[bioundgrd] Open letter to departmental leadership on diversity, inclusion, and equity

[Alan D Grossman]

Dear Kunle, Alexandra, and the now 224 past and current MIT Biology affiliates who signed the open letter on diversity, inclusion, and equity,

I write this as an individual and as department head, a first quick response to your powerful letter.

First, thank you! Thank you for articulating so clearly some of the longstanding problems in both our society and our department. We clearly need substantive change if we are to create an environment that is truly diverse, inclusive and equitable. Thank you for going beyond articulation of the issues and for providing a set of requests of department leadership that would make a difference.

I hear you. I agree, we absolutely must improve the experiences of students and of all members of the biology community who are from diverse backgrounds. I agree that we cannot rely on placing the burden of fixing these problems on the people who are struggling under them. And I vow as your department head to respond to this letter, and to the experiences of our community, with action.

As an individual, I am deeply pained by the horrific effects of racism and specifically of anti-blackness woven into the very fabric of this nation, within MIT, and within this department. I am a cis white man, a man of privilege. I know that I have benefitted from this while others have not. I know I must do more to leverage this privilege and my current position to become a better, stronger, and more effective ally.

I am also a Jew, which has its own history that I will not belabor here, except to say that it has instilled in me both a commitment to social justice and a belief in the concept of “Tikkun Olam”, a belief that we each have the opportunity to heal the world through right actions, including personal actions and social actions. In my letter to the Biology community on June 1, I gave voice to my own personal anguish and sense of helplessness, which I heard shared by many. I re-affirmed my commitment as an individual to help repair the world. I tried to articulate how individuals could take action and perhaps alleviate some of the sense of helplessness. I did not articulate the actions I would take at the departmental and institutional levels in my role as department head. Your letter serves as a strong reminder that departmental and institutional actions are essential and urgent. As an individual with privilege and as department head, I am committed to creating a departmental environment that is more diverse, inclusive, and equitable.

There will be more communications over the next days and weeks, as I work to turn your requests, your suggestions and those of others, into policies and actions.

Respectfully,
Alan

Alan D. Grossman
Professor and Head
Department of Biology
Building 68-530
M.I.T.
Cambridge, MA   02139

(617) 253-1515
adg at mit.edu<mailto:adg at mit.edu>





On Jun 11, 2020, at 8:31 PM, Elizabeth C Walsh <betz at mit.edu<mailto:betz at mit.edu>> wrote:

Forwarded on behalf of Kunle Demuren, Alexandra Navarro and 146 past and current MIT Biology affiliates.


To MIT Biology Leadership,

The sentiments expressed in recent messages from members of the faculty on the murder of George Floyd by police officers are appreciated. However, the deaths of Mr. Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Terrence Coleman, Atatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and countless other Black people at the hands of law enforcement are just a public symbol and symptom of the broader problem of white supremacy – a system of practices and attitudes that keeps white people in positions of political, social, and economic power at the exclusion of people of color – in this nation. We must also note that this state-sponsored violence has been visited upon Hispanic and Indigenous people as well. It is self-evident that sentiments of support are no longer enough in order to combat this sickness that plagues our society.

Our Biology Department features many affirmative and supportive statements about diversity on its website, and has sponsored many programs seeking to bring members of marginalized communities into the scientific enterprise - many of us have directly benefited from these efforts. Despite all of that, it is clear that issues within the department need to be addressed to improve the experiences of students from diverse backgrounds. In 2018, graduate students organized an internal poll to assess these experiences. One key conclusion from this survey was that those students who self-identified as being part of an under-represented minority group (URM) had distinctly worse experiences in the department from those who did not. This was apparent in student answers to questions about whether they felt that this department was inclusive and whether they felt that it was easy to have conversations about issues surrounding diversity, as URM-identifying students largely answered no to these questions. We must also note that the results from this survey have not been made public, nor have there been departmental efforts to formalize and repeat such surveys so lessons can be learned from these data. This is just one manifestation of a common phenomenon in which the burden of fixing systems and environments that are not inclusive falls on the people already struggling under those problems.

What is most telling about this department’s position on these issues is the complete lack of Black faculty. None of us would do an experiment seventy-five times with the same result and not think that it suggests something fundamental about the underlying biology - the same analysis must be applied here. This simple yet stunning reality severely undermines any statements supporting diversity and inclusion. This department has the intellectual and financial resources to make an honest, transparent, and public reckoning of its failures, and it must do so posthaste, as well as enact concrete and specific plans to do better. We have an opportunity to be a leader in the scientific community in this regard - justice, and the collective advancement of science in the service of all humanity, demand it.

