Anti-Racism Pledge

Our pledge to stand against racism in academia

Members of the Portera-Cailliau Lab pledge to…

  • Acknowledge the facts about societal and institutional racism:
    • Very few of our fellow scientists are Black
    • Black scientists are still discredited and ignored in academia
    • A long history of systematic oppression of Black people contributed to this inequity
    • Science itself has been misused to propagate racist ideas and has taken advantage of Black people
    • We recognize that Black scientists bear the unfair minority tax burden

  • Educate ourselves about racism and inequity in academia by…
    • Accepting that we have implicit biases against Black scientists and making active efforts to address and educate ourselves about these biases
    • Acknowledging that it is our responsibility to find solutions
    • Reading articles/books and watching movies/webinars about these issues1
    • Discussing these topics before every weekly lab meeting
    • Holding quarterly meetings to discuss these topics with our colleagues
    • Participating in school-wide events
    • Listening to and learning about the experiences of Black academics and scientists

  • Take action by…
    • Educating our colleagues about institutional racism and holding them and ourselves accountable
    • Amplifying Black voices in and outside of science
    • Calling out microaggressions against our colleagues when we witness them
    • Doing more STEM outreach for middle school and high school students
    • Working with our institution’s leadership to implement new anti-racist policies
    • Mentor Black undergrads and encourage our colleagues to do the same
    • Inviting Black faculty to seminars/meetings we organize
    • Collaborating with Black colleagues at our institution and beyond
    • Commemorating a day of #shutdownSTEM2 to recognize the struggles of being #BlackintheIvory

  •  

1 For more information, please refer to the following anti-racism resources (focused on academia):
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/this-is-what-the-race-gap-in-academia-looks-like/
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/silence-is-never-neutral-neither-is-science/
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/12/the-plight-of-the-black-academic/420237/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01920-6
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/31/us-college-faculty-student-diversity/

2 https://www.shutdownstem.com/resources

 

Taking Action

During the summer 2021, we transitioned from a year-long (nearly) discussion of anti-racism topics during our weekly lab meetings (see below) to a phase of implementing various efforts to live up to our anti-racism pledge. Members of the lab began to meet in small groups to plan several activities at UCLA and in the local community. From now on, members of the lab will participate yearly in all of the following:

 

  1. Outreach to high-schools or middle schools: hosting annual events (in person or via zoom) in which we (1) explain the types of neuroscience research being done at UCLA in a ways that is exciting to young minds, or (2) explain to them how they can get involved in research and decide whether science is for them.
    • November 16, 2021: we hosted students from a local high school

  2. Host seminars by current URM research trainees at UCLA: hosting research seminars at UCLA (including on our floor, which has 7 different labs) by URM undergrads. They not only have an opportunity to practice their presentations, but also get feedback and mentorship.

  3. Mentorship for undergraduates at UCLA: Members of the lab will mentor undergrads who are doing neuroscience research. We have joined existing programs for UCLA undergrads (https://gum.ucla.edu/).
    • Spring-Fall 2021: Dr. Portera-Cailliau mentors a Latina undergrad from UC Merced who is applying to Graduate school.
    • October 20, 2021: Dr. Portera-Cailliau hosted a virtual booth at the ENDURE Annual Meeting where he represented UCLA graduate programs. He interacted with 8 undergrads from universities across the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.

  4. Outreach to LA public libraries: We aim to present the latest neuroscience research to lay audiences about and provide guidance to middle school and high school students in disadvantaged neighborhoods regarding careers in science.

  5. Advocacy: We will be writing letters to our representatives in Congress, in the Society for Neuroscience, American Academy of Neurology, etc, to bring awareness to the problem of racism in academia and to engage them for solutions.

 

Discussions about Anti-Racism and Diversity during our weekly lab meetings

 

Date

Title

5/24/21

Addressing racism and disparities in the biomedical sciences

5/10/21

Racism and harassment are common in field research — scientists are speaking up

5/3/21

Cops Off Campus Research Project

4/26/21

Cops off Campus Coalition

4/19/21

An American Crisis: The Lack of Black Men in Medicine

3/29/21

Racial inequity in grant funding from the US National Institutes of Health

3/22/21

People use both heterogeneity and minority representation to evaluate diversity

3/15/21

The racial politics of STEM education in the USA: interrogations and explorations

3/8/21

Designing for Rightful Presence in STEM: The Role of Making Present Practices

3/1/21

Voices on diversity: recruiting underrepresented scientists
Voices on Diversity: Overcoming barriers to Pursuing a Career in Science

2/22/21

Interrogating structural Racism in STEM Higher Education

2/8/21

Complicated legaices: The human genome at 20

2/1/21

Seeing Black History in Context

1/25/21

How to Stop the Racist in You
Suggested Readings

Podcasts:
Code Switch
Yo is this racist?
Tamarindo
Asian Enough
The Stoop

1/11/21

NINDS Strategies for Enhancing the Diversity of Neuroscience Researchers

1/4/21

Discussions about Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an antiracist"

12/21/20

“If you aren’t White, Asian or Indian, you aren’t an engineer”: racial microaggressions in STEM education

12/14/20

The Brandeis Science Posse: Building a Cohort Model Program To Retain Underserved Students in the Sciences

12/7/20

Addressing racism and disparities in the biomedical sciences

11/30/20

Gender Disparities in Academic Emergency Medicine: Strategies for the Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion of Women

11/23/20

Diversity in science: next steps for research group leaders
Ten simple rules for building an anti-racist lab

11/9/20

Patching the Leaks: Revitalizing and Reimagining the STEM Pipeline

11/2/20

Spectrum Podcast: Black Autism Researchers Transcript

10/26/20

Charles H. Turner, pioneer in animal cognition

10/19/20

Racial and ethnic imbalance in neuroscience reference lists and intersections with gender

10/12/20

Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards

10/5/20

STEM faculty who believe ability is fixed have larger racial achievement gaps and inspire less student motivation in their classes

9/28/20

The very ivory tower: pathways reproducing racialethnic stratification in US academic science

9/21/20

The Gender Gap in STEM Fields: The Impact of the Gender Stereotype of Math and Science on Secondary Students' Career Aspirations

9/14/20

Racism as a Unique Social Determinant of Mental Health: Development of a Didactic Curriculum for Psychiatry Residents

8/31/20

Sense of belonging within the graduate community of a research-focused STEM department: Quantitative assessment using a visual narrative and item response theory

8/24/20

Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines

8/17/20

Addressing disparities in academic medicine: what of the minority tax?

  1. 1. Outreach to high-schools or middle schools: hosting annual events (in person or via zoom) in which we (1) explain the types of neuroscience research being done at UCLA in a ways that is exciting to young minds, or (2) explain to them how they can get involved in research and decide whether science is for them.
    • November 16, 2021: we hosted students from a local high school
  2. 2. Host seminars by current URM research trainees at UCLA: hosting research seminars at UCLA (including on our floor, which has 7 different labs) by URM undergrads. They not only have an opportunity to practice their presentations, but also get feedback and mentorship.
  3. 3. Mentorship for undergraduates at UCLA: Members of the lab will mentor undergrads who are doing neuroscience research. We have joined existing programs for UCLA undergrads (https://gum.ucla.edu/).
    • Spring-Fall 2021: Dr. Portera-Cailliau mentors a Latina undergrad from UC Merced who is applying to Graduate school.
    • October 20, 2021: Dr. Portera-Cailliau hosted a virtual booth at the ENDURE Annual Meeting where he represented UCLA graduate programs. He interacted with 8 undergrads from universities across the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.
  4. 4. Outreach to LA public libraries: We aim to present the latest neuroscience research to lay audiences about and provide guidance to middle school and high school students in disadvantaged neighborhoods regarding careers in science.
  5. 5. Advocacy: We will be writing letters to our representatives in Congress, in the Society for Neuroscience, American Academy of Neurology, etc, to bring awareness to the problem of racism in academia and to engage them for solutions.