Equity Reading Rooms

Cooley, E. Lei, R. F., and Ellerkamp, T. (2018). The mixed outcomes of taking ownership for implicit racial biases.

  • "One potential strategy for prejudice reduction is encouraging people to acknowledge, and take ownership for, their implicit biases."

  • "Among those low in IMS [internal motivation] owning high implicit bias backfired, leading to greater overt prejudice."

  • "We conclude that taking ownership of implicit bias has mixed outcomes--at times amplifying the expression of explicit prejudice."

Kellogg Insight (2021). Six evidence-based strategies for improving diversity in your organization.

  • "Trainings are only the beginning of the efforts needed to improve diversity in an organization. ... Additionally, some trainings just don't work or backfire."

  • Strategy #1: Prepare for bad reactions.

  • Strategy #2: "Facilitate intergroup contact -- but also create dedicated spaces for underrepresented groups."

  • Strategy #3: "Messaging matters, but action matters more."

  • Strategy #4: "Treat diversity as you would any other organizational goal."

  • Strategy #5: "Collect and analyze data on diversity programming."

  • Strategy #6: Recognize that it on't be easy and it won't happen overnight.

Kellogg Insight (2020) White Americans overestimate racial progress. But certain attempts to remedy that could backfire.

  • Experiments showed that reading about racism caused White people to reshape their perceptions of the past, but did not change their perceptions of the present.

  • "Many Americans hold dear a national narrative of continual triumph over injustice -- 'essentially, linear racial progress, unending from slaery through Jim Crow to our first Black president.'"

Ngo, N. (2021). No more 'master' bedrooms: Minnesota real estate listings aim for inclusivity.

  • "There's a hidden discriminatory piece that galls when you say 'master' bedroom."

  • Phrases like man-cave, mother-in-law suite, and Jack-and-Jill bathroom are also being eliminated.