Although barriers in admissions have been reduced for students from historically excluded backgrounds, their graduate success in science, technology, engineering and mathematics majors is significantly lower than their counterparts. Recently, many institutions have been emphasizing the need for increased representation of historically excluded students, but fail to create a welcoming environment for them. In addition, federal and state legal actions challenge the notion that Equity, Diversity and Inclusion initiatives are critical areas to support and fund.
Students not only need representation within their peer groups, but also in the faculty and staff at these institutions who provide a level of support that students from historically excluded backgrounds desperately need. At the local University of Utah chapter of SACNAS, we strive to promote belonging for every scientist in STEM, no matter the background.
Why Does Diversity in STEM Matter?
STEM careers are critical to explaining natural phenomena, designing therapeutics, developing new technology and building tools to help society. So why do we need these fields to be diverse? Promoting diversity in STEM fields is critical to better problem-solving through various perspectives and experiences, reducing discrimination in new technologies and medicine and ensuring that those who develop new tools and technologies represent those for whom they are being developed.
Diversity in STEM, Nationally and Locally
According to the 2023 National Science Foundation’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics Report, together, Hispanics, Blacks and American Indians or Alaska Natives made up 31% of the total population and 24% of the STEM workforce in 2021.
How does the U stack up? In October of this year, the U reported that 25.4% of all benefits-eligible staff identify as Asian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or as two or more ethnicities. For students in 2023, 23% of all STEM degrees at the U were awarded to “persons of color.”
Even though diversity in STEM is necessary, the diversity of America is not yet reflected in our STEM workforce, the U’s staff or the U’s STEM degree awardees. Achieving better representation in STEM has to be a community effort that starts in early education and persists through higher education. Given all of this information, you might be surprised to learn that some Utah legislators do not believe EDI initiatives should be a community solution.
Legislative Debates Around EDI Efforts in Utah
This year, four bills were introduced to the Utah State Legislature to limit or prohibit EDI efforts in Utah schools. H.B. 441 and H.B. 451 died in the Senate committee. However, H.B. 427, which regulates how teachers can discuss racism, sexism, ableism, religious discrimination and more in classrooms, was signed into law. The fourth and final bill, S.B. 283, initially called for eliminating EDI offices and leadership positions at Utah universities. However, this bill was pulled in lieu of a year-long investigation to determine what EDI programs do and who they support before potentially re-introducing the bill in 2024.
This proposal leaves EDI programs to prove their worth or else face state-mandated restrictions or elimination. However, even if S.B. 283 is revived in the upcoming legislative session to hamstring EDI efforts, it does not change the fact that diversity in STEM is still lacking and requires sustained efforts to improve.
What Can Students Do to Foster EDI at the U?
The authors of this op-ed are members of the U of U chapter of SACNAS, a national all-inclusive community dedicated to supporting diversity and inclusion in STEM fields and fostering the success of scientists from historically excluded backgrounds. We aim to help these members attain advanced degrees, careers and leadership positions in STEM. The U chapter is led by a spectrum of historically included and excluded groups that help facilitate a place of belonging for every scientist.
Through seminars, SACNAS connects our community with diverse, advanced-stage career scientists to learn about their pathway through science, how they incorporate their experiences into their work and how they faced and overcame challenges.
Through professional development opportunities, such as travel scholarships, leadership retreats and national conferences, we help our members develop the skills and professional networks they need to succeed.
Through social and cultural activities, like cooking and dancing workshops or La Loteria night, we share aspects of our cultural identities to create a community where we are our whole selves.
The Takeaway
The discussion surrounding EDI at a national and local level is complex and ongoing. While we hope the S.B. 283 investigation reinforces that funding EDI efforts is necessary and beneficial to the state of Utah, we at U of U SACNAS are dedicated to promoting diversity within science. We are enacting social change by bringing our unique cultural backgrounds to the forefront and encouraging our community to learn and celebrate with us.
— Deirdre Mack and Taylor Stevens, SACNAS at the U of U
The Daily Utah Chronicle publishes guest op-eds written by faculty, elected officials and other members of the public on topics relevant to students at the University of Utah. The Chronicle welcomes guest op-ed pitches here.
John Hedberg • Jan 30, 2024 at 1:34 pm
Deirdre and Taylor,
I think you mean well, but you talk about disparities like someone who’s never actually seen or lived in an impoverished neighborhood. Unlike the “inclusiveness” of SACNAS (BIPOC-only?), poverty really is inclusive of everybody, of all stripes and colors, and those neighborhoods with endemic broken families, bad schools, and worse crime and living conditions have pale Euro people living right in the mix with everyone else. Outside of brand-new immigrants, which my family can broadly attest to, most poverty isn’t race-based but cultural: families whose interior culture stresses family, faith, hard work/play, and education rise out of “ghetto” zip codes with bad school districts in one generation, but people like my parents who succumb to immaturity, grievance, addictions, and their own uncurbed and unbridled instincts end up right back in those same neighborhoods along with their kids, and they stay there unless the kids find a way to be the grown-ups their parents never became or refused to be. It’s that simple, and so the family culture and zip code you grow up in has much more to do with who gets into STEM programs (or even finishes high school) than racism or any form of bigotry (besides prejudice against taking responsibility, which is a real thing 🤪).
The opportunities in this country outstrip nearly every other in the world, and nowhere is more open to choosing your own better life and achieving it than here, or branches of my family wouldn’t have all flocked here from 10 different countries and married each other (family of xenophiles: what can I say? 😊). I grew up in the Greater Boston Melting Pot, surrounded by (and taught by) immigrants from literally every country on the planet, and the fact is that slavery ended in this culture first out of the whole planet, and there’s still no place that offers more freedom and inclusiveness than America does, or people wouldn’t still be streaming here to build lives and families together every single day.
Equity is poison, since it highlights, promotes, and perpetuates prejudice based on sight alone by falsely concluding that race is at the heart of disparity in this, the most socially- and economically-mobile culture on Earth. True religion teaches us that our identity is based on our common humanity, which we all share equally, and to Love each child of God (by Whatever Name) the way good parents do, since we, very diverse children, are all equally Loved, and our mutual well-being and happiness is a Parent’s first responsibility at all times. That’s why every great culture has its own version of “Love your neighbor as yourself”, since “the least of these” neighbors is just as human as you, just as fallible as you, and just as Lovable as you, in God’s eyes By Any Name, and in each other’s, if we’re honest and choose to value each other the way good parents do, which is Love.
This human identity is what Dr. King taught, who was a Protestant minister (Christian Nationalist! 😂😂 hardly!). This human identity is what Malcolm X taught after his epiphany in Mecca, and he was Muslim. This human identity is what Mahatma Gandhi taught, and he was Hindu: both he and Malcolm were killed by brethren who refused to give up worshipping Equity’s divisive and divided hate-totem, as was Jesus of Nazareth, who also taught this same human identity, and he was Jewish.
Equal Love for every individual based on our common human Family is why these folks (among many others) remain so vividly in memory, and why their message spread so widely. Among every diverse group, individuals recognized the common identity we all share and decided to act on it, to live by it.
Diversity, EQUALITY, and Inclusion are based on equal Love for every unique individual, a standard we all fall down striving to meet every day, but it’s the Love which forgives the scrapes and inevitable bumps along the road to maturity, forgives even as we are forgiven by good parents, out of Love which picks us up to keep us striving continually for that more perfect union that’s the only real ‘safe space’ we’ll ever know: each other, our Common Family. That’s the actual path to Peace, the Mountain-Top Dr. King tried to get us all to see together.
Aim high, if that’s the pinnacle you want to reach~! Faithfully,