Today is the #ShutdownSTEM strike, a day when non-black members of the academy strike in solidarity with the black lives matter movement, and take action to work to improve STEM academia. To quote their website:
“Those of us who are not Black, particularly those of us who are white, play a key role in perpetuating systemic racism. Direct actions are needed to stop this injustice. Unless you engage directly with eliminating racism, you are perpetuating it. This moment calls for profound and meaningful change. #ShutDownAcademia and #ShutDownSTEM is the time for white and non-Black People of Color (NBPOC) to not only educate themselves, but to define a detailed plan of action to carry forward. Wednesday June 10, 2020 will mark the day that we transition into a lifelong commitment of actions to eradicate anti-Black racism in academia and STEM. ”
I wanted to briefly share a few easy things you can do if, like me, you’re a pure mathematician participating in the strike today. I’ve tried to limit myself to listing only concrete deliverables that you can achieve today, while sitting at your computer; this is somewhat counter to the spirit of the strike, which suggests we “define a detailed plan of action to carry forward”— that’s something I’m still thinking hard about. I’ve also avoided suggesting e.g. readings or academic literature on race and math education, not because I think this is a bad idea, but because I don’t feel qualified to make recommendations in this area. And of course anything you can do today, while sitting at your computer, can only have a tiny impact on the margin; this document is only meant to identify the lowest of the low-hanging fruit — mostly emails and donations.
With that said, here are some things you can do:
Join or donate to the National Association of Mathematicians, which aims to “[promote] excellence in the mathematical sciences” and “[promote] the mathematical development of all underrepresented minorities.” Email your department chair and suggest that your department get an institutional membership (150 dollars). If you have money to spare, offer to sponsor memberships for some number of graduate students in your department (30 dollars per student), and ask your colleagues to do the same.
Donate to Mathematically Gifted and Black, which supports “predoctoral mathematicians to pursue career goals related to the mathematical sciences.”
Learn a bit about the history of racism in mathematics, and encourage the AMS and your department to make restitution. Here’s a good place to start (if you’re at UGA like me, note that we feature prominently and embarrassingly) — h/t Jesse Kass.
Along similar lines, try to figure out if any buildings on your campus are named after famous bigots. At this point I think it’s fairly well-known that the math department at UT Austin is named after R.L. Moore, who was extremely bad. Several minutes of googling led me to Joseph E. Brown Hall, the Richard B. Russell Building, LeConte Hall, Baldwin Hall, and Candler Hall at my institution, UGA. If the president of your university has just released a statement reaffirming the university’s “commitment to diversity and inclusion,” it might be worth replying with a suggestion to change the names of such buildings. In my view this is more than just a symbolic act — I can only imagine how unpleasant it would be to live or work in a building named after someone dedicated to enslaving your ancestors. Unfortunately, it seems quite hard to get a building name changed (at UGA it seems to require a vote of the Board of Regents, and at some other state institutions it apparently requires a vote of the state legislature(!)), but sending an email can’t hurt.
It’s not clear to me whether this is in the spirit of #ShutdownSTEM (part of which is not doing any research for the day), but take a look at some papers written by black mathematicians in your field. In algebraic geometry and number theory, you might start by looking at Kevin Corlette’s work on non-abelian Hodge theory and Adebisi Agboola’s work on Iwasawa theory, respectively (obviously this is far from an exhaustive list). Here’s a useful resource.
Do you know any black graduate students who might be a good fit as postdocs at your department? Or black postdocs who might be a good fit as tenure-track faculty at your department? If so, it might be good to start laying some groundwork for that to happen — for example, invite them to give a talk in your seminar and mention them to your colleagues, and be prepared to suggest they apply when the time comes. If not, that’s bad — you might think about how to change that.
Again, this is a pretty tiny proportion of what one should do, but the point I wanted to make by writing it is that some small actions are actually pretty easy. Even though the payoff is likewise small, I thought these ideas were worth sharing. Please let me know if you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions.