Scholars and racism

There is a controversy in one of my disciplines right now, and it’s ugly, and it’s getting uglier. And the nastiest part of this argument is nasty because people are arguing as though there is a shared definition of what it means to be racist. There isn’t, and that is the problem. There are at play at least four different ways of thinking about racism: aversive, unconscious, disparate impact, systemic.

Briefly, the controversy concerns the long and documented failure of the NCA Distinguished Scholars to include a significant number of POC in its membership. There are various ways of explaining that failure—off the top of my head, I can imagine someone arguing:

That POC don’t merit inclusion in the group because they are bad people (a racist argument).

• • Or, that the 70 Distinguished Scholars are knowingly engaged in aversive racism—the conventional notion of what racism is (conscious hostility toward and aversion of POC). In other words, the problem is that they are bad people.
  • Or, that unconscious racism means that the kinds of networks necessary to come to be seen as “distinguished” are unintentionally racially exclusive.
  • Or, that something is wrong in the process such that POC scholars have to meet a higher bar or that makes their kind of scholarship invisible in some way.
  • Or that systemic racism means that POC scholars haven’t had the kinds of advantages and breaks (including mentoring) necessary to meet the implicit criteria of the Distinguished Scholars.

[There are other issues in this controversy, including some procedural ones—as to how NCA has made and communicated decisions. I’m not going to talk about those issues because I don’t know enough to say anything, not because they’re unimportant.]

Notice that these can be divided up—the first argument is simply racist (and I think many people are reading some of the documents involved as making that argument—I have trouble imagining that it is, but that’s an issue worth clarifying).

The second is saying that this is an issue of aversive racism, in which people see that someone is a POC and consciously deny them the honor.

The third is unconscious racism, such as if people are more likely to vote for people with whom they feel more comfortable, or (as will be discussed below), white discomfort with POC means that POC aren’t included on panels, in edited collections, or invited to lunches.

The fourth is what is legally called “disparate impact,” in which intent is irrelevant—if scholars’ implicit criteria is a kind of scholarship POC tend not to do (as happened with women when women started publishing more), then there is racially-valenced discrimination with neither intent nor aversion. The politics of respectability–the ways we define and enforce norms about respect and respectability–apply disparately to POC, whether they’re intended to or not.

The fifth is systemic or institutional racism, in which institutions and organizations were structured for the benefits of the dominant group at the time, and, while there is no longer necessarily a conscious intent, there is still the impact (such as previously male institutions that have inadequate women’s rest rooms).

At least one widely-distributed argument assumes that this controversy is all about identity—the identity of the Distinguished Scholars. There is one editorial being distributed that makes two occluding assumptions: first, that any claim that a process is racist is the same as accusing the people involved in the process of aversive racism. The criticism is, as this editorial says, “an attack on the association’s own Distinguished Scholars,” that the NCA is “implicitly accusing them [the Distinguished Scholars] of racism.” This editorial frames the changes in NCA procedure as an attack on the identity of the Distinguished Scholars—on their goodness, character, and judgment.

The second occluding assumption is that the only way to include more POC is to ignore merit in favor of decisions based purely on identity. That seems to be saying that there are no POC scholars who merit inclusion—what, then, are the reasons for their exclusion? Because they are excluded.

I don’t know what the NCA argument is, and I can imagine that there are legitimate complaints that the NCA Distinguished Scholars might have about how the NCA has handled this problem. But I’m concerned that there appears to be no acknowledging that there is a problem of exclusion.

This isn’t to say that you can look at the numbers and infer aversive racism on the part of the Distinguished Scholars—the assumption that many people seem to be making. I doubt it is aversive racism; it certainly isn’t about the feelings or character of the people involved. This shouldn’t be an argument about their identity.

If we move the stasis from the identities of the Distinguished Scholars, to the fact of exclusion, then we can talk about processes and institutions and systems. And, really, racism is generally about processes, about often completely unconscious biases built into those processes, even on the part of people who mean well. Racism is often about the sometimes unintended and too often unacknowledged consequences of the ways that powerful organizations and institutions function.

Take, for instance, the problem of racism in science grants. A 2016 study of NIH grants concluded that:

White women PhDs and MDs were as likely as white men to receive an R01 award. Compared with white women, Asian and black women PhDs and black women MDs were significantly less likely to receive funding. Women submitted fewer grant applications, and blacks and women who were new investigators were more likely to submit only one application between 2000 and 2006. (Ginther et al. “Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and National Institutes of Health R01 Research Awards: Is There Evidence of a Double Bind for Women of Color?”Academic Medicine Volume 91(8), August 2016, p 1098-1107)

Ginther et al. suggest that there was no conscious racism involved on the part of people reviewing applications—they noted that both women and men of color submitted fewer applications (implying problems with institutional support or mentoring).

An Economist discussion of the study points out that:

Another possible explanation is social networking. It is in the nature of groups of experts (which is precisely what peer-review panels are) to know both each other and each other’s most promising acolytes. Applicants outside this charmed circle might have less chance of favourable consideration. If the charmed circle itself were racially unrepresentative (if professors unconsciously preferred graduate students of their own race, for example), those excluded from the network because their racial group was under-represented in the first place would find it harder to break in.

If that is the case, this is not aversive racism, let alone conscious hostility.

But there is a problem with NIH grants. And, similarly, there is a problem with the processes by which the Distinguished Scholars group is constituted.

But, to solve that problem, we don’t have to talk about the identities or characters of the Distinguished Scholars.

This isn’t about them; it’s about our field, and its processes, organizations, and institutions. Let’s talk about them.