What Can CS Departments Do?

Clearly society has largely ignored the systemic racism that has existed for years, so much so that public protests erupted in almost coordinated fashion across the globe.

Many have written about how we reached this point by discussing these themes (among many):

• implicit bias
• stereotype threat
• biases based on the names of individuals
• fewer networking opportunities for underrepresented groups
• hiring that favors students from peer institutions
• lack of role models for students and young faculty
• negative view of minorities we see in the media
• derogatory language used to refer to minorities
• unequal funding for schools and other societal needs

Yet, the most common question I got this past week was: what can my computer science department do? I love being consulted. However, it is hard to tell you how to dismantle all of these deeply rooted causes of why we are where we are in a short writeup. Let me try to suggest a few things.

First, it should come as no surprise that many things we assume to be fair, standard, or just plain normal in reality are not. Even our notion of “fair” has been constructed from a point of view that prioritizes fairness for certain groups. Not only is history written by the victors; laws, structures, and other pieces of society are developed by them too. To expect them to be fair or equitable is naive at best.

We have all seen the images of the kids trying to watch a baseball game over a fence and using that context to define equity, equality and fairness. If you think that is a “cute example,” you must be one of the people that could easily see over the fence. The rest of us see it as “ain’t that the truth.” And more often than not, we can add more obstacles to analogy… “and the box I was given broke after the third inning.” So, even when we try to be fair, we end up not being fair.

If I had to summarize my recommendation in one marketing-ready, jingle-appropriate statement, it would be: rethink all of your assumptions. Let me give just one example for now: starting a student chapter. Most professional organizations (ACM, SACNAS, etc.) have student chapters. There are also many local student chapters on our campus. Most student governing boards have some language like this: student organizations must be started by students and led by students. In theory, that sounds beautiful and magnificently empowering.

The problem is often that the communities that have been marginalized, ignored, and discriminated against are not empowered to take that step. They are not confident that the system can create effective solutions to address the problem. I am sure that in these past weeks you have heard the saying “we can’t expect only Black people to solve the problem, we are all part of the problem.” Well, that applies here too. Students, particularly underrepresented students, need support, and often our solution has been: “they can create their own support.”

So, politely I say get off your privileged white horse and create student organizations for underrepresented/marginalized students. Period. While allowing students to self-organize seems like an equitable idea, because of societal pressures, underrepresented students might not take advantage of these. Help them explore these opportunities, explain to them what a student organization is, mentor them on the value of having/running such a group, teach them about creating a legacy that might impact students down the road. Then step aside and let them run it.

Some of my recommendations (in brief) are below. Over the next few days/weeks, I will expand on each one of these as a separate writeup. As I write my opinion on these, I might have more to suggest. We’ll see (together) how far this project takes us.

1. Create student organizations to support members of underrepresented and marginalized groups. Specifically create them in your CS department.
2. Collect data to help identify the problem but do not use data to say “mission accomplished.” When it comes to justice, the work is never done. To paraphrase Dijkstra, “Data collection about diversity can be used to show the presence of discrimination/unfairness/racism, but never to show the absence!”
3. Don’t discount data because of a small sample size (small n) — by definition, your data will always have a small N. Learn from social scientists on how to do qualitative research with small Ns.
4. Students are not like you (the professor) — stop assuming that “when I was a student” applies to your students. You (a college professor) are the equivalent of the NBA professional. Our students learning how to dribble or dunk can’t be expected to be like Michael Jordan. We need to find a way to help them learn the discipline without expecting them to be a future ACM Turing Award winner.
5. Same Struggle, Different Differences — yeah, should be obvious but it is not. Different groups face similar struggles of inclusion, promotion, acceptance, etc. But the reasons why they face these struggles are different (e.g., race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, language barriers, disability). The solutions are different, so don’t attempt to, for example, address the underrepresentation of women first and then “apply what we learn to other groups.”
6. To parents and students: ask the difficult questions when you visit campus. To the university administrators: be ready to answer the difficult questions. Don’t be dismissive (“we don’t have racism in our campus”) — yeah, right.
7. Unconscious bias is real — we all suffer from it, education is the cure.
8. Rethink your curriculum — curriculum created by systems that have ignored racism and discrimination might (surprise, surprise) end up reinforcing racism and discrimination. The solution is not adding one module or course to your curriculum.
9. Rethink your assessment metrics — lots has been written about how different tests have biases towards particular groups. In particular, rethink high-stakes tests, as they favor particular groups in unfair ways.
10. Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion must be actively managed, not wished away with a task force or committee. Lack of JEDI (like the acronym?) is not a one off problem, is not a temporary problem, and it is not even a problem to be solved. This must be a part of your organization with people to manage it day to day, just like you manage your curriculum or your finances.

I know that we are all anxious to address this problem. I know that the urgency of the protests (and the violence captured on social media) say to all of us: we must act now. Unfortunately, this is a societal problem. This is something that requires everybody on board to address it. And this is a problem that has been around for hundreds of years in one form or another. It cannot be reduced to a set of cookie cutter solutions that we can hand off to someone (probably a Black or brown professor and very likely a junior woman professor) and say “here, implement these.”

We must resist the temptation to pass the blame to someone else. “If only high schools did …” doesn’t eliminate our responsibility to demand better funding for high schools. Saying “we will just vote in November” is pointless without demanding that the candidates directly address the inequities in society. We can’t hide behind a “rigorous curriculum” as a way to excuse using an assessment that is inherently biased and ignores preparatory privilege.

My apologies if I don’t give you a checklist of things you can do to solve racism and inequity. This is not something you can do on a Monday morning while you drink your cup of coffee. It is just not that easy.

Peace and be well.

PS. I want to thank MG and MJ for encouraging me to write my views and to RS for asking what we can do. Even after my many years of experiences, awards, recognitions, and position of privilege, I am still a product of the system that has for years devalued my ideas and at times I still need these external encouragements to make me feel that I have something of value to contribute.