Diversity statement topic too touchy?

[01848p]

So i've come across this diversity statement prompt at some of the schools I am applying to and am struggling with what to write about. I am a queer woman of color so I could write about the intersection of those identities but psychology is a pretty liberal field and it feels weird to tokenize myself, and my research interests are not really connected to either my queerness or my womanhood (though I do want to work with people of color). A thought I had was to write about being a survivor of child abuse. When I was a kid it was largely emotional and physical and now it is financial/emotional abuse/cyber-stalking. I wouldn't touch upon the ongoing nature of the abuse in the essay but I'm wondering if this is too taboo to talk about? It is a very real part of my life that has shaped who I am and I'm not ashamed of it but I don't know what kinds of rules there are about this. I know that generally people are cautioned against bringing up mental health issues in their diversity statements because it can make the individual seem like they are unfit for the rigor of a graduate program but I've never seen any advice anywhere about this topic in particular. 

I would appreciate if people could not quote this post since it's such a personal subject for me

 

Thanks everyone for your help

Edited November 6, 2016 by 01848p

[Blackwater]

This is a tough question. I think the answer may be that it depends on how you communicate the information. I do agree that you have to be tactful when discussing your own mental health issues in a statement. That being said, a lot of diversity prompts specifically ask what barriers you have overcome in the pursuit of your education. I think that this could be something you discuss in your statement if it was done in a way that focuses more on your resilience, drive, and commitment to your education. So I would focus less on the situation itself and focus more on your ability to overcome obstacles. 

As always, I would recommend having a prof/mentor review the statement so they can give you feedback on how it might be received. 

 

[St0chastic]

Yeah, this is a tough one. Unfortunately, I could see this backfiring if it scares off some less open minded admissions committee members. Talking about child abuse might be a bit too personal. I agree with Blackwater that you should have some close professors read over your statement and weigh in on whether it's appropriate or not. 

This might come across as contentious, but I've always found it weird that efforts to enhance diversity involve discussing our unique backgrounds in depth. If we really want to promote diversity, egalitarianism, and tolerance, shouldn't all of these factors be ignored to some extent? I mean, does it really matter what race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever you are? I think it's fair to talk about how your background might have made attaining success more difficult and how you were able to overcome barriers you faced, but if I were in charge of admissions I would otherwise try to ignore these "diversity" factors as much as possible and focus on candidates' qualifications. 

Edited November 6, 2016 by St0chastic

[lewin]

On 11/6/2016 at 11:58 AM, St0chastic said:

I would otherwise try to ignore these "diversity" factors as much as possible and focus on candidates' qualifications. 

The challenge is that lotsssss of research shows that intergroup factors influence raters' perceptions of candidates' qualifications. e.g., men get hired for potential but women based on past achievement; equivalent resumes are rated as worse if accompanied by a stereotypically female or African American name. Put another way, there's probably no such thing as an objective assessment of qualifications and it's better to recognize than minimize group differences.

[TakeruK]

On 11/6/2016 at 9:58 AM, St0chastic said:

This might come across as contentious, but I've always found it weird that efforts to enhance diversity involve discussing our unique backgrounds in depth. If we really want to promote diversity, egalitarianism, and tolerance, shouldn't all of these factors be ignored to some extent? I mean, does it really matter what race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever you are? I think it's fair to talk about how your background might have made attaining success more difficult and how you were able to overcome barriers you faced, but if I were in charge of admissions I would otherwise try to ignore these "diversity" factors as much as possible and focus on candidates' qualifications. 

As lewin pointed out, if we were already in a situation where there is a level playing field, then I agree with you that we can only focus on qualifications. However, there is a lot of unconscious bias (see lewin's links) in the decision making process that makes it not meritocratic. 

[St0chastic]

10 hours ago, lewin said:

The challenge is that lotsssss of research shows that intergroup factors influence raters' perceptions of candidates' qualifications. e.g., men get hired for potential but women based on past achievement; equivalent resumes are rated as worse if accompanied by a stereotypically female or African American name. Put another way, there's probably no such thing as an objective assessment of qualifications and it's better to recognize than minimize group differences.