Therefore we ask the following of the MIT Biology departmental leadership:
•      An acknowledgement of the fact that the way this department functions has resulted in an environment that is not sufficiently inclusive or equitable, as is evident from student surveys and the lack of diversity in the faculty of the department, in the form of an open forum.
•      An explicit description of the steps the department plans to take to address these issues, including mechanisms for accountability, in the form of a 5-10 year plan.
•      Improvements in faculty involvement, training, and accountability for diversity and inclusion efforts. Examples of what the department can do is as follows:
o   Require biannual (at minimum) open discussions during lab group meetings to address diversity and inclusion in the respective labs led by a trained professional.
o   Have at least one faculty of color on the admissions committee that assists with filtering through and selecting graduate student applications.
o   Hire a staff member that can work on diversity and inclusion efforts for the graduate community and supports Mandana Sassanfar in her efforts; and/or have 4-5 diverse faculty within the department be responsible for diversity and inclusion efforts for which these efforts count as a part of their responsibilities as faculty such as teaching and serving on other committees. The selection of these faculty members should include feedback from students.
•      A commitment and plan of action to substantially improve the diversity of faculty candidates interviewed and hired. As well as an explanation for why the pool of faculty candidates has lacked in diversity in the past.
•      A revised and more active Biology Committee on Diversity: the current department website notes the existence of a Biology Committee on Diversity and Inclusion. However, we as students have not heard about what this committee is doing or has done to address issues of diversity and inclusion. We request that this committee be more than a list of names and emails but one that transparently functions to address issues in the department.

In conclusion, we believe that there are significant strides the department can make to cultivate a more inclusive and equitable environment where students from diverse backgrounds feel sufficiently supported to succeed. The discussions held during the ShutdownSTEM event were a great move forward but the discussions on how to address these issues must continue. We call upon the leadership of MIT Biology to respond to this letter publicly and provide a plan that, together with students, post-docs, faculty and staff, works to achieve this goal.

Link to add your signature: https://forms.gle/EquPpwNocLsdQVWF8
Link to current up-to-date list of signatures: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/178GdQXR-xE0JpNteUc1N900iP62Pvu899TuBJTN56Qs/

