Accountability through Data: Developing an Equity Assessment for Research Labs
This story was written as part of Designing Courageous Conversations for Impact, a course at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school) during the fall 2020 quarter. This project was led by Josselyn Peña, Ilana Raskind, and Eric Brubaker.
Anti-Black racism–and radical resistance–are embedded in the history and fabric of Stanford University. As graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, we have witnessed subtle and glaring manifestations of racism in our classrooms, labs, and research groups. We have seen a lack of inclusivity, support, and respect for our Black and Indigenous colleagues; we have seen students and postdocs from different racial and ethnic backgrounds be subject to different expectations and held to different standards; we have seen differences in the distribution of opportunities, responsibilities, and resources; the type of work that is valued; and overall lack of faculty awareness of the issues facing underrepresented students and postdocs. We watch and listen as our friends and colleagues of color navigate, endure, and overcome deeply entrenched interpersonal and institutional racism–on top of the many routine challenges of graduate school and postdoctoral training–at tremendous personal expense. The burden of dismantling anti-Black racism in higher education cannot fall on the shoulders of our Black colleagues. It is past time for the rest of us to act.
We started our work by bringing together colleagues from several departments and schools across Stanford and other academic institutions. We invited colleagues with extensive prior experience engaging in anti-racist work within academia and focused our discussion on how to effectively organize for change. Three major themes arose from our conversation: collective action; data; and accountability. Academic institutions are frequently siloed and decentralized, features that can leave advocates for change feeling isolated and disempowered. We were inspired by the successes of the Harvard Coalition for Black Lives and determined that collective action and community building would feature prominently in our efforts. As our project developed, we came to see the latter two themes–data and accountability–as inextricably linked. Nearly all of our colleagues shared experiences of requesting or attempting to collect equity-related data at their institutions and being met with myriad excuses from administrators as to why the data were not available, shareable, or possible to collect. At the same time, this “lack of data” was often weaponized to dismiss reports of racism as isolated incidents not reflective of larger systemic issues.
This first conversation set us on a path toward developing an equity assessment tool that could be used to assess research labs, departments, and programs regarding their progress (or lack thereof) toward dismantling anti-Black racism at Stanford. To foster community and build toward collective action, we envisioned training graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to independently assess one another’s labs, departments, and programs. Following this community-driven data collection and analysis process, the key output would be a clear, actionable, and standardized report that could be used to hold programs accountable and demand change.
As a next step, we reached out to friends and colleagues across Stanford who had long been organizing against anti-Black racism on campus. We focused on the experience of Stanford PhD students and postdocs and how to build a community-driven equity assessment tool. This led us to a conversation with a friend, engineering PhD student, and organizer within Stanford’s Black Engineering Graduate Student Association. He advised us to begin and always stay grounded in the social, everyday, qualitative experiences of Black students and postdocs on campus–even when faculty and administrators discount students’ lived experiences in favor of internal data. We discussed balancing qualitative and quantitative data, identifying places of potential leverage (e.g., assessing how Stanford research fellowships are decided), and building a coalition of student organizations, staff, and faculty who demonstrate true allyship. This conversation led us to develop a higher resolution equity assessment prototype and engage more folks in furthering the cause.
Our work throughout the quarter highlighted a few important points. Namely, efforts to combat anti-Black racism at Stanford can feel like a daunting task when one is met with so many roadblocks that are built into an institution where anti-Black racism is so often protected under the guise of academic freedom and perpetuated by those in influential seats of power. Many of us know anecdotally that there is a disparity in opportunities given to BIPOC trainees compared to their White colleagues. Calling attention to these disparities in town halls and other public forums, however, has led to expressions of disbelief or ignorance from those in positions of power. Many times individuals are asked to speak to those in power outside of public forums, where there will be an inevitable power imbalance and subsequent silencing of student voices. Other times, without “data” to support anecdotal evidence there is little drive for those unaffected to believe that there is a need for a systemic change at Stanford.
Our project aimed to highlight inequity in the lab setting; this deep dive into unequal treatment of lab members can be used to call attention to areas where growth is needed and create a safer space for trainees and staff alike to bring their whole authentic self to their research lab. A similar analysis can readily be modified to fit other research environments at Stanford outside of STEM in order to get a broader look at what is happening across campus. Integrating research lab equity assessments into the university’s existing data collection could go far in holding PIs, staff, and graduate students accountable for making the material changes necessary to create a research environment in which Black students and postdocs are truly valued and supported to thrive.