This might be impossible to do in practice, but wouldn't it then be better to require applicants to mask their race and gender (i.e., by not providing names or other identifying information)? If it's impossible to suppress implicit biases, then why don't we remove the cues that cause them to crop up in the first place?

I've never been comfortable with affirmative action, and I say that as someone who technically belongs to a minority group. I think the intention is right, but the end result might end of backfiring or even reinforcing negative stereotypes. Obviously, there are massive racial and gender inequities in the western world (and probably even more powerfully, SES iniquities). I just don't know if grad school admissions is the right time to correct them. Admittedly, I have not researched this much, so I defer to those of you who are more knowledgeable about the issue.  

Edited November 10, 2016 by St0chastic

[eternallyephemeral]

I understand your concerns about the statement. I always perceived there to be unwritten rules about what sorts of challenges you do mention, but which types still have stigma around them. For example, me talking about my family's history of mental health issues and emotional manipulation/psychological abuse, along with my own challenges that stem from that seemed too much for the way I was trying to present myself in my application as a whole.

Perhaps its possible to discuss your challenges in a less explicit way? I don't know what people think about just mentioning that you faced difficulties from a lack of support that led you to be more independent and self-driven? I don't think anyone wants the details in these statements, and you shouldn't feel obliged to give specifics about abuse if you don't want to.

There must be a way to frame these things positively, in terms of what you've learned. I don't know how best to do this, but do keep in mind that it is a smaller portion of the application, so as long as it doesn't signal any issues to them (of course you don't know what will), then it's likely they won't put too much weight on the level of diversity or the level of hardship (because how could you even do that) for their admission decision.

[TakeruK]

15 hours ago, St0chastic said:

This might be impossible to do in practice, but wouldn't it then be better to require applicants to mask their race and gender (i.e., by not providing names or other identifying information)? If it's impossible to suppress implicit biases, then why don't we remove the cues that cause them to crop up in the first place?

I've never been comfortable with affirmative action, and I say that as someone who technically belongs to a minority group. I think the intention is right, but the end result might end of backfiring or even reinforcing negative stereotypes. Obviously, there are massive racial and gender inequities in the western world (and probably even more powerfully, SES iniquities). I just don't know if grad school admissions is the right time to correct them. Admittedly, I have not researched this much, so I defer to those of you who are more knowledgeable about the issue.  

Masking race/gender addresses some issues of unconscious bias by the evaluator. Some schools go with this route, at least for the initial screening of applications. This works well at the graduate school level, however, it won't really work as well later on (e.g. postdoc and faculty hires). Most of these positions require detailed information about your research that will reveal your identity.

Also, masking these factors at the time of application doesn't change the fact that one person's lived experience is different than another based on their race, gender, socioeconomic class etc. One example: you have two students and a standard application form that asks for a few stats. Student A has a 3.7 GPA and volunteered in a lab for 10 hours per week during their senior year. Student B has a 3.7 GPA but no research experience. With this information only, you might want to choose Student A over Student B. However, if you ask for more information, you may find out that Student A was get some scholarships from their private high school to fund their university education and had the time and money to volunteer in the lab. Student B, however, needed to work during university to pay for tuition so they didn't have time to volunteer in the lab. They also showed that they applied for undergrad research grants (so they could be a paid researcher) but were not successful, demonstrating they were interested in this pathway. Now, how would you evaluate them? I think it would be unfair to not also consider the background of each student and recognizing that some people have more opportunities than others. 

In my opinion, grad schools shouldn't (and I know that many do not) simply evaluate students on how large their list of achievements are. Instead, schools are looking for certain areas of excellence in academic achievement, research experience, and character traits. This is why it's important to ask applicants for more information and to get the full picture. 

Finally, it is not impossible to suppress implicit bias. In fact, discussing that these biases exist and bringing them to the forefront along with strategies that remove ambiguity in the definition of a "qualification" can reduce the negative effects (e.g. [1], [2]). In my single experience on a hiring/search committee (for a Graduate Dean, not a faculty position), we spent the first 2 meetings with an HR person defining exactly what criteria we will use to evaluate candidates and which factors we will consider before even looking at a single application. I think this helped us a lot.

[St0chastic]

8 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Now, how would you evaluate them? I think it would be unfair to not also consider the background of each student and recognizing that some people have more opportunities than others. 

