ShutDownStem June 10 2020

On June 10, I became aware that, sometime in the last couple of days, there had been quite a bit of discussion about something called "ShutDownStem." The title, of course, turned me off, but, because this is a pretty emotional time for a lot of us, for several reasons, it seemed important to me to see what they were saying.

I had not been looking very deeply at my school email messages in the last few days, because I'm not teaching now. I was surprised (because of the title, of course) when I looked and saw that the various professional organizations were taking this seriously and recommending that those of us who have an impact on the professions and on students take time away from our usual pursuits to reflect on what we can do to support systematic changes in how people of color are treated and, to what extent there are things specific to the way people are treated in STEM professions and STEM areas of academia.

I decided that I would take some time today (June 10) to collect links to things that seemed interesting and potentially useful to me to look at today or in the near future. So that's what I'll show below. As I am preparing this, I may or may not decide to write things about what I'm thinking about some of them. And I decided to put it on this web page as a way to share it with at least a few of you that I have been in conversation with about related topics.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing:

• • Ones I intend to read again and probably write about:

    • https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards#

    • || I'm not at all sure I agree with the identification of this with "white supremacy" but I definitely agree that some of the culture issues identified here are a problem with achieving the inclusion that we want to have. I think it would be worthwhile for those of us in education to find ways to conceptualize this and deal with this in ways that help our students more than they have been helped before.

    • I'm thinking about submitting a comment on the site below (toward the end of "Other Links") about renaming the Fisher lecture. My point will be to support taking away specific people's names from the titles of the awards and replace that with a (250??) word statement about the award on the web pages of the organization in charge of that award highlighting the particular achievement and some history of individuals who contributed to that achievement and their particular contributions. (Perpetuating the "On the Shoulders of Giants" idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_giants)

ShutDownStem's website https://www.shutdownstem.com/

Professional Organizations' statements about "ShutDownStem":

• • American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) https://www.aaas.org/news/aaas-ceo-statement-shutdownstem-and-black-lives-matter

  • Mathematical Association of America: Top banner on main page https://www.maa.org/ on June 10 goes to here https://www.shutdownstem.com/

  • American Mathematical Society: The main page on June 10 went directly to a page stating that AMS is closed June 10 to support the ShutDownStem movement. " We will use this time to listen, learn, reflect, and focus on our action plan to eradicate racial inequity, especially for Black lives in mathematics. #ShutDownSTEM #BlackLivesMatter #ShutDownAcademia #Strike4BlackLives #ShutDownMath" It includes a link to https://blogs.ams.org/index.html?fbclid=IwAR37ZAFiJxe29PSbYYZpeRLmBDvAbi1RXO_3Dj8iIrUilbRYzFuwW-VT8sk

  • American Statistical Association: Banner on the main page https://www.amstat.org/ on June 10 goes to here: https://www.shutdownstem.com/

  • /d/1nq1oRXbAUsB2Z47VQFrlkKFV9LxGxwwgRJOer8yfGXE/edit

  • Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statement of support on the main page https://imstat.org/ on June 10 goes to here: https://www.shutdownstem.com/

Professional Organizations' statements in early June about Equity and Inclusion:

• • Mathematical Association of America: https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/message-from-maa-leadership

  • American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges: https://amatyc.site-ym.com/page/ResponseSocialRacism ||

  • American Mathematical Society: https://blogs.ams.org/index.html?fbclid=IwAR37ZAFiJxe29PSbYYZpeRLmBDvAbi1RXO_3Dj8iIrUilbRYzFuwW-VT8sk

  • American Statistical Association https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nq1oRXbAUsB2Z47VQFrlkKFV9LxGxwwgRJOer8yfGXE/edit

  • Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Announcement on the main page https://imstat.org/ goes to here: https://imstat.org/2020/06/04/a-statement-from-the-ims/

Other links:

• • UT Austin College of Natural Sciences: Provided links to these resources https://www.shutdownstem.com/resources and to a list of their own https://cns.utexas.edu/diversity/monthly-actions

  • From lists provided by Catherine Calder and Leslie McClure:

  • @MathGiftedBlack features the accomplishments of Black scholars in the mathematical sciences (including statistics) https://mathematicallygiftedandblack.com

  • The @Math_Alliance is working to help increase the number of PhDs awarded to underrepresented minorities in the mathematical sciences https://mathalliance.org

  • The @AmstatNews Committee on Minorities in #Statistics sponsors, among other activities, @Statfest and the #JSM Diversity Mentoring Program https://community.amstat.org/cmis/home

  • The @ENAR_ibs Fostering Diversity in Biostatistics Workshop provides a forum for discussion about issues related to diversity, and includes scholars from high school through late career https://enar.org/meetings/FosteringDiversity/

  • The National Association of Mathematicians is an organization that promotes the mathematical development of all underrepresented minorities https://nam-math.org

  • From the Request to change the name of the Fisher lecture at the Joint Statistics meetings:

    • Information: https://www.change.org/p/american-statistical-association-rename-the-fisher-lecture-after-david-blackwell?recruiter=232315326&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=2ba39310-b493-11e4-9655-772958abefa5

    • Feedback form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVWuYPffhToVpYV8kIYZ4ZFUcsvepiZnl-esngKC4jT23htg/viewform