you think this discussion is important. This is your opportunity to set the tone for the discussion, to ensure that people are aware that these conversations can be tough and uncomfortable, but they are important to have. It is okay to admit your own limits here and make it clear that you are still committed to engaging in conversation in order to better understand these topics and to make progress in the lab or with your research team. 

You may want to set group expectations about what is okay and what is not okay during a group discussion (encouraging all voices to be heard, understanding your privilege and its role in the conversation, respecting all group members, affirming everyone’s personal experiences and unique points of view).

Consider the advice Dr. Carlos Hoyt provides: "It has to be okay to not have come to know, but we must not let it be okay to refuse to grow" - meaning: during conversations like these, we may come to learn things that we were never aware of. We must be willing to acknowledge our blind spots and then commit to learn and grow. Setting an expectation like this creates a safe environment in which we admit what we do not know, while allowing us to feel supported in our subsequent growth.

Adopt a backwards-design approach: identify the intended goal; think about how you will know if you've reached your goal; then, determine what you need to do in order to get there together. State your goal(s) for the lab or research team, as well as identify your and their desired outcomes of the conversation.

• As a supervisor/manager of the lab, you have some degree of obligation/freedom to define what you want for your lab moving forward.
• Goal(s) should surround (DEI) - but you should prepare for these conversations by thinking through what you want diversity, equity, and inclusion to look like in the context of your lab. Note: you will likely need to do some research on your own. You can get started with this resource:
  • Principles of Inclusion, Diversity, Access, and Equity
• The lab or research team needs to buy-in and agree to it. It has to come from both directions – leadership and members.

Have the lab/research team discuss and agree on how they will all work to meet these goals for the lab/research team. (Someone take notes during this part.)

Questions to help guide the discussion:

• What does it mean to be inclusive?
• What do you think it means when inclusivity is not implied to all, when all are not explicitly told that they are welcome in a space?
• What does inclusivity look like for your lab or research team (behaviors, physical space, how feedback is given and received)?
• What are you going to do as a lab or team to start fostering inclusivity?
• What do you need to do in order to maintain a culture of inclusivity - and how do you keep it going? (See next section for tips.)

Summarize the agreements you reach. Work as a group - then and there - to review and modify the agreement, adding in details as you see fit.

• Put it in writing!
• Make it readily accessible for all current and future team members.
• Signal that this work is important by coming back to the agreements with your team to assess how you’ve done and what you’ve learned as a team that can help you refine or add to your agreements.

Thank your team members for being willing to prioritize a culture of inclusivity with you. Thank them for their patience as you go through this work together and for being brave enough to start this work.

When someone says something that you are unsure how to respond to, or that you think might be troubling for someone else in your group, ask the speaker to explain more or expand on their thoughts. This helps to address the statement, while allowing everyone there to understand more of the context and intention.

• “What do you mean by that?”
• “Can you expand on that more?”
• “What leads you to say that?”
• “Can you help me understand what you meant by what you just shared?”

Resources:

• Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders

Someone might not intend to offend anyone by something they say or do, but their words and actions can still inflict harm on others. Many microaggressions are not intended to be demeaning or offensive; they may be well-intentioned, but misdirected. Sometimes the person is just not aware of their biases, and they may not understand the profound impact their words/actions have on others. People often want to clarify that what they said or did was not meant to be harmful, and thus focus on the intention instead of the impact. A focus on intention can be interpreted as avoidance of responsibility and a denial of the lived experiences of others.

Regardless of intent, the impact is very real and valid. The experience of the impact needs to be addressed.

Not intending harm does not absolve someone of their responsibility for that harm; rather, acknowledging the impact - despite good intentions - can begin a powerful conversation that rebuilds trust, embraces vulnerability, and celebrates growth and understanding.

"When talking about race and racism, explaining your intention may be received as explaining away your action or as an effort to assuage guilt. Prioritize honoring another's experience of the impact of your words or actions. Regard feedback about racism as an opportunity to engage in self-reflection. Express gratitude for the effort and courage it took to provide you this feedback."  - Anti-Racism and Race Literacy: A Primer and Toolkit for Medical Educators, Differences Matter, UCSF School of Medicine

Possible phrases to use when confronting microaggressions with the intent/impact framework:

• "While I did not intend to cause you harm by what I said, it is clear to me that harm was caused. I am sorry for that and I want to learn how to avoid something like this in the future. Can you help me to understand the impact that what I said had on you?”
• “Perhaps [person] did not intend to offend anyone when they [did action], but I want to point out that [action] can be very offensive and I want us to be able to address it here and now.”
• “I was really hurt when [person] said [microaggression]. I want to assume good intent in this situation – that [person] did not intend to say something that would be hurtful – but I want to explain why [what was said] is hurtful.”

Resources:

• Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders

• Not responding to or acknowledging instances of harm during the conversation
• Denying people’s experiences of racism and discrimination by questioning whether it really happened and using language that invalidates their experience
• Acknowledging people’s experiences but not asking questions or showing a willingness to continue the conversation
• Not recognizing the long, horrific history of racism and the deep pain this causes (see "The Case for Reparations" below)
• Tone-policing (see "Research Brief: An Interview with Robin DiAngelo about 'White Fragility'" below)

Resources:

• The Case for Reparations
• Anti-Racism Toolkit
• Research Brief: An Interview with Robin DiAngelo about "White Fragility"
• Anti-Racism and Race Literacy: A Primer and Toolkit for Medical Educators

As you prepare for important conversations, it's important to think through how you plan to keep the conversations going in a way that works for you and your team. As a supervisor/manager, how do you express what you need from your team members? How can you remain receptive to hearing and addressing their needs? Consider some of the suggestions below, but work with your team to establish what will work for all of you.

• Entire lab or team goes to future DEI campus events when they happen, followed by a team discussion.
• Integrate these conversations into regular team meetings, or designate future times to meet and discuss. Be careful to not let this work become separate from the science being done by your team members.
• Schedule a second meeting with your team one month after the initial conversation to see how things felt and how things are going.
• Establish a yearly/half yearly group meeting to revisit shared agreements and expectations that your team creates during your initial meeting.

As you welcome new team members into your lab, you will need to bring them into these conversations. Recognize the power differential that may lead a new graduate student or postdoc to feel uneasy.  Try to anticipate barriers to engaging in this work and be explicit with new team members about your expectations.

• Create a "Welcome to the Lab" letter that includes your team's agreements/expectations
• Consider how you will talk about this work when people are interviewing to join your team

Ask for feedback on what team members may want, remembering to not rely on underrepresented members to have all the answers but also to listen when they do make a suggestion.

Consider that an "open-door policy" is often not as "open" as you may think it is.

If you want to ask for specific feedback, be mindful to plan out what you want to know, how you're going to ask for that feedback in an inclusive way, and what you are going to do with that feedback. Don't ask for feedback if you're not willing to implement that feedback into actual change.