Students use design to tackle systemic racism at Stanford
By Humera Fasihuddin, Lesley-Ann Noel, Angelica Willis, and Ryan Phillips
Students returning to college life this Fall experienced a summer like no other. For many, the social unrest playing out across the nation, and around the world, weighed heavily on their hearts. As they were returning to campus, places like Portland, Oregon were on their 100th day of protests, with a wall of moms, leaf-blowing dads, and federal troops using teargas on civilians. It was unsettling for most people, and perhaps more so, to the youthful idealist who wondered, “Is college the place where I can make the most meaningful impact or will I be sitting out the fight?” How can a 20-something year old make a difference beyond protests?
Racial inequity is everywhere. It is one of the most intractable problems of our time. From housing to education to healthcare outcomes. Many systems and structures in the United States are designed to keep Black, brown, and indigenous people of color at a disadvantage. In a 2019 talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival, historian Ibram X. Kendi defined racism as a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas. In contrast, anti-racism is a collection of anti-racist policies that lead to racial equity, that are substantiated by anti-racist ideas. This definition inspired our teaching team - two Black women, one South Asian woman, and one White man - to tackle the daunting task of examining racism in higher education. Might we be able to use design to understand the way in which systemic racism in the ivory tower continued to perpetuate racist ideas?
Thus was born the d.school class, Designing Courageous Conversations for Impact. “During times of heightened unrest, it’s not enough to start a book club,” the course website read. “People must design courageous conversations that lead to action, the type that works to systematically dismantle institutionalized racism. In the struggle to disassemble systemic oppression and racism, what will be your tools? How will you use your voice? How will you amplify the voices of others?”
We hoped our words would inspire those ‘woke’ and ready to act. An equal balance of white folk who were already conversant in the issues and people of color ready to leverage a broader coalition. It was a unique moment and we wished to shine a light on all bright spots and lift up all those who had been working on equity long before us.
We were delighted with the pool of applicants to our pilot class. Eight students represented diverse disciplines, hailing from the Schools of Medicines, Engineering, and Public Health. They included undergrads, graduate students, and staff. We asked, what does taking action on racism mean to you? We knew we could assume a level set understanding when we read the responses…
To me, taking action on racism means fighting for racial equity in ALL aspects of your personal and professional life. Racism has entered the public conscience in profound ways, and conversations, articles, podcasts, workshops, town halls, etc., have proliferated. In my experience, it is not uncommon for people to consume these resources while simultaneously reproducing systems of racism and oppression in their own relationships and work. Taking action on racism for me, as a white person, means constantly reflecting on how I am implicated in and benefit from white supremacy and taking action against these systems even — and especially — when it means giving up my own privilege. It means ensuring that Black, Indigenous, and people of color most affected by racism take the lead in setting the agenda for change. And it means striving to achieve this agenda over the long-term even when it is frustrating, time-consuming, and uncomfortable.
Fast forward to the end
If you read anything in this Medium post, it should be this. Students in this class made an impact at Stanford and beyond.
Three projects are being piloted with stakeholders, including tools that foster an upstanding culture instead of a culture in which harmful microaggressions go unaddressed, assessments that allow graduate students to measure the degree to which their labs are inclusive and equitable, and campaigns that allow existing organizations to champion the cause of Stanford’s invisible workforce. We’re inspired by the outcomes and can’t help but imagine the opportunities for change that courageous conversations can make inside and outside of the classroom. This article outlines the five ingredients that can help other educators lead the curriculum:
#1: 2050: Imagine the attainable future
We opened the semester sharing a video that helped them travel to the future. It was September 14th, 2050, and students were asked to put notes in a time capsule for our friends back in 2020 who didn’t yet know the significant gains we had made with regards to race and equity in the future. Students dreamed of a 2050 where the racial achievement gap had been closed; where Black people wouldn’t have to give their children ‘the talk’ about what not to do when pulled over by the police; where people of color would not have to fear driving across the country. We then built on the headiness of dreaming of this future to co-create a manifesto and an agenda for change.
#2: Incorporate a systems thinking lens
Systemic change requires an understanding of the system and the subsystems that constitute an ecosystem. Early on, we asked students to pick the communities within Stanford with which they most identified — the place they most wanted to make a difference. And, we gave them a framework for mapping that ecosystem. These ‘mini-ecosystem maps’ were an essential start to making sense of the key organizations, actors, money flow, and priorities. It was the students’ base-level understanding of the current dynamics at play. A hypothesis that needed to be tested in real conversations with stakeholders in that ecosystem.
Aside from getting students thinking about their spheres of influence, the maps served as a means for the teaching team to determine how best to organize the cohort into 3 projects teams, within which they worked for the remainder of the quarter. We wanted teams to bring diverse perspectives to their project group, and have the symbiosis that comes with similar community intersections. Changework is hard. An expedition of this type is easier with travel companions with whom one can navigate and chart a course to unexpected places.
#3: Incorporate cycles of conversations where the stakes increase over time
Talking about race is hard. Talking about race in the workplace is even harder. It’s called courageous conversations because it takes courage to be vulnerable and it takes courage to not run from potential conflict. Within the first two weeks, students led their first, small conversation with people they identified in their ecosystem maps. This led to a minor panic at first, but then relief when they learned it was a conversation with only 2–3 people. And, only those ‘down for the cause’. These smaller courageous conversations would prepare them for deeper conversations that would lead to more action later on. There were plenty of people ready for the conversation. The sessions they led were during our 90-minute class zoom in breakout sessions, so instructors were just a click away.
Conversation #1 was largely unstructured and allowed students to understand some major issues and highlight areas that they wanted to change. Conversation #2 happened a couple of weeks later with a slightly expanded audience, again during our 90-minute class, this time adding structure by inviting specific audience members who provided insight into students’ chosen project areas. Students were given a framework for starting strong. Students created polished audio vignettes that focused guests on the problem and the urgent need to solve it. Students then led a brainstorming session that generated a wide range of ideas.
In the weeks that followed, we asked students to build further, using constraints as a brainstorming mechanism and creating mashups of the ideas to spark creativity. One of those ideas would go on to be their pick for sparking systemic change, for piloting and presenting during Conversation #3 which would be held with university administrators in the final weeks of the course.
#4: Design through ambiguity using the power of a prototype
Conversations weren’t the only thing students were designing. Soon after students imagined their bold ‘mashups’ — ideas that could be game-changing for creating a more equitable and inclusive culture — we gave them a casual, low-stakes homework assignment. Students were asked to create a one-slide description of their idea to send by SMS or WhatsApp to two people for feedback. That feedback would inform the next prototype, and the next and the next. Each progressive prototype had a higher level of resolution.
We make it sound easy, but if you were to ask the students they would say that wading through the ambiguity having never designed such things was incredibly hard — especially at an institution like Stanford. Wait, am I allowed — as a mechanical engineering grad student — to be a social scientist and design an assessment tool that measures inclusive cultures? YES, today you are. And, in students’ reflections, it became clear just how valuable it was to have something tangible in hand when navigating ambiguity, initiating conversations with new stakeholders, and learning more about how people were experiencing racism in their daily lives.
Another gradual shift we observed was one of agency. Initial conversations revolved around ‘getting HR to do ___’ or ‘convincing Stanford to do ___’. Using the intentional and steady pace of design [prototype, feedback, iterate, repeat], students began to see the power of a grassroots movement that made the case for their intervention. ‘Show, don’t tell.’ Students began to understand the power lay in their hands all along. It was in their power to demonstrate the impact of their projects and their utility, before advocating that they be institutionalized across the campus community.
#5: Develop your students' identity as change agents
In most ecosystems, you have the people at the top, some middle management, and everyone else. And, while ‘everyone else’ represents the greatest number of individuals, they feel the brunt of inequity, and largely powerless when it comes to influencing change.
Protests are one way to apply pressure and articulate discontent. But, you can also bring about change by designing new solutions, practicing new behaviors, and influencing adoption among peers at the grassroots. We see this in community activism. We see this within companies. But nowhere is it most profound than in higher education where students are also the customers of the institution. Students aren’t bound by the rules as faculty and staff. And, academia is a safe place to further their ideas… especially if those ideas are designed specifically for stakeholders of the higher ed enterprise.
Our students live racism day in and day out. They drew from their first-hand experience, leveraged their reach to learn others’ perspectives and design solutions that meet the needs of their community. The class provided them a context to build partnerships with senior leaders, with whom they allied during Conversation #3. Those new connections give their projects a lifeline even though the class has ended. As their guides, we placed heavy emphasis on the students’ development of artifacts — from Medium posts to websites — so that they would have a broader impact on academia while also giving their project legs. And, our teaching team is invested in their ongoing success… this is just the beginning.
