NIH director apologizes for ‘structural racism,’ pledges actions
Mar. 1, 2021 , 4:00 PM
Responding to concerns about discrimination against Black people, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins today issued an unusual public apology for what he called “structural racism in biomedical research” and pledged to address it with a sweeping set of actions.
NIH’s long-running efforts to improve diversity “have not been sufficient,” Collins wrote in the statement. “To those individuals in the biomedical research enterprise who have endured disadvantages due to structural racism, I am truly sorry.” The agency plans “new ways to support diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and will also correct policies within the agency “that may harm our workforce and our science,” he added.
Hyacinth Empinado/STAT
Universities and academic hospitals have vowed to diversify their ranks after a year of reckoning over racial injustice. Among the remedies faculty are pushing: rewarding diversity and inclusion efforts in promotion decisions.
From residencies or postdocs up through different levels of professorship, advancing in academia amounts to climbing a structured career ladder; faculty reach new rungs by winning grants, publishing in top journals, and presenting at conferences. It’s a high-pressure scramble to get tenure.
What hasn’t been incentivized or credited, researchers throughout that ladder say, is work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion the task forces served on, the community outreach, the mentoring of trainees from underrepresented groups. Recognizing such work in more formal ways could not only encourage it, but actively help institutions achieve their stated goals of adding and retaining more faculty of color, particularly at upper leaders
By Dana Talesnik
Dr. Lisa Cooper
The contrast was stark. Some kids grew up in spacious homes and attended private schools, while many others lived in shacks without electricity or running water. That was the childhood scene for Dr. Lisa Cooper, director, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. Growing up in West Africa, she was among the fortunate, but she couldn’t ignore, and remained haunted by, the dire poverty of many of her fellow citizens.
“Those children I saw around me in Liberia were the faces of health disparities,” said Cooper, a professor at Johns Hopkins University schools of medicine, nursing and public health. “I was acutely aware of this, even as a young child, and I always wondered what it would be like if we all had similar opportunities to have a good life.”
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Baridon Hall, Arkansas State Teachers College, circa 1963
From the University of Central Arkansas’ earliest beginnings as Arkansas State Normal School (ASNS), women have been an integral part of the growth and success of the institution.
According to university history, three of the eight original faculty members were women: Beatrice Powell, Emma Rasor and Ida Waldran. In fall 2019, 57% of full-time faculty were female, according to the Office of Institutional Research’s Diversity Ledger. Currently, three women serve as vice presidents: Mary Bane Lackie serves as vice president of University Advancement; Diane Newton serves as vice president of Finance and Administration; and Patricia Poulter serves as executive vice president and provost. Additionally, Amy Whitehead is the university’s chief of staff.