Pretending we don't see race in science communication maintains inequity
Findings from a study of race-evasive ideology in science communication fellowship directors
Earlier this year, the University of Texas at Austin fired about 60 people who worked in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and closed multiple offices supporting these efforts. These firings were the university’s efforts to align with SB-17, which bans DEI initiatives in public universities in Texas. These actions are part of larger efforts to ban DEI programs in colleges across the country. Whether we want to admit it or not, these efforts to dismantle DEI programs are based in racism.
Because racism does not always look like individual meanness. It also happens when we pretend that real inequities don’t exist, like these bans do.
Phrases like “I don’t see color” or “We all belong to the human race,” while well-intentioned, actually do harm. Because we can’t pretend that everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity, has the same structural access. It just simply isn’t where we are yet. This way of thinking is known as race-evasive ideology, and it’s a lie we tell ourselves that not talking about race will further equity.
What does this have to do with science communication? A lot, actually. Race-evasive ideology is likely a huge barrier to inclusion in science communication spaces.
When we pretend science is objective and neutral, we participate in this ideology. The reality is that science is still not an equitable and accessible space. Pretending science is objective allows racist policies to persist. We can do better.
For example, science communication training programs are a key resource for scientists to gain skills and self-efficacy in communicating about their research. Unfortunately, many of these programs are not intentional about centering inclusive or equitable approaches. If we don’t explicitly talk about how racial inequities affect access to these programs, we will just maintain the status quo.
Science communication fellowships are a particular type of training that embed scientists in various society-facing outlets (e.g., media newsrooms, government offices, museums, and science festivals). In a recent study, we examined the way directors talk about diversity to see if race-evasive ideology shows up in these spaces. In 2019, we interviewed 25 directors associated with 24 U.S.-based science communication programs. We analyzed their talk for whether they talked directly about how racial inequities play a role in their program’s diversity (or not).
Unfortunately, we found race-evasive ideology pervades the discourse of science communication fellowship directors. A few directors spoke more transparently about race, but they conceptualized it in terms of culture and identity (rather than inequity and power). This “happy talk” of diversity also maintains the status quo because it does not encourage material changes.
We found the four frames of race-evasive ideology in these interviews. These frames are interpretive filters that allow us to explain away phenomena that could otherwise be understood as structural racism. These include minimization, abstract liberalism, cultural racism, and naturalization. These frames show up in often-overlapping ways, and in the paragraphs below I’ll talk about how they manifest in science communication fellowship director’s talk.
Minimization argues that racial discrimination is no longer a central factor in people's lives. When asked about the diversity of their programs, fellowship directors rarely mentioned race. The word “race” appeared only four times in the interview transcripts. But fellowship directors often talked about how they saw gender as the primary challenge in diversity in science communication.
Abstract liberalism employs the ideas of political and economic liberalism to explain away racial observations. This often manifested in how staff described their application process as meritocratic and race-neutral (e.g., “equal opportunity”). Those who mentioned racial diversity unprompted conceptualized diversity in shallow ways. This "happy talk of diversity" mentions diversity without connecting it to power or inequity. For example, some mentioned diversity as a core value but did not mention the material ways they enacted this core value.
Cultural racism includes arguments of fixed cultural differences to explain racial disparities. This frame manifested more subtly in the interviews, since no one engaged in stereotypically racist talk. But talk of “equal opportunity” in their programs (see abstract liberalism) implied a lack of interest or motivation was the only barrier to joining their programs. This blames Black and Brown scientists for their own exclusions from programs that were overrepresented with white women. Some fellowship directors did have more directly culturally racist talk. One mentioned that their program was “not a diversity program,” suggesting that expanding who participated would mean sacrificing merit, an argument often used against affirmative action.
The fourth and final frame, naturalization, explains away racial inequities as natural phenomena. This shows up commonly in directors' talk as the low diversity of their programs being “just the way that STEM is.” Throwing our hands up in this way fails to acknowledge the historical and ongoing structural racism in our fields.
What are the implications of our findings? Science communication fellowship directors with “prodiversity” views may be unintentionally reproducing white supremacy by viewing their work with a race-evasive lens. Individual-level interventions, like implicit bias trainings, are not likely to help us get beyond this. Rather, we might look beyond searching out bad actors and discriminatory actions to the ways that our ideologies might shape who is able to participate in our programs.
What can we do? We do this work not to shame or blame. Rather, we try to point out the water we are swimming in, so that we might swim against the current towards something more liberatory. I am on this journey alongside these directors. How can we transform the ways we talk about race and racism to go beyond looking for individual meanness to seeing how it shows up in our systems? How can we explicitly name these things in order to change how we are in love and accountability with one another?