There are many layers here, but I want to comment on one aspect of these findings for now--the editorial board representation. Some will see this and immediately think: we need to get more POC on our boards! I understand that impulse, but encourage you to think a few steps down the game tree 1/n. - ThreadSky

neillewisjr.bsky.social • 89 days ago

There are many layers here, but I want to comment on one aspect of these findings for now--the editorial board representation. Some will see this and immediately think: we need to get more POC on our boards! I understand that impulse, but encourage you to think a few steps down the game tree 1/n.

Reposted from Madhu Pai, MD, PhD

"Non-White scientists appear on fewer editorial boards, spend more time under review, and receive fewer citations"

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Comments

sylviapperry.bsky.social•89 days ago

I'm tired. Also, once we agree to take on these positions, folks get lazy and ask the same handful of POC to take on every position. Many POC scholars are rarely asked (to review papers, to serve on editorial boards, etc.), which creates a separate issue as they move toward promotion.

weedenkim.bsky.social•89 days ago

Related: convos about requiring course on race. Setting aside Qs about merit of idea and whether it would accomplish what proponents want, in practice it would mean POC faculty disproportionately asked to teach giant intro courses on hot-button topic to a lot of students who don't want to be there.

victorerikray.bsky.social•89 days ago

This is exactly how I feel about this proposal when it comes up. I think these classes are important (obviously) and should be part of the curriculum but do not want to always be teaching them to folks who don't want to be there.

louiseseamster.bsky.social•89 days ago

Especially expanding small courses that already existed as great environments for inquiry into large courses students are supposed to take…

michellefson.bsky.social•89 days ago

Such an important point. The data and the way forward are layered with a lot of short- and long-game approaches.

adventuresofjoy.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

aasewell.bsky.social•89 days ago

On 3-4 boards for 7+ yrs running. Overwhelmed. Overworked. Overburdened. I do not even refer out Black reviewers anymore. I only adjudicate conflicts. I do not think of it is as a tax we pay for being a token. No, it is a debt we take on to seed the next generation. I am in the red. And over it.

neillewisjr.bsky.social•89 days ago

I like that debt framing. And it makes me think of this work:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504219830674?fbclid=IwAR2X82X57ZaYc2GW5TQrOd4efAinwIeKOE0xTT95VZs65ZbYCy-UI-p10mo

aasewell.bsky.social•89 days ago

Yep yep yep, tap into it.

louiseseamster.bsky.social•89 days ago

This works a lot of ways for me—including how the roles (like editorial board member) simply carry different meaning/rewards for black and white scholars—the labor vs the prestige

annstrat.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

boghuma.bsky.social•89 days ago

excellent points. The pipeline is short, those in the pipeline carry the burden of being the token person on a board for representation reasons. This comes at a huge physical and mental cost. Also being on a board is unpaid labor. If I'm going to be a token at least make it worth my while.

diversityhorror.bsky.social•88 days ago

I’m in three DEI groups and cochair of the LGBTQIA+ ERG at my hospital and I frequently get asked to lead classes. I am so burned out.

starmd.bsky.social•89 days ago

#addtoblackmedsky
📌

deepseadawn.bsky.social•89 days ago

Overtaxed 🙋🏾‍♀️🥺

richardckeller.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

ahumbleman.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

mirya.bsky.social•86 days ago

I also saw the fewer editors number and thought "yeah, that tracks" bc deans largely determine the resources given to faculty to allow them to be editors. If deans value Black faculty less (or view them as 'greedy'), then they won't support editorial positions

cclaremdmph.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

pfluegerlaw.bsky.social•86 days ago

📌

dgdela.bsky.social•89 days ago

a challenge that extends beyond academia for sure

rogerthegs.bsky.social•89 days ago

Being an editor is both power and service - which became evident to me at JESP.

mguravich.bsky.social•88 days ago

This is solid, man. I reckon the minority tax is everywhere, but this more nuanced one was new to me. Thank you for adding scope to the discussion. For me, anyway…

breznaunate.bsky.social•89 days ago

It feels like ideal intervention is an old concept. Providing equality of opportunity starting with pre-K and K, having social policies that reduce social inequalities in health, neighborhood quality, education, income, etc. These academic inequalities are all downstream of this, no?

jurygirl.bsky.social•88 days ago

Thanks for this important thread!

juliebonjour.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

neillewisjr.bsky.social•89 days ago

If there are few non-white scientists to begin with, and suddenly every journal starts asking those few to be on every board, those few will quickly become overwhelmed. I say this as someone who is currently on 5 different boards and is still getting asked to be on more. 2/n.

nicolecrust.bsky.social•89 days ago

I appreciate this perspective; thank you for amplifying it.

neillewisjr.bsky.social•89 days ago

This is not to say journals shouldn't try to do better, but that we should think about the broader context when coming up with interventions, otherwise the good intentions can inadvertently exacerbate other problem. 3/4.

neillewisjr.bsky.social•89 days ago

This approach has a well-known consequence: it's called the minority tax that faculty of color often face as we're called upon to address inequities in the larger system. I just want to make sure we don't keep adding to that tax. 4/4.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7851863/

nibasaleem.bsky.social•88 days ago

People also heuristically ask those who are already visible and taxed (at R1s, already on boards, high scholarly impact based on heuristics relying on h or i indices), & ask them for more service. Efforts need to cast a wider net to include minority members who aren't yet visible, but should be.

raulszighelboim.bsky.social•88 days ago

Perhaps we should create an environment that allows the emergence of more non-white scientists.

nowbaxter.bsky.social•89 days ago

This is so helpful, thanks for this thread - applicable
in academia and elsewhere. How to solve immediate inequity (and get broader views that makes better science!), while working on the pipeline … really appreciate the thoughts provoked

cclaremdmph.bsky.social•89 days ago

📌

gbdownes.bsky.social•88 days ago

There are a couple thoughtful articles about how to reform this very kind of tax, but those steps are hard to implement, slow, and, especially now, vulnerable to attack.

sjjphd.bsky.social•89 days ago

Whewwwww

sanjaysrivastava.com•89 days ago

Somewhere, you just know there’s an associate dean who convened a committee to study the minority tax and guess who he asked to be on it

diburina.bsky.social•88 days ago

Another factor contributing to this might be that researchers from the Global South are not on the candidate pool. They (we) could be editors or fill remote positions.

blackeyedlimabeans.bsky.social•89 days ago

It seems the solution to this is to educate all the non-white people until we have a lot of non-white scientists.

I feel like this election was a referendum on whether or not we should continue this White European colonizer system of preventing that from happening.

mclemoremr.bsky.social•88 days ago

I might go live on this tonight…

a1fr3d0.bsky.social•88 days ago

#Pigmentation

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