Michael A. Taffe, Ph.D., Nicholas W. Gilpin, Ph.D.
On May 25th, 2020, video clips circulated on the internet showing the death of George Floyd, caused by police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds (Hill et al., 2020). This event sparked protests across the US that continue to this day, and kickstarted numerous discussions about systemic racism in the USA. Among these conversations, many industries, professions and workplaces have reflected on the fact that they are built within, by and on a white supremacist culture, which has the effect of assisting white citizens in achieving success, while making it more difficult for Black citizens to do the same.
Indeed, any playing field that increases the chances of success for one group of people almost necessarily decreases the chances of success for another group of people. The discussions we are having in 2020 are making it clearer to all that white supremacist structures permeate nearly every aspect of American society. The vast enterprise of biomedical research science in the USA, and in particular the academic research that is supported by grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is no different. In fact, the NIH has been aware of racial disparities in the federal grant award system for over nine years. These racial disparities, which have gone unaddressed, arereflective of a federal grant system that is systemically racist.
In August 2011, a groundbreaking review of grant award success at NIH during fiscal years (FY) 2000-2006, as funded through its 24 Institutes and Centers (ICs) with funding authority, revealed that the probability of funding for research grant proposals submitted by African-American/Black Principal Investigators (PIs) was 13 percentage points lower than applications submitted by white PIs (Ginther et al., 2011). This was met with some consternation and an immediate denial that peer review could possibly be “racist.” The NIH Director, Francis Collins, M.D., was quoted as saying “The situation is not acceptable…this is not just a problem for the NIH but the whole research community” (Corbyn, 2011). A follow-up study published in October 2019 showed that nothing had changed and applications with white PIs were still 1.7 times more likely to be funded than applications with Black PIs (Hoppe et al., 2019). In response to this, the NIH’s Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity suggested only that they need “further study” to “explore the causal factors behind the R01 funding gap” (NIH, 2019). Nearly a decade after the initial report on grant funding disparity, it is unacceptable that NIH has not acted more directly and forcefully to redress the problem and, indeed, that nothing has changed.
A Call to Action
This editorial is a call to action for all of those involved in the academic biomedical research enterprise, especially for those that set policy at government (e.g., NIH program and grant review officers) and university (e.g., deans and chairs, promotion and tenure committee members) levels, those with tenure or other forms of job protection, those with a seat at the table where decisions are made (e.g., search and review committee members), those with a role in deciding who fills those chairs when they are vacated by past members (e.g., committee chairs), and those who are white or white-passing (and may have access to public or private conversations on these topics that more visually obvious people of color may not). It is time to move the burden of this fight from those most affected by it to those unaffected by it, from those exhausted by it to those that have had the luxury of ignoring it until now, and from junior scientists working to get a foothold in our field to senior scientists that already have one (Dzirasa, 2020; Odekunle, 2020).
This action can take many forms, but at the most fundamental level, all of these actions require one to actually… act; not to think about acting or talk about acting. As noted recently by Professor Carl Hart in this context: “Verbal behavior is not actual behavior“ (Hart, 2020). Effective action first requires an admission by individuals and institutions regarding their respective roles in the systemic racism that created this situation – without this simple acknowledgment, it will be very difficult or impossible for scientists to believe the rhetoric about “doing better.” Action also requires self-education, and self-education requires time and effort. Action without self-education may be more harmful than helpful, despite the best of intentions. Self-education on this topic will never end; it requires constant introspection and self-assessment by individuals and institutions, constant commitment to do better, and constant checking of one’s own implicit and explicit biases. In a similar way, action also will never end; it requires constant vigilance for unlevel playing fields, threats to racial equity, willingness to call out colleagues and policies that fall short, and work to develop solutions that address these issues.
At this point, readers may be asking “What can I do to change a system that has existed for 400 years?” We do not claim to have all the answers, but we are confident in stating that systemic change comes from the decisions and actions of individuals and the journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step. Find like-minded colleagues, discuss these issues rather than shy away from them, incentivize and value efforts related to these causes, and elevate and provide platforms for the voices speaking out on these topics.