Projects and outcomes
Eight students formed three teams that addressed specific problem areas on campus. Following are brief descriptions with links to their Medium articles on the project, as well as their reflections about the process:
Equity Evaluators: Focused on the experiences of Black students in graduate research lab environments, this team designed an equity assessment tool to help lab leadership, members, and prospective members understand how equitable the labs are, across race and gender, and where there are opportunities for improvement. Learn more about their project here. Students’ personal reflections can be found here: Ilana Raskind, Josselyn Peña, and Eric Brubaker.
Worker Warriors: Exploring workers’ rights disparities at Stanford, this team uncovered issues of labor injustice that could be improved by partnering with a student-led workers’ rights organization to amplify worker voices through well-curated social media campaigns. Learn more about their project here. Students’ personal reflections can be found here: Gileen Navarro and Isha Kumar.
Advocate Activators: Focused on the issue of anti-Black racism towards Stanford staff, this team of students designed and implemented a pilot program to turn bystanders who see racism happening into upstanders who are well prepared to intervene. Learn more about their project here. Students’ personal reflections can be found here: Katarina Klett, Judith Ned, and Catherine Randle.
Reflection was a practice regularly used as a means to assess individual learning and team progress. “I used to think / Now I think” was a student reflection we used in our final class as a means for students to share how their perspectives shifted over the course of the class.
Challenges and opportunities
A course designed to tackle racism in higher education is not for the faint of heart. You will need to lean into all your teaching superpowers.
Perhaps there is always a creative tension between meeting academic and pedagogic outcomes and the need to create change. The pedagogical outcomes of a design class with a focus on social change are ‘fuzzy’. Do we focus on design, creativity, and iteration? Or do we focus on action that leads to change? This class was short and we wanted to end the class with prototypes that could be seen as examples of ‘what could be done’. Therefore while we ensured some amount of iteration we focused on action.
Ensuring students adopt a “Bias to Action” is considered a core design thinking ability and that is what we did. Every week we surprised students with the types of actions we wanted them to take: Invite X number of people for a meeting! Plan your meeting! Build a website in an hour as a prototype! Go talk to people and get feedback! Write a closing article. It is incredible to think of how much they accomplished in such a short class.
“I used to think I needed to know everything about a topic before taking action. Now I think you don’t need to know everything before you act. Jumping in and taking chances can generate change and prevent stagnation.” — Anonymous student
All of this work was made even more difficult since it was done remotely. But, we effectively established a very special connection with students. A week before the start, the teaching team shared their own imperfect pandemic environments through video, from kitchen tables to one-room studios. “We know it’s not glamorous, but we ask you to also keep your video on,” we asked, “in order to truly create connection between us as we undertake this important work.” Our very first sessions did just that… created space to be vulnerable. “When did you first realize the role racism played in your life?” was the prompt that set the way to share what brought each of us to this work. Every class that followed used a “ritual in” to ground students in the mindsets they need to engage with the work at hand
And, there was music. Lots of joy through music. Building shared experiences is hard to do remotely. There was only one physical element to the course, which was that students got to open three envelopes, to celebrate each conversation they facilitated which made sense individually, and even more sense together. “Stanford change agents unite!” Or, “unite! Stanford change agents.” Or, “Stanford unite! change agents.”
Conclusion
And just as we started, we returned to 2050 to close our course. Our students were just on the verge of retirement and were writing an acceptance speech for the Nobel prize that they had collectively won for their work in equity over the last 30 years. We encouraged them to look back on their projects and see how their work had evolved.
In this exit activity they were able to map very specific activities from their projects, and how the public buy-in for their work grew over the years until there were no more racial disparities in their areas of focus and their work was no longer needed. Of course, only in such an inclusive and equitable place that allowed all students, staff, and faculty to thrive would we surely also develop a cure for cancer.
If you have a story of students, staff, or faculty addressing systemic racism in higher education, we invite you to share it for consideration of reposting in this medium publication. To learn more, and potentially bring such a course to your campus, contact humera@dschool.stanford.edu.
Teaching Team:
From top left, clockwise:
Ryan Phillips: Helping remove bias from hiring with Brilliant Hire, Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Humera Fasihuddin: Hacking higher ed as co-founder of University Innovation Fellows at Stanford d.school and more. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Angelica Willis: Leveraging AI to democratize access to better healthcare at Google. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Lesley-Ann Noel: Decolonizing design using critical and emancipatory theory, language, and methods at Tulane University and North Carolina State University. Connect with me on Linkedin and Twitter.
