#UnScientificRacism
This fall at the University of Michigan, racist flyers were posted on our campus that included references to inherent racial differences in intelligence. These types of flyers and postings have been happening on college campuses across the country. They illustrate the continued use of scientifically unsupported views of biological race differences, despite the fact that there has been international consensus among expert scientists and scholars across disciplines, since at least the 1950s, that biological race differences are a myth. This phenomenon has been called “scientific racism,” and I view this as anything but scientific.
During these socially turbulent times, academia has a responsibility to be aware of and attend to the important consequences that faulty science on race relations has for our society. For instance, unfounded views about the biological nature of race have been used to justify oppressive social policies and medical experimentation upon communities of color. These belief systems undergird both conscious and unconscious biases that affect policies, practices, and interpersonal interactions in everyday settings such as schools, workplaces, and communities. That is, flawed race science is used to advance beliefs about “inferior” and “superior” racial groups in order to justify white supremacy.
Indeed, the reductionist approaches used by those who espouse inherent racial differences are simply bad and lazy science that eschew more complicated, nuanced, accurate processes. For instance, asserting innate group differences as the reason for race differences in education, socioeconomic, and health outcomes is easier than actually addressing the complex interactions of biology, environment, social and economic inequalities.
From October 8–14, 2017, the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) at the University of Michigan launched #UnScientificRacism — a social media campaign designed to bring awareness to the rigorous science on race research that debunks the idea of inherent racial differences. #UnScientificRacism also amplified scholarship that analyzes the history and contemporary context of (un)scientific racism as it has occurred in domains of education, health, economics, among other areas.
This issue is particularly relevant in an era in which campuses must grapple with issues around free speech that, at times, promotes racist ideology. For those on campuses that are hosting such speakers, I would encourage you to consider your own right to free speech, and consider how that speech could leverage the scholarly work that debunks unsubstantiated myths of group difference and hierarchy. In this way, rigorous scholarly engagement and work can also be a form of activism.
It is in this spirit that I call upon my fellow scholars to oppose racists who are boldly and openly espousing their views under the guise of science. We must renew our commitment to scholar activism and actively consider how rigorous scholarship based on empirical evidence can be used to combat this resurgence of scientific racism. If we come together as a community to actively refute bad and lazy science and intentionally support future generations of diversity scholars, we will do a tremendous service to both academia and society.
