Faculty Advancement Network
Advancing diversity & inclusion in the American professoriate

Advancing Racial Diversity, Whatever the Supreme Court Decides: Resources

Advancing Racial Diversity:
What Academic Departments Likely Can (Still) Do, Whatever the Supreme Court Decides: Resources

Workshop material

Breakout room discussions

The following notes have been curated from the “Padlet” application that Jamie Lewis Keith used to capture breakout responses. (Click here for a downloadable version.)

USING RACE SUBJECT MATTER-AWARE, IDENTITY NEUTRAL CRITERIA

  1. Student admission or faculty hiring (target of opportunity or regular)

    • Opportunities to enhance both climate and diversity

      • Prioritizing legacy admissions can harm diversity. Focusing on personal Statements can help improve diversity, distance traveled.

      • Increasing the weight of service can help diversify faculty hiring.

      • Creating programs focused on areas of scholarship for faculty recruitment could be used to help recruit from diverse backgrounds.

    • Challenges and changes needed for success

      • How are we going to educate everyone who participates in admissions processes on the new ruling? Additional pressure is also going to be put on our legal departments.

    • First steps to implement and roles to be engaged

      • Survey what initiatives exist that would need to be reviewed and perhaps amended

  2. Research support (student research funding; faculty start-up packages or seed funding)

    • Opportunities to enhance both climate and diversity

      • Offer funding for research that might not be offered at other institutions (Mellon, etc). Increasing awareness on campus, partnerships.

      • Empowering people within the community.

      • Cross-disciplinary work supported by seed funding. 5-10K - + faculty impact. mentoring.

    • Challenges and changes needed for success

      • Strong mentorship and diverse teams with different lenses.

      • Minority tax (if you identify as underrepresented, then often appointed as advocate and keeps them from progressing - seed funding might protect from this.

      • Knowledge about service activity faculty are committing to.

    • First steps to implement and roles to be engaged

      • Leadership commitment.

      • Mentoring - structure, value, expectation.

      • Staff in place to support the process.

      • Practical examples of mentoring success during hiring process.

      • Transparency - clarity on expectations and documentation on how people receiving support are progressing.

  3. Mentoring, professional development, and training (for faculty or students)

    • Opportunities to enhance both climate and diversity

      • If mentoring and professional development programs are expanded with input and inclusion of diverse faculty with a view on equity, and are available for all faculty, irrespective of rank.

      • Opportunity to engage with people who are truly committed.

      • May increase motivation for all to gain better mentoring skills that could benefit mentees.

    • Challenges and changes needed for success

      • How to engage people who are unwilling to grow or lean in to inclusive culture.

      • How to evaluate our offerings for intent and impact.

      • The ability to tailor/ advertise professional development programs to those that need it more.

      • Help leaders pace themselves and their energy to do the work.

      • Clear explanation of criteria--get questions on how to assess true engagement and knowledge.

    • First steps to implement and roles to be engaged

      • Sort faculty into knowledge/commitment levels to address groups 'where they are'; including ignoring individuals who are impediments during early onboarding.

      • Define clear outcomes/goals; what are the inputs and outputs.

OBSERVATIONS IN CHAT

  • “The problem is the assumption that merit can be objectively ranked, from best to worst. And that admissions and appointments should be based on this ranking. Thus, it a person of color is admitted or appointed ahead of a white person who claims objectively to have greater merit, we conclude that the white person was discriminated against. Redefining merit does not seem a promising endeavor for this reason.”

    • “… and on the other side of the same coin “merit” seems to be defined by majority white wealthy faculty as “having had the same experiences I have had when I was at this stage in my training” which overlooks the value of character traits and strengths that are developed in the challenges minorities face.”

  • “Inventive way to promote and enable inclusion: Ensure "requirements" listed in job descriptions are actually requirements. Many times job descriptions contain many items that are preferential or "nice to haves." There are studies supporting that women are less likely to apply to positions where they meet all but one criteria while men are more likely to apply to jobs for which they meet far less of the requirements. By ensuring job descriptions only list true requirements as requirements, you enlarge the pool of qualified applicants and have a better shot at diversity.How to increase representation on search committees without overburdening the same small group of faculty?”

ORGANIZATIONS OFFERING SUPPORT FOR INCLUSIVE EVALUATIONS OF “MERIT”

Key publications cited

Publications and resources referenced in this workshop will be posted here.

  • Diversity & The Law 2021: Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, EducationCounsel and AAAS provided updated resources to support student and faculty DEI efforts (with different legal regimes). Use this PDF as a “launching pad” for resources like:

    • “Neutral Strategies Guides” for faculty and for students;

    • a model charter for a multi-office DEI team;

    • customizable DEI statements and survey questions;

    • sample target of opportunity policies;

    • and more.

  • The Playbook, 2nd Ed. (2019), by EducationCounsel with the College Board, includes scholarship models using race-aware experience/service/commitment (pp. 33-34). See for example:

    • McQuown Scholarship Program (University of Florida);

    • Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program (University of Florida, University of Arizona, University of Idaho, North Carolina State University, and Cornell University); 

    • Cousins Scholars Program (University of Georgia)

    • … keeping in mind that design elements for undergraduate scholarship programs can be adapted to graduate programs.

  • A Communications Primer (2020), by EducationCounsel with the College Board and the American Council on Education (ACE).

Differing perspectives on the pending Supreme Court case

Several organizations have already hosted thoughtful discussions on this topic, but focused more on undergraduate admissions or other aspects of these cases. We recommend these related recordings for information and inspiration not shared during our workshop: