Allyship for racial equity is a lifelong journey that starts with you

Introduction

When Carter G. Woodson, the Black historian refered to as the Father of Black History, launched Negro History Week in 1926, he understood that the celebration of African American history and scholarship could not just be a one-week act. Instead, he insisted that the goal should be “studying the Negro throughout the school year, for thirty-six weeks rather than one week.” More than half a century later, historian and best-selling author of How to be Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi echoes Woodson’s call that unlearning the racism deeply embedded in our culture is a life-long, iterative process: “Being antiracist is not a destination but a journey—one that takes deliberate, consistent work.” Fifty years apart, these calls emphasize the reality that a month-long celebration or short reading list are important starts, but not enough to make meaningful change. True transformation is not a sprint–it is a marathon, a journey. 

This is the main charge of How to Lead Your Company as a True Ally, an article providing recommendations for leaders seeking to become true allies in their own workplace. After Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd in May 2020, countless corporations including Amazon and Wal-Mart put out statements in solidarity with Black Americans. “I appreciate your Black Lives Matter post,” diversity consultant executive, Brickson Diamond, responded, “Now follow that up with a picture of your senior management team and your board.” This challenge highlights the reality that Black representation among executives is still alarmingly low, negative racial bias prevents Black applicants from getting jobs, and microaggressions and differential treatment at work inhibit Black employees’ ability to succeed. Until corporate leaders make substantive changes to address these grave disparities, any solidarity posts remain performative at best.

Based on the acute need for more accountable and reflective allyship, a team of researchers and practitioners at Stanford Graduate School of Business developed the 7-day Anti-Racism and Allyship Journey, a free online resource that helps leaders put allyship into real action. They have broken down this journey to allyship into three simple steps: education, reflection and action. This resource is particularly helpful for white people for engaging in racial equity and in building an accountable racial identity, and also a tool for Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Methods and Findings

The authors provide further detail behind the three steps you can take to put allyship into practice:

1. Learn. It is important to root yourself within a historical context. The authors suggest watching this 18-minute video to initiate understanding and spark allyship.
2. Reflect. Interrogate your own experiences and biases: what impact has race had on your life? Why do you think that is the case? How does talking about race and racism make you feel? When are you least equipped to engage in conversations about race?
3. Act. Resources like Race Card Project and Racial Equity Playbook can help facilitate your active engagement.

Conclusions

True allyship requires action. That action must be a priority for leaders because an inclusive work culture is critical to equitably supporting all colleagues. And while it may be tempting to issue only forward looking statements, achieving that equity requires acknowledgement that the barriers of the past live on in the obstacles of the present. This is why leaders, especially white ones, must recognize that business as usual is not enough. True allies must commit to the personal and professional work necessary to chart a new path into the future.

Busting the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Introduction

School discipline policies and practices disproportionately affect Black students, who are more likely to be suspended or expelled compared to their white peers. Studies have shown that these disciplinary disparities are linked to levels of racial bias, and reflect disproportionate use of such practices on Black students. Black students are then differentially processed for school suspension, law enforcement referrals, and expulsion. This process, with a nod to its tenets of harm and racialized control, is known as the school-to-prison pipeline.

A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Denver and practitioners from Denver Public Schools worked together to better understand how racial disparities in school discipline played out in Denver, Colorado. They wanted to know why racial gaps in discipline persisted, despite policy reforms that lowered suspension and expulsion rates by almost forty percent in Denver Public Schools. Specifically, the researchers sought to answer two questions: does race independently contribute to students’ risk of office discipline referrals, suspensions, law enforcement referrals, and/or expulsions; and do behavior contracts, in-school suspension, and restorative approaches protect students from out-of-school suspension and expulsion?

Methods and Findings

The researchers found that, indeed, Black, Latino and multiracial students were punished more harshly than white students for the same offenses, and that restorative approaches aimed at repairing harm, such as group dialogue and conflict mediation, reduce the likelihood of students receiving out-of-school suspension and expulsion.

Sampling over 87,000 Denver Public Schools students in Kindergarten through 12th Grade during the 2011-12 academic school year, the researchers investigated the relationship between factors that might lead to office referrals, suspensions, law enforcement referrals, and expulsion; and factors that might protect students from exclusionary disciplinary action. They found:

In office disciplinary referrals

• Latino, Black, Native American, and multiracial students had significantly higher odds of receiving office referrals compared to white students.
• Boys, students eligible for free and reduced lunch, homeless students, students in special education, and students with serious emotional disabilities all had significantly higher odds of receiving an office referral.
• Office referrals, or adults perceptions of students misbehavior, was the strongest predictor of exclusionary disciplinary sanctions

In out-of-school suspensions

• Only Black and multiracial students had significantly higher odds of suspension compared to white students.
• Boys, students in special education, students with serious emotional disabilities, students placed on behavior contracts, and students referred to law enforcement had significantly higher odds of suspension.
• Compared to students with non-serious discipline referrals (i.e., damaging school property), students with serious discipline referrals (i.e., third degree assault) had higher odds of being suspended.

