What is preventing Black and Brown people from being promoted at U.S. tech companies? Antiracist Tech Initiative Publishes New Paper

What is preventing Black and Brown people from being promoted at U.S. tech companies? A new paper from the BU Center for Antiracist Research’s Antiracist Tech Initiative (ATI) strives to answer this research question. 

Rather than focusing on “the pipeline problem,” a forthcoming paper co-authored by Dr. Sanaz Mobasseri, ATI’s faculty lead, examines structural forces that keep Black and Brown people from getting promoted: the creation of work environments where merit is associated with White men.

The paper unpacks a harmful pattern: Work contexts provoke distress about not measuring up, and those in power construct companies in ways that defend against this distress and ultimately maintain the status quo.

This paper argues that awareness, allyship, and most “DEI interventions” are not sufficient to dismantle the status quo of distressing and racially inequitable workplaces. Rather organizations must shift from defensive to developmental workplaces that unlock constructive collaboration across their workforce.

To read more: https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amr.2021.0446 

Watch Dr. Mobasseri’s talk on the paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3wN2aeeyjY