Racism repair in US science tied to ‘gatekeepers’

Years of high-level expert investigation into why major racial inequities persist in US science have produced a call for strategic pressure on the structural “gatekeepers” who wield disproportionate influence over norms and resources.

The assessment, organised by the National Academies of Sciences, affirmed the role of structural racism in explaining why minority representation in scientific fields remains low.

In looking closer, however, the Academies’ panel of experts from academia and beyond called on universities and others – including private-sector employers – to methodically identify those staff positions within their organisations that hold the greatest influence over attitudes, budgets and hiring, and to create powerful new incentives that reward the people in those positions who do the most to break racial barriers.

Like anyone else in society, people in gatekeeping positions simply may not realise their internal biases and need help seeing them, said the 18-member panel, created at the request of Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, then chairman of the House science committee, after the George Floyd killing in May 2020.

Such gatekeepers “may not be able to monitor their own bias impartially, and may unwittingly perpetuate it”, the National Academies panel said.

Representative Johnson asked for a comprehensive assessment of the causes, extent and effects of racism in the fields of science and engineering, and suggestions for solutions. The National Academies – a 160-year-old group of congressionally chartered institutions that provide the government with policy-related analysis – responded early last year by creating the expert panel led by Gilda Barabino, president of the Olin College of Engineering, and Susan Fiske, professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University.

The panel’s 359-page answer to Representative Johnson affirmed the problem of racism spanning the full breadth and historical length of US society, affecting minority populations their entire lives. Focusing on gatekeeper roles in organisations, however, might be one of the more effective and realistic strategies for driving significant change, the panel argued.

The concept of gatekeepers covers a range of job positions beyond the heads of institutions, such as principal investigators, directors of laboratories and research groups, hiring managers, and the heads of human resources offices.

The expert panel’s idea, Professor Fiske said, is to expand the recognition of the well-demonstrated value of diverse teams by giving gatekeepers substantially greater incentives for forming them. A message for them to embrace and deliver to others, she said, could be: “Guys, your continued employment here depends on your being able to work with each other, because you each have things to contribute that the others don’t.”

“I wouldn’t put it as ‘penalising’,” Professor Fiske said in an interview. “I would put it as: rewarding people who can foster diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Professor Fiske acknowledged that cases such as Florida – where Governor Ron DeSantis is actively fighting efforts at expanding diversity and was just rewarded by his voters for doing so – show that her panel’s gatekeeper-based advice won’t be embraced everywhere.

And while some institutions in both the academic and corporate sector might also resist, they can make their own assessments of the accumulating evidence that diverse workforces fare better than more homogenous ones, Professor Fiske said. “If they’re smart,” she said, “they’ll pay attention.”

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com