Thanks for your considered response. Clearly, you have thought about this more deeply than I have. Where I feel a bit uncomfortable is when admissions or hiring decision makers try to correct or compensate for differences in past opportunities. Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth while as others have to claw and fight their way to success, battling prejudice and other challenges every step of the way. But how can we accurately factor this into our decisions without introducing a new set of biases? Are we to assume that just because someone belongs to a minority group or is a female that they had a harder time than a white male who came from a "privileged" background? Statistically speaking, this person probably did have a harder time than the white male. But we are making an assumption and reducing people into discrete categories (minority member or white, male or female, privileged or disadvantaged). This is a very binary way of looking at people.

I would like to evaluate people not based on their membership to some social category but based on all the attributes and characteristics that make them unique and well-suited to whatever role they are applying for. Past hardships or lack of opportunities are relevant to admissions and hiring decisions of course, but I would like to go beyond just considering typical diversity factors.

I know this is a touchy subject and I hope I haven't offended anyone. Of course, I am an advocate for the advancement of women, people of color and minorities, LGBT individuals, and other oppressed groups. I'm just not convinced that affirmative action measures are the best way to achieve egalitarianism, but I am open to changing my mind about this.

Edited November 11, 2016 by St0chastic

[TakeruK]

I don't think anyone has thought of the best way to address the concerns both of us have raised so far. In my ideal, the goal is not just to put people in a category of various assigned privileges. And I definitely don't think quota-based selection is helpful either (how would it feel to think that you only got hired because you are part of Group X, and how does it feel for your colleagues to treat you that way etc.)

I think one of the better solutions is to have people write diversity statements. This is very similar to what you say in your 2nd paragraph above. You say you want to go beyond "typical diversity factors". The way I see it, it's not that I'm saying we should only consider diversity factors / membership in groups because a candidate/person is more than just this! I wrote what I wrote above in response to the way some people think that we should't include diversity factors at all. I'm not saying we should replace diversity factors with everything else, but to consider an applicant as a whole person---both their background in regards to the skills required for the position as well as their background as a person. 

Finally, "affirmative action" is a vague term and people have different meanings for it, causing many misunderstandings, I think. To me (and to the Canadian laws, I believe) affirmative action just means making evaluations for hiring based on things outside of the technical skills for the job in the interest of promoting fairness in our society. For example, a hiring committee may recognize that women in science face additional challenges due to unconscious bias instead of ignoring gender altogether. Some other people I've talked to think that affirmative action means a company/school must hire/admit X% people who are women (just using gender as one example). I think quotas like this may have some small short term benefits but isn't a sustainable way of creating an equal society in the long run.

There are other hybrid models too, like the "Rooney Rule" in the NFL. Many professional societies in my field have started using variants of the Rooney rule after realising that prizes for "early career" or "late career" achievement tended to go to men way more often than women (more than the fraction of men in the field). So, for prize lectures and annual society prizes, the nomination period is open until X number of women are also nominated. This is meant to combat the problem that people's unconscious bias causes them to think about men as leaders in the field first/more often than women. But, if the committee is conscious about nominating the best men and women, it is less likely to overlook a qualified woman because of unconscious bias. (Note: This isn't like a "quota" since it can still create a scenario where only the nominated men win every year). This is a relatively new practice so I would be interested in seeing how the distribution of awards in some parts of my field change in the next 10-15 years.

[St0chastic]

@TakeruK I think it's great that we're able to have a civil, thoughtful discussion about this. I consider myself to be socially liberal, but lately I've found that when I suggest that certain practices adopted by the left in the US might have downsides (e.g., affirmative action), I receive resentful looks. It's as if what I'm suggesting is blasphemous despite the fact that I have the very same intentions as the people I'm arguing with (to maximize the well-being of all members of society). Jonathan Haidt gave an interesting talk about this recently: https://youtu.be/Gatn5ameRr8

Anyway, sorry for derailing this thread.

[lewin]

On 11/13/2016 at 0:17 AM, St0chastic said:

certain practices adopted by the left in the US might have downsides (e.g., affirmative action),

One of the downsides is that candidates are stigmatized or seen as less capable when seen (rightly or wrongly) as an affirmative action hire. Heilman at NYU has a comprehensive program of research on this, much from the 1990's.