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What they've taken and what they can never take away

Gains in equity and access can happen without DEI-targeted funding.

Apr 21

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The bad guys are making quick work of dismantling infrastructure for the promotion of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, justice, representation, and all that other good stuff. After ransacking NIH, they just got to NSF, where they have just pulled the plug on many currently funded projects that are designed to broaden representation and address disinformation.

This is bad. It’s really bad. Yes, we need to speak out, we need our institutions and representatives to fight this.

I’m seeing and indirectly feeling the impact of these cuts, as projects that I’m involved with have just been zeroed out, and as our leadership has intended, the ones who get the most hurt are the ones in the most vulnerable positions. The bad guys are having success and depriving opportunites being offered to people with identities that have historically (and are still currently) excluded from fully joining our scientific communities.

While I don’t want to understate how bad these things are, and how the bad guys have given themselves a big win, I also think that there is a lot that they have not taken from us, that there is a lot that they cannot take from us.

image of a walkway on a university that is being blocked with yellow caution tape

For example, they’re bullying institutions into closing down their institutional DEI offices. In my visits to institutions big and small, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with and learn from the people who run these DEI offices for a living. Many of them have a clear vision for how we need to move forward, are driven by clearly articulated principles, and some of them even have a little bit of budget. But you know what? I think most institutional DEI offices haven’t been that successful at moving the needle within their own institutions. The people who run these offices have lot of access to people but little to no authority to implement actual changes in policy or budgetary allocations. They are places of support for people who are in tight spots, but are they changing the composition of our institutions and transforming us into places that are equitable? Heck no. I imagine everybody in these offices will be the first ones to tell you that. The goal of these offices is to be so effective that they get put out of existence, to make access such a thing across the instittuion that they no longer have a job to do. Nonetheless, every univeristy ~~has~~ had some version of a DEI office because every university sees the need for it, based on all of the inequitable stuff that happens on campus.

So yes, we are losing DEI offices. But in losing these offices, what does this loss look like? We’re losing the people and the places in the institution that have been charged with promoting the work that we all need to be doing infused throughout all of work. I am heartbroken and concerned about people losing their jobs and funding for specific projects getting pulled with trainees being deprived of opportuniites designed for them. But in terms of institutional transformation and the long arc of progress within institutions to promote DEI? Proximately losing these offices feels like a relative blip. If your institution was relying on your DEI office to make progress, then were you really making any progress?

As for losing external funding to do DEI work, this sucks. In the short term, we’re seeing students and faculty having the rug pulled out from underneath them, real people getting cut out right after they’ve just been let in. For those of us who did the work writing the grants and implementing projects that were designed to leverage federal funds targeting equity and access challenges, this is a waste not only of our effort but also a setback in progress.

However, I think nearly all of the good stuff to come out of federally funded projects that are designed to address DEI issues can still happen without these targeted funds. In fact, we need it to happen, regardless of these targeted funds. I don’t mean to minimize these losses. I also would like to point out that as long as equity work is concentrated in grants designed for this purpose, we won’t be making the systemic structural progress that is needed. Genuine progress on DEI means that equity and representation is in the DNA of all of the work that we do — that we are making a point

When federal agencies are telling us that they won’t fund projects that feature DEI, this doesn’t mean that we can’t do DEI! All of the DEI work that we do cooks down to two things, and they can’t stop us from doing either of those two things.

First, DEI involves being deliberate about the people and institutions you work with. You can still be just as deliberate at the level of your own lab, your own department, and who you collaborate with, who you recruit, and so on. What some people see as “DEI” is what other people see as business as usual. For example, one friend at another university praised my colleague for their highly effective work in mentoring URM [underrepresented minority] undergraduates. I think I guffawed at the moment. Yes, he was really good at mentoring URM students. That’s because he was good with students in our department, and our institution is 10% white. Where I work, and where many many of us work, being an effective mentor to minoritized scientists is simply what happens when you mentor the students who are in your own institution. If you’re working in a PWI [primarily white institution], then you’ve got to have some more intentionality about who you collaborate with, who you recruit, and so on. You don’t need to call it DEI on your grants to do this!

Second, DEI involves using practices that support success for everybody. YOU CAN DO THIS WITHOUT CALLING IT DEI!!! Think about how your institution recruits students and faculty, how they get supported while they are there, how people are trained to mentor, how prior opportunity is taken into account, how resources are allocated towards professional development. If you do this stuff well in a way that works for people with different identities and different backgrounds, then you’re doing DEI. Even if you don’t call it that.

We all just took a big hit in that they’re pulling funds from projects that were explicitly designed to address DEI issues. I’m furious and sad and worried. But it didn’t take me long to look around me and realize that some of the most effective people doing DEI work weren’t “doing DEI work.” They’re just excellent mentors, do things equitably and fairly, support institutional transparency, and all that.

Let’s pour one out, pick our heads up, take big steps to support the people just got kicked,nd get back to the work. Infuse justice and equity into everything we do, which is what we everbody should have been doing anyway. The bad guys are demanding that nobody get privileged access to support and resources? Okay, let’s get to it and build science for everyone.

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