In law enforcement referrals

• Black and Latino students had significantly greater odds of police involvement in their disciplinary incidents, regardless of the seriousness of their behavior.

In expulsions

• Students in middle school, and students involved in serious incidents such as first degree assault or possession of a dangerous weapon, had increased odds of being expelled.

Related to protective factors 

• Students who participated in restorative approaches to deal with their actions or received in-school suspension had lower odds of out-of-school suspension.

On the role of district-level policy

• Because students’ risk of suspension, law enforcement referral, and expulsion increased as the severity of their actions did, it suggests that a grid or list of offenses, consequences, and interventions can have a positive influence on disciplinary school practices compared to zero tolerance policies which punish students harshly regardless of offence and have been shown to be less effective.

Conclusions

Students of color are often punished more harshly in school than white students for the same behavior. To eliminate racial disparities in school discipline, the authors call for the design, testing, and implementation of preventive interventions that target the root cause of the disparities: racial bias in teacher and office referrals, and administrator processing. Such bias is rooted in deeply entrenched beliefs and ideologies that frame Black and other historically racially marginalized students as threats. “In light of these findings,” the researchers write, “efforts to reduce the use of exclusionary discipline sanctions in schools should target the attitudes and behaviors of school staff, not only those of students.” They also suggest that restorative practices, such as group dialogue and conflict mediation, are important pathways to repair harm and support students.

A Framework for Decentering Whiteness in “Professional” Standards

Introduction

In the midst of widescale evidence of natural-hair discrimination in the workplace and in schools, some states, in 2019, began to outlaw this form of discrimination. There is the story of the Black student who was told to cut his hair or he would not be allowed to graduate, and another of a Black woman who had her job offer revoked because her hairstyle violated company policy. Informed by white supremacy, policies and professional norms like these cultivate negative workplace environments for historically minoritized groups. How can we begin to think through the subtle and systemic ways that workplace culture prevents Black and brown people from thriving?

Asya Gray provides an overview of how workplace professional standards privilege white, Western, and native English speakers. She cites implicit bias; the proliferation of media images that equate whiteness and leadership; the preferencing of Western or white-sounding names; the myth of “cultural fit” that privileges whiteness; discrimination against non-native English speakers; people who deserve to be promoted but never are; discriminatory hiring metrics such as resumes; discriminatory evaluation processes; and beliefs about timeliness that prioritize productivity over people. The list of these factors is long but in this article, Asya Gray strives to provide a framework for working through them.

Aysa Gray is the Fellowship Director for the Center for Ethnic, Racial and Religious Understanding (CERRU) at Queens College, where she engages college students on how implicit bias impacts their ability to fight for justice and to advocate on behalf of the historically marginalized.

Methods and Findings

According to Gray, the first step in creating an equitable workplace is accepting and appreciating the culture, experiences, and knowledge of your employees. Doing so requires a decentering of whiteness in professionalism standards. Four questions to help think through this include:

1. What is your personal relationship with “professional” standards in your workplace?
2. How do these standards unfold in your workplace? How have you contributed?
3. How have these standards been challenged at the organizational or individual level?
4. Who can be an ally in changing your workplace culture around professionalism?

Gray has also developed a framework for equitable workplace professionalism standards:

• Seek out facilitators to lead discussions about implicit bias and white supremacy in professional, managerial, and workplace cultures.
• One-off trainings or workshops cannot undo years of inequity.
• Collaborate with consultants who specialize in white supremacy culture to create human resource policies, practices, and procedures that, at the very least: embrace diversity in dress, speech, and work style; re-evaluate the tenets of workplace success including timeliness, scheduling, leadership style, and work style; center historically marginalized voices in assessments; and re-examine hiring, firing, and promotion practices.
• This work is not cheap nor is it quick.

Conclusions

Gray makes it clear that perceptions of white supremacy should not be limited to the actions of violent white nationalist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys. White supremacy also includes “professional” practices that institutionalize whiteness and Westerness as superior universal standards. Racial equity demands that organizations re-evaluate their understanding of professionalism, and in doing so, work to better understand systemic racism. Gray calls for readers to decenter whiteness in workplace norms and also spotlights organizations including Anti Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA), Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFED), Sustainable Economies Law Center (SELC), and Mondragon, that are transforming workplaces into more inclusive spaces where Black and brown employees can openly express their humanity.

Off The Hook

Introduction

As recent as 2015, implicit bias has dominated our national conversation around racism and discrimination. It’s been said, ​for example​, that implicit bias is what led officer Betty Shelby to shoot Terrance Crutcher, an unarmed Black man, in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2016. When less lethal acts of discrimination occur in schools and in the workplace, often the first solution school and business leaders rely on is implicit bias trainings. ​For example​, after a Starbucks employee called police on two Black men waiting at a table, the CEO shut down 8,000 stores to hold racial bias trainings.

Might there be consequences associated with attributing discrimination to implicit, rather than explicit, bias? Researchers Natalie Daumeyer, Ivuoma Onyeador, Xanni Brown, Jennifer Richeson have discovered this to be the case. Across four studies, they found that the cost of attributing acts of discrimination by doctors and police officers to implict, rather, than explcit bias, is less accountability for discriminatory behavior and beliefs. They find that people show less willingness to support disciplinary action and reform.

Natalie Daumeyer is a doctoral candidate in social psychology at Yale University, where she studies the consequences of attributing bias to implicit versus explicit bias. Ivuoma Onyeador is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Her research broadly explores how people perceive identity-based discrimination and inequality. Xanni Brown is a doctoral candidate in social psychology at Yale University, where she studies intergroup relations, specifically how people come to understand and react to threats to racial hierarchy. Jennifer Richeson is the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology at Yale University where she studies a wide array of psychological phenomena related to cultural diversity, including how people experience diversity and respond to inequality.

Methods and Findings

In the first set of studies, participants were asked to read a news article about research that found patterns of discriminatory behavior by doctors toward their patients based on their political attitudes and beliefs. The news article also included information about whether that behavior was due to doctors’ implicit or explicit attitudes. For example, participants read that doctors spent less time with, and acted more aggressively towards, patients who engaged in politicized health behaviors they had biases against, such as gun ownership and recreational marijuana use. After reading those particular documents, participants then reported the degree to which they believed doctors should be held accountable, their concern about the bias, and support for reform and punishment. The researchers found:

• Participants who read that doctors’ actions were due to their implicit bias–that they had no conscious knowledge they were treating patients differently based on their political attitudes and beliefs–held them less accountable for their actions, were less likely to support punishment, and showed less concern about the bias compared to the explicit bias condition.

In the next study, using the same procedure as before but now with discrimnation based on ageism, the researchers upped the ante. They wanted to investigate whether participants hold doctors accountable if they know that their biased views about their older patients led to their premature death. They found:

• Even when doctors’ discrimination led to the premature death of their elderly patients, they were held less accountable if they were said to be unaware of their ageist beliefs.
• Participants in this implicit bias condition also expressed less support for punishing doctors and for reform efforts, and also demonstrated less concern about the bias.

In the final study, the researchers transitioned from medicine to law enforcement. They wanted to explore whether attributing racially unjust police interactions to implicit, rather than explicit, bias led to reductions in perceived police culpability. Given the hypervisibility and sensitivity of the topic, they also wondered whether the degree to which participants’ concern about seeming racially prejudiced might influence their response, and whether or not they would support discipline and reform at the individual or institutional level. The researchers found:

• Participants in the implicit bias condition who read that police officers with greater racial bias acted more aggressively and were more likely to handcuff racially minoritized individuals as compared to white individuals, held officers less accountable.

• Participants who were highly internally motivated to respond to situations without prejudice held officers more accountable, and were more likely to support disciplining individual police officers ​and p​olice departments, and were also more likely to support reform efforts at the department-level.
• Those in the explicit bias condition who were highly internally motivated to respond without prejudice expressed greater support for holding police departments accountable and also expressed more support for reform efforts for individual officers than those in the implicit bias condition.

Conclusions

When people believe discriminatory acts come from implicit bias, rather than explicit bias, they hold the perpetrator less accountable. In discussing the implications of these findings, the researchers are clear that they are ​not​ saying we should move our focus from implicit bias to explicit bias. In fact, they say the opposite.

The researchers believe the rise of implicit bias in the public sphere is important, but conclude that it’s time to have more nuanced conversations about the concept. For example, instead of describing implicit bias as unconscious or uncontrollable–they cite research that shows people do have some ability to detect their implicit biases–we should instead focus our attention on how perceiving discrimination as implicit bias makes people less likely to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. Further, they emphasize how it is possible for people to override their implicitly held attitudes and beliefs, in addition to developing policies and procedures that push back against the impact of implicit bias on our actions, such as the creation of diversity task forces and the hiring of full-time diversity staff.

The researchers suggest that we now better understand how implicit bias causes harm and reproduces inequality, and it should motivate us to address it both structurally and institutionally. “[T]he more widely-known implicit bias becomes,” the researchers conclude, “the more people (and relevant institutions) can and should be held accountable for its effects.” Once we know better we should do better.

Putting Racial and Socioeconomic Equity at the Center of Education Policy

Introduction

The 1990’s was a watershed moment in American education reform. Prior to the start of the decade, in 1983, the newly formed National Commission on Excellence in Education produced a scathing 52-page report titled ​A Nation at Risk t​hat charged American education with mediocrity and lack of international competitiveness. If ​A Nation at Risk w​as a report card, America’s grade on education was an F. To get a better grade, the report concluded, America needed to raise its academic standards and hold schools accountable for student performance.

After the publication of ​A Nation at Risk​, many states raised performance standards and used high-stakes testing to hold schools accountable. However, states did not consider whether this performance-focused accountability mandate promoted or hindered racial and socioeconomic equity. Although these mandates may narrow achievement gaps* by ​motivating under-performing students and schools to improve achievement, ​gaps could widen without adequate support and equity in school resources. Education researchers Jaekyung Lee and Kenneth K. Wong, two recognized leaders in accountability and equity in U.S. education, sought to answer the question: Were states’ accountability policies of the 1990’s able to improve the achievement of historically marginalized students and make school resources more equitable?

Jaekyung Lee, PhD, is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Buffalo. He is also a ​Richard P. Nathan Public Policy Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute of Government ​and a​ fellow of the American Educational Research Association​. ​His primary areas of focus include educational policy for accountability and equity, and international and comparative education. ​Kenneth K. Wong ​is the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair for Education Policy, and Professor of Urban Studies, International and Public Affairs, and Political Science Brown University. He is also the director of the Urban Education Policy Program at Brown. His research focuses on the politics of education and outcome-based accountability, among other education-related topics.

*The language surrounding achievement in education has shifted since this paper was published in 2004. Once referred to as ‘achievement gap,’ the disparities observed in achievement between racially and socioeconomically minoritized and majoritized groups is now called the ‘opportunity gap’ to reflect that inequitable distribution of resources and opportunities are better determinants of achievement.

Methods and Findings

The researchers analyzed the role of educational accountability policies and the relationship they have with the racial and socioeconomic distribution of school resources and math achievement. They classified 50 states into either a strong accountability or weak accountability group to assess the impact of the states’ accountability policies on improving and equalizing math learning outcomes, specifically for minoritized students. States with strong accountability policies used school ratings, offered rewards for successful schools, and made major modifications for underperforming schools, while states with weak accountability did not take these measures. They found:

●  Significant racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps in 1992 that did not change with time, and were poorly associated to states’ accountability policies

●  No significant difference between the accountability of strong and weak states in their impact on school resources such as per-pupil spending, class size, and qualified teachers

●  Strong accountability states’ policies were positively related to gains in math achievement, but the effects were insignificant when other factors were taken into account

●  School resources had a positive effect on the change in the Hispanic-White achievement gap, but these same results were not significant when states’ demographic factors were taken into account

●  States’ math achievement is significantly associated with school resources

Conclusions

The researchers found no evidence that accountability policies of the 90’s significantly improved school resources nor did it significantly change the distribution of student achievement in math. Although the researchers found no evidence of negative impacts of accountability policy on equity in educational resources or student achievement, this is hardly a compliment. The authors posed the results of the study as a challenge to states: while accountability policies did not hurt adequacy or equity in schooling conditions, they didn’t lead to improvements either. Adopting high-stakes testing was not related to changes in racial and socioeconomic gaps nor equality of resource allocations.

Accountability practices such as adopting high-stakes tests, with an exclusive emphasis on performance outcomes and disregard for resource allocation issues, lack of support for school improvement, and limited attention to achievement gap issues, will fall short of achieving racial and socioeconomic equity. Accountability policies need to maintain a balance between state pressure and allocation of support to make movement on equity. The researchers are clear on this: given that states’ adoption of high-stakes testing policies was not related to changes in the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps or to changes in the equality of resource allocations, racial socioeconomic equity should be at the core of accountability policies. Doing so would properly address the real problem: gaps in ​opportunity​ experienced by racially and socioeconomically minoritized groups.

A Prejudice Habit-Breaking Intervention for Reducing Implicit Racial Bias

Introduction

“Implicit bias is like the smog that hangs over a community,” ​Hidden Brain​ podcast host Shankar Vedantam said on an episode about implicit racial bias. “It becomes the air people breathe.” Indeed, like air, implicit racial bias and discrimination is everywhere, and has been linked to poorer health and success outcomes for historically marginalized groups. To mitigate these effects, social scientists have developed and empirically tested interventions to reduce bias. Such efforts have led to the development of bias-reduction strategies such as taking the perspective of out-group members and imagining counter-stereotypes, but too often the results are short-lived. The effects of some bias-reduction interventions only last up to 24 hours, and the participants of these studies are only using the strategies because the experimenters are asking them to. Might there be a way to reduce bias that engages intentional effort in service of long-term change?

Researchers Patricia Devine, Patrick Forscher, Anthony Austin, and William Cox​ ​have proven so. They developed an intervention whose underlying assumption is that implicit bias is like a habit that can be broken through a combination of self-awareness, concern about the harmful effects of bias and intentional use of strategies to reduce them. They found that participants of this intervention had reductions in implicit bias up to eight weeks after the intervention, increased self-awareness of bias and concerns about the impact of bias on others. These results make the researchers hopeful that reducing bias for positive outcomes is possible.

Patricia Devine is the Kenneth and Mamie Clark Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and director of the Prejudice and Intergroup Relations Lab. Her research focuses on prejudice and intergroup relationships. Patrick Forscher is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Co-Regulation (CORE) Lab, a group focused on the study co-regulation in romantic relationships and social thermoregulation. Anthony Austin, MPP, is a Health Research Analyst at Mathematica Policy Research. William Cox is a Research Scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Principle Investigator of the Stereotyping and Bias Research (SABR) Lab, where he studies stereotypes and bias-reduction.

Methods and Findings

The researchers recruited 91 non-Black students to participate in the study and randomly assigned them to either the intervention group or the control group. All participants were assessed on their racial attitudes, sources of motivation to respond without prejudice, awareness of their own bias, and concerns about the effects of discrimination. They were also asked to complete the Race ​Implicit Association Test​ (IAT), which measures peoples implicitly held attitudes and beliefs regarding race. After receiving feedback on their results, the control group was asked to leave, while participants in the intervention group remained and watched a 45-minute interactive slideshow presentation that included an education and training section.

The education section introduced participants to the idea that prejudice was a habit that could be broken, the process of developing implicit bias, and its harmful effects. The training section taught participants strategies to reduce implicit racial bias such as replacing stereotypical responses with non-stereotypical ones and learning about out-group members, asked them to come up with scenarios they might implement such strategies, and were told that implementing such strategies would require practice and effort on their part to break the habit cycle. Following the intervention, participants in both groups had follow up meetings two, four, six, and eight weeks after the experiment.

The researchers found:

●  People who participated in the intervention had lower implicit bias scores than peoplein the control group, which persisted eight weeks after the intervention concluded;

●  While the intervention did not effect participants’ racial attitudes or motivations torespond without prejudice, it did increase participants’ concern about discrimination insociety and awareness of their own biases;

●  Participants self-reported likelihood to use learned strategies was linked to lowerimplicit racial bias scores eight weeks later;

●  Thinking that strategies are effective and identifying opportunities to implement themwas not enough to reduce bias, instead participants needed to also believe they would actually use them.

Conclusions

The prejudice habit-breaking intervention produced the first evidence that a randomized control intervention could produce long-term reductions in implicit bias. The intervention gave people concrete strategies to counteract bias while making them more aware of their biases and increasing their concern for discrimination. These two ingredients are important to clear the implicit bias in the air.

Diversity Education Initiatives Consistently Improve Diversity Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Diversity in Academic and Organizational Settings

Introduction

In this paper, Dr. Carol T. Kulik and Dr. Loriann Roberson investigate the effects of diversity education interventions across different learning outcomes and contexts. In conducting their literature review, Kulik and Roberson aimed to answer two questions: Does diversity education affect participant diversity knowledge, diversity attitudes, and diversity skills? Do these effects vary by academic and organizational contexts? 

The authors find that, overall, diversity education interventions improve diversity knowledge and diversity attitudes in organizational and academic settings, and that each context has unique features that strengthen the effects of interventions. The researchers also ask six important questions to set an agenda for future research in the field. 

Kulik is a Research Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of South Australia, and Roberson is a Professor of Psychology and Education in the Social-Organizational Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Methods and Findings

The researchers reviewed seventy-four studies spanning nearly four decades. They evaluated the effects of diversity education interventions on participants’ diversity knowledge (learning the experiences and customs of other cultures), diversity attitudes (approach toward diversity broadly and toward different social and demographic groups), or diversity skills (interpersonal skills needed to work with culturally diverse groups). 

The researchers review criteria was specific. They only reviewed studies that assessed the impact of diversity interventions on the specific areas of knowledge, attitudes, or skills, and those that targeted adult learners, as well as used a pre-test—post-test design or comparison with a control group. They excluded studies that were contact interventions.

They found:

• Diversity education improves diversity knowledge across academic, organizational, and lab settings.
• Diversity education improves overall attitudes toward diversity in organizational and academic settings, but the results are less consistent regarding attitudes toward specific demographic groups.
• Diversity skills receive the least attention in evaluation studies. While participants tend to perceive themselves as having higher skills after training, these beliefs are often based on self-assessments. The few studies that consider objective measures of skills have found inconsistent results.

To forge ahead on diversity research, the authors pose six questions for those interested in diversity work. They also offer ways to approach these questions. These are:

1. What is the speed and pattern of diversity competence development?
   • Because changes in different learning outcomes may appear at different points during and after an intervention, a heavy reliance on pre- and post-intervention testing may be limiting. To address this, the authors suggest conducting repeated assessments during the diversity education intervention so that any change can be observed over time

2. What is the long-term impact of diversity education?
   • In business settings, it is often important to measure learning beyond an immediate post-training assessment. In academic settings where students take courses on diversity, it may be helpful to track student learning over the course of their undergraduate career to see long-term returns.

3. What really makes diversity education work?
   • Although some studies have concluded that diversity education initiatives have succeeded, it is hard to determine how exactly interventions define success.  Researches need to determine which specific activities lead to change and define success. Further evaluation should focus on specific activities rather than on whole programs.

4. What is the impact of voluntary vs. mandatory diversity education?
   • At the time this article was published, there is no good evidence about the impact of voluntary vs. involuntary training. Voluntary training may be more effective by illustrating a willingness and commitment to engage with the work. On the other hand, mandatory sessions may be more effective by demonstrating organizational commitment to diversity and reducing selection bias. Both should be tested.

5. How can we measure diversity skills?
   • Individuals and organizations interested in this work need to measure skill learning and development outside of self-reports. For example, some medical students’ skills are assessed using objective, structured clinical exams where students interact with trained patients.

6. How does diversity education impact larger organizational outcomes?
   • There is a need to better understand how individual learning outcomes (e.g. improving diversity knowledge) are related to larger organizational outcomes (e.g. diversity in management). Two approaches include paying special attention to the skill and behavioral outcomes due to the diversity education intervention and the long-term effects of such interventions.

Conclusions

Based on the studies selected by the authors, diversity education interventions can improve participants’ diversity knowledge and diversity attitudes. They also call for individuals and organizations to capitalize on the unique features of particular settings to get the most from these interventions. This may include the longevity of the semester schedule in academic settings or the flexibility of designing interventions for specific issues in business settings.

To answer the key questions posed by the researchers and to begin making change, institutions should focus on building collaborations. For example, diversity educators in academic contexts may benefit from connecting with academic program directors and alumni relations staff, and diversity trainers in business settings may do well by connecting with human resources staff. Such networks may enable educators and trainers to keep in touch with participants of diversity education interventions, manage follow-up, and determine the long-term effects of interventions.

The Most Effective Corporate Diversity Practices Establish Organizational Responsibility for Diversity

Introduction

Over the past several decades, there has been an increase in efforts to diversify the American corporate workforce. In 2018, the employment search engine Indeed saw an 18% increase in diversity and inclusion job postings from the previous year, and a 2017 report indicated that about $8 billion is spent annually on diversity training. Despite this dedication of resources, do these initiatives increase workplace diversity, particularly at the managerial level? In the first systematic analysis of the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies, researchers Alexandra Kalev, Frank Dobbin, and Erin L. Kelly examined the effects of diversity programs on the representation of white women, Black women, and Black men in management positions within private-sector businesses.

The researchers assessed data from federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports, which detail companies’ annual employment by race, ethnicity and gender. They examined whether, and to what extent, corporate personnel and diversity programs increase diversity at the managerial level. Their main findings are clear: establishing responsibility for diversity does the most to increase the share of white women, Black women, and Black men in management. This includes developing affirmative action plans, appointing staff members focused on diversity, creating diversity offices, and launching diversity task forces and committees. They found that networking and mentoring programs are less promising, while diversity training and evaluation programs are least effective. However, these less effective interventions were found to be more effective in workplaces with responsibility structures in place, suggesting that organizations should make structural changes before attempting to implement diversity initiatives that target bias or social isolation.