Sincerely,

Full Name

Departmental Affiliation

Alexandra Navarro

Current Graduate Student

Kunle Demuren

Current Graduate Student

Alex Godfrey

Current Graduate Student

Aaron Hosios

Alum

Lauren Surface

Alum

Laurel Wright

Alum

Laura Blanton

Postdoc

Marissa Fletcher

Alum

Emma Kowal

Current Graduate Student

Abigail Groff

Postdoc

Sean McGeary

Current Graduate Student

Peter Nicholls

Postdoc

Yarden Katz

Alum

Bridget Begg

Current Graduate Student

Meghann Kasal

Current Graduate Student

Lukas Chmatal

Postdoc

Amanda Margarita Cruz

Current Graduate Student

Yamilex Acevedo-Sanchez

Current Graduate Student

Ryan Kohn

Current Graduate Student

Alexandra Nguyen

Postdoc

Emir Aviles Pagan

Alum

Swanny Lamboy Rodríguez

Current Graduate Student

G. Jordan Ray

Current Graduate Student

Julian Roessler

Current Graduate Student

Daniel Bollen

Current Graduate Student

Paritosh Gangaramani

Current Graduate Student

Jade Varineau

Current Graduate Student

Grace Phelps

Current Graduate Student

Hank Adelmann

Current Graduate Student

Gayathri Muthukumar

Current Graduate Student

Paul Rosen

Current Graduate Student

Emily Jackson

Current Graduate Student

Christian Loyo

Current Graduate Student

Manraj Gill

Current Graduate Student

Gerardo Perez Goncalves

Current Graduate Student

Alicia Zamudio

Alum

Jibril Kedir

Current Graduate Student

Talya Levitz

Current Graduate Student

Zak Swartz

Postdoc

Kelsey Farenhem

Current Graduate Student

Mina Kojima

Alum

Michelle Peters

Current Graduate Student

Jimmy Ly

Current Graduate Student

Shruthi Rengarajan

Current Graduate Student

Sheena Vasquez

Current Graduate Student

Adrianna San Roman

Postdoc

Keene Abbott

Current Graduate Student

Lorraine De Jesús-Kim

Current Graduate Student

Sebastian Coupe

Current Graduate Student

Luis R. Millán-Barea

Current Graduate Student

Ethan Alexander García Baker

Current Graduate Student

Gunter Sissoko

Current Graduate Student

Catherine (Kate) Koch

Current Graduate Student

Jaclyn Camuglia

Current Graduate Student

Fu-shuang Li

Staff

Danielle Tomasello

Postdoc

Talya Kramer

Current Graduate Student

Laurel Kinman

Current Graduate Student

Paul Fields

Alum

Holly Christensen

Current Graduate Student

Jibril Kedir

Current Graduate Student

Izabella Pena

Postdoc

Shannon Moreno

Current Graduate Student

Jordan Pitt

Current Graduate Student

Kate Malecek

Postdoc

Riley Hellinger

Research Technician/Assistant

Dia Ghose

Current Graduate Student

Simona Dalin

Alum

Hannah Bernstein

Current Graduate Student

Alice L Herneisen

Current Graduate Student

Sonya Entova

Alum

Alyssa Anderson

Current Graduate Student

Christine Minor

Research Technician/Assistant

Benjamin Kleaveland

Postdoc

Sora Kim

Current Graduate Student

Emma Sedivy

Alum

Kayla McCue

Current Graduate Student

Jessica Spinelli

Postdoc

Timothy J. Eisen

Alum

Elena Kingston

Current Graduate Student

Aditya Nair

Current Graduate Student

Thy Pham

Current Graduate Student

Wenwen Fang

Postdoc

Alex Chan

Current Graduate Student

Deborah Pohlmann

Current Graduate Student

Amelie Raz

Postdoc

Audra Amasino

Current Graduate Student

Scott Findlay

Postdoc

Helen Mueller

Current Graduate Student

Alexandra Pike

Postdoc

Caitlin Friend

Staff

Corinne Pender

Alum

Nicole Ann Aponte Santiago

Alum

Christian K Ramsoomair

Research Technician/Assistant

Isaac Oderberg

Alum

Christopher Giuliano

Current Graduate Student

Qing Feng

Postdoc

Xinchen Wang

Alum

Mohan Viswanathan

Staff

Lucy Megan

Alum

Kelsey Farenhem

Current Graduate Student

Avinoam Singer

Current Graduate Student

Sebastian R Swanson

Current Graduate Student

Nick Burton

Alum

Theresa Hwang

Current Graduate Student

Charlie Shi

Current Graduate Student

Rana Besada

Alum

Steve Sando

Postdoc

Calista Diehl

Current Graduate Student

Lindsey Bechen

Research Technician/Assistant

Chanyoung Park

Current Graduate Student

Natalie Heer

Alum

David Benjamin

Alum

Tsai-Ting Shih

Current Graduate Student

Gina Mawla

Current Graduate Student

Shalini Gupta

Current Graduate Student

Akiko Doi

Postdoc

Matthew Getz

Post-graduate assistant

Saria McKeithen-Mead

Current Graduate Student

Summer Morrill

Current Graduate Student

Elizabeth Hemenway

Current Graduate Student

Kiera Sapp

Current Graduate Student

Mary Andorfer

Postdoc

Frances Diehl

Current Graduate Student

Kelsey Farenhem

Current Graduate Student

Cassie Moomau

Current Graduate Student

Zhaoqi Li

Current Graduate Student

Acer Xu

Current Graduate Student

Kathleen Higgins

Current Graduate Student

Teresa Dinter

Current Graduate Student

Julia Froese

Postdoc

Nolan Tucker

Current Graduate Student

Jarrett Smith

Postdoc

Ruoxi Wendy Wang

Current Graduate Student

Jia Jia Zhang

Postdoc

Brian Vassallo

Current Graduate Student

Marlis Denk-Lobnig

Current Graduate Student

Grace Chen

Alum

Stacie Dodgson

Alum

David Driscoll

Current Graduate Student

Michael Stubna

Current Graduate Student

Benjamin Stein

Alum

Colin Fowler

Current Graduate Student

James Taggart

Current Graduate Student

Nolan Maier

Current Graduate Student

Hannah Harris

Current Graduate Student



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