The researchers have focused much of their academic careers on diversity in the workplace. Dr. Alexandra Kalev is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, where she investigates how workplace structures affect the careers of minoritized and racialized groups. Dr. Frank Dobbin is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University, where he studies the effects of employer policies on workplace diversity. Dr. Erin L. Kelly is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she examines how employer policies impact organizational culture, workers, and families. 

Methods and Findings

Using Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports from 1971-2002, the researchers conducted a longitudinal survey of diversity practices in 708 private-sector businesses. They examined racial and gender changes in management after the implementation of seven types of diversity programs: affirmative action plans, diversity committees, diversity training, mentoring programs, networking programs, full-time diversity staff, and diversity evaluations. These programs fall into three broad categories: organizational responsibility, behavioral change, and treating social isolation.

They completed over 800 phone interviews to find out whether or not the company had ever used any of the seven diversity programs, when programs were implemented, and whether programs had ended. The researchers used this information to study the representation of white men, white women, Black men, or Black women in management. The study controlled for factors that might affect management diversity, such as the legal environment, organizational structures, top management composition, and labor market and economic environment.

The study found that the practices most effective at increasing managerial diversity are those that establish organizational responsibility for diversity.

• Creating affirmative action plans increased the proportion of white women in management by about 8% and Black men in management by 4%. 
• Establishing diversity committees increased the proportion of white women in management by 14%, Black women by almost 30%, and Black men by 10%
• Appointing full-time diversity staff increased the proportion of white women in management by 9%, and Black women and men by 14%

Implementing networking and mentoring programs showed modest effects on managerial diversity.

• Adopting a networking program increased the proportion of white women in management by 6.7%, but decreased the proportion of Black men in management by 10%
• Adopting a mentoring program increased the proportion of Black women in management by about 24%

Training and feedback focused on managerial stereotyping had virtually no effect on managerial diversity.

• Instituting diversity trainings led to a decrease in the proportion of Black women in management by 6%
• Instituting diversity evaluations decreased the proportion of Black men in management by 8%

The authors also examined how the sheer number of diversity programs affects the likelihood of white women, Black men, and Black women being in management.

• A higher number of diversity programs matters more for white women than for any other group under study. 
• For Black women, the existence of one or two diversity programs was no different than having none—three made the most difference. 
• For Black men, however, there was no significant difference between having all of the programs and no programs at all. 

Conclusions

The authors conclude that the most effective way to increase the share of white women, Black women, and Black men in management is to implement organizational responsibility for diversity through affirmative action plans, diversity committees, and diversity positions. While inequality in management is likely due to bias towards and isolation of racialized groups, the best way to remedy these problems is through workplace structural change. 

In line with previous research, the researchers found that diversity programs benefit white women most, followed by Black women. Specifically, none of the diversity programs assessed in this study showed a negative effect on white women, but three diversity programs showed negative effects on Black men and women. These findings seem to underscore the importance of using intersectionality to address issues of management diversity.

A Seven-Point Guide to Creating an Antiracist University

Introduction

Dr. Ian Law, founding director of the Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies (CERS) at the University of Leeds, reviews twenty years of scholarship and initiatives by the Centre related to racism and higher education in the UK. Founded in 1998, CERS produces policy-relevant research that seeks to dismantle racism. In the 1990s, the Centre studied racial disparities in undergraduate admissions and the absence of antiracist developments in higher education. Since the early 2000s, CERS has launched an institutional antiracism toolkit, published an edited book on racism in higher education, hosted an international colloquium on Black male academic success, and advanced other innovative programs and research to inform antiracist policy.

In this article, Law critically examines the state of higher education as it pertains to racism. Too often, he states, universities fail to recognize how racism shapes their institutions and how to respond to such challenges with creativity. For example, when higher education institutions claim to be “post-racial,” this ideology can mask systemic issues faced by racialized students, faculty, and staff, such as poor access to resources, white-centered curriculum, discrimination, and harassment. However well-intentioned, colorblind or race-neutral policies can hinder progress towards sustainable racial equity, promote practices synonymous with whiteness, and marginalize underrepresented groups. 

Synthesizing lessons from CERS’ work, Law provides a seven-point guide for antiracist change at higher education institutions and calls on schools to re-examine their role and responsibilities in increasingly multiracial societies. Real change can come through upholding antiracism as an institutional norm, whether through staff professionalism, the standard by which students conduct themselves, and how the institution engages with the community. Although institutional and intellectual change may be slow, the work remains urgent within higher education institutions. 

Methods and Findings

To begin building an antiracist university, Law suggests that higher education institutions:

1. Restore antiracism as a foundational leadership project.
   • A crucial first step in building an antiracist university is recognizing and reckoning with the role of universities in the production of racialized knowledge. This requires an intersectional approach to leadership  informed by political, institutional, and intellectual guidance.

2. Widen the debate on antiracism.
   • Too much of the discussion around racism and higher education focuses on employment and student access. Although important, these issues may have a narrow impact compared to other areas, such as research and teaching practices.

3. Promote antiracism as an institutional practice model.
   • Universities should challenge racism, whiteness, and Eurocentrism in all of their functions and operations.

4. Keep focus on antiracism.
   • Much of the conversation in academic and other sectors is focused on broadening equality and participation, rather than on affirmative action, racial justice, and the transformation of racialized institutions.

5. Learn from other sectors.
   • It is important for universities to understand how other sectors have implemented change and confronted the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination. Doing so provides opportunities to learn implementation strategies and avoid mistakes.

6. Learn from institutions abroad.
   • It is vital for universities to seek out, or establish, international networks of institutions committed to antiracism in higher education. 

7. Provide adequate resources for antiracist initiatives. 
   • This work must be given authority and resources, such as newly-funded professorships, programs of study, research, and professional development aimed at addressing racism in higher education.

Conclusions

The Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies has been a leading force in naming and dismantling whiteness and racism in the UK’s higher education sector. For more than twenty years, CERS has pushed the envelope on how higher education practitioners can understand race and racism in their institutions and how they can approach undoing harm. The Centre’s work is both a case study for antiracism within universities and a source of lessons and guidance. 

Cooperative Learning, Media, and Reading Interventions Show Promise in Reducing Prejudice

Introduction

In psychological research, prejudice and discrimination dominate as key areas of research. This should come as no surprise considering the sheer amount of resources spent by policymakers and educators alike to reduce prejudice. Since the first attempts to measure prejudice in the mid-1920s, social scientists have tried to understand the nature and origins of prejudice and how to reduce it. What has been learned since then? Is there a best approach to studying and reducing prejudice? 

In this paper, Dr. Elizabeth Levy Paluck, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and Dr. Donald Green, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, review observational, laboratory, and field studies of interventions aimed at reducing prejudice. Paluck and Green find that while observational studies are informative, they do not help to determine ‘what works’ as they are merely descriptive in nature. Laboratory studies are more methodologically rigorous and seek to establish causality, but they do not represent what happens in reality. This is why the authors conclude that field experiments, or studies seeking to establish causality by examining phenomena in everyday environments, are the most promising means to study the causal impacts of prejudice interventions. Specific interventions that show encouraging results include cooperative learning, media, and reading interventions.

Methods and Findings

The researchers analyzed a sample of nearly one-thousand prejudice reduction interventions across academic and non-academic settings. Categorizing the interventions by research design and intervention technique, the authors then carefully assessed impact. They found: 

• Non-experimental methods, including purely qualitative studies with no comparison group, help to illustrate themes and inform research questions, but they cannot reliably answer the question of what works.

• While lab studies allow researchers to test a broad range of intergroup and individual prejudice in a highly controlled environment, they do not allow for accurate portrayals of real-life situations. These studies also tend to rely heavily on college students as participants, investigate limited types of prejudice, and have caused some controversy in the behaviors measured and how they are measured. 

• Field experiments serve as unique vehicles to properly and meticulously study prejudice reduction. Three types of interventions stand out as showing promise. 
  1. Cooperative learning, in which students must teach and learn from each other, has been shown to enhance perspective taking, social support, and conflict management. An example of this method is the popular Jigsaw Classroom. 
  2. Media interventions, or one-time viewing experiences of  documentaries or educational movies, has been shown to enhance empathy and perspective taking. 
  3. Reading interventions, where individuals read about different cultures over the course of several weeks, have shown to improve student attitudes towards out-group members.

Conclusions

More than a century has passed since social scientists began measuring prejudice. The research on prejudice has since evolved and become more sophisticated, yet there is still room for growth. More prejudice reduction interventions need to be evaluated rigorously to test the multiple theories within prejudice. 

Despite the need for further research, the present review of prejudice research indicates that cooperative learning helps break down barriers between students, and various forms of multimedia and reading interventions support students to empathize and hold positive attitudes about people from their out-group.

For those interested in studying prejudice, Paluck and Green recommend conducting more field experiments on the main theories of prejudice, namely contact hypothesis, stereotype and implicit prejudice, and social identity. They also recommend assessing the long-term effects of the interventions and expanding the types of outcomes under study. Despite the promise of field experiment interventions, the authors are clear that we are a long way from responsibly declaring the best means to reduce prejudice.