Anastasia Lukianchikov: Implicit bias training necessary to support diversity requirement

This column is the second in a series on the diversity requirement at UCLA. This week, columnist Anastasia Lukianchikov argues that implicit bias training for faculty members can further support the goals of the diversity requirement.

The first part can be read here.

We are all racist.

And sexist. And ableist. And elitist. Every person is a little bit prejudiced to some degree or another, and toward certain things. This is because our subtle prejudices stem from implicit biases – biases which we are intuitively unaware of.

An implicit bias is a held attitude or stereotype that is not introspectively accessible. Challenging implicit biases is at the heart of UCLA’s academic diversity initiative, and an effective initiative must require training in bias awareness.

Despite this, the school currently has no standardized training of faculty for bias awareness. That void gives an implicit message that biases are of little concern.

In last week’s column, I explained that an effective diversity initiative will partly depend on the collective efforts of faculty. This initiative must include how teachers can better train and structure learning environments to promote diversity.

In order to expand these aims, faculty must be trained to become alert and responsive to issues of diversity. The first step toward accomplishing this should be requiring annual bias awareness training for all faculty members and teaching assistants.

This training would be an expansive responsibility from the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. It can consist of initial rounds of implicit association tests examining attitudes toward gender, sex, race, physical ability, intellectual ability, et cetera, each of which takes only a few minutes. Then the training can be a lecture of the definition of implicit biases, sources of bias and recommendations for the many ways an individual can address and minimize implicit biases. This can then be followed by a self-evaluation recalling the main points of the talk, personal areas for improvement or reflections about evaluation results.

This is certainly not a novel suggestion. In response to the findings of the 2013 Moreno report investigating biases on campus, faculty members involved in hiring are now required to undergo bias awareness training.

But that training is only a two-hour session and does not extend to the general teaching populace. The duration and participation requirements need to change.

The training should be evaluative, not punitive. Everyone holds implicit biases, and the training is meant to alert people to areas that need attention and questioning. For evaluative purposes, this training can even be online – similar to online laboratory safety refresher courses required of researchers, or the alcohol education videos required of incoming freshmen.

But the efficacy of the training will be wasted if it is any less than an annual occurrence because challenging biases takes repeated exposure.

Bias awareness training is a powerful tool to expand diversity initiatives because there is a clear linkage between challenging biases, awareness and incorporation of diversity and ultimately the restructuring of better learning environments. More than that, studies have suggested that the promotion of bias literacy can even lay the foundation for institutional change.

Awareness of bias is critical when patterns of biases silently affect presentation of classroom material. Certain authors – and their backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, et cetera – can be overrepresented. The relevance of historical context can be dismissed or diminished. Cultural differences in thought, theory and opinion can be reduced. These concerns are easier to grasp in the context of, say, a literature course that only elevates the classics of Western, but not non-Western, thought.

Academic diversity in scientific fields is harder to visualize. Syllabi in these courses have less wiggle room and deliver more standardized information, but biases can also insidiously enter into these subjects.

A teacher may unconsciously give more time to white students than non-whites. They may offer more consideration to men than women. They may lecture in a way that is supportive to certain groups and not others. They may interact differently with students of different backgrounds. They may see the raised hands of certain students and not others.

Social biases may begin with small deviations, but they repeatedly give rise to detrimental prejudices and practices. So when we seek academic diversity in the classroom, we intuitively seek to challenge our learned implicit biases.

Challenging implicit biases therefore allows individuals to unlearn erroneous beliefs or strengthen sound ones. Every student is taught that challenging assumptions is what allows them to grow. This attention to unconscious detail is exactly what is so valued in academic and critical thinkers.

Lessons from countering bias can be long-lasting. I recently took a computer science class in which the professor was a familiar, white male. His appearance implicitly confirms biases that women don’t belong in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. However, during lectures, the professor described the early years of programming and took time to lecture about the important and overlooked contributions of women as early programmers.

That acknowledgment single-handedly reaffirmed my belief that I could succeed in the subject, and that women mattered in the field. These moments are crucial to students who feel under-represented. Without taking into account the relevance of a teacher’s appearance to students, courses can perpetuate implicit biases toward minority groups. This is also supported by studies that claim our environment powerfully shapes social biases, and that it is the exposure to counter-stereotypes that helps mitigate unconscious stereotyping.

However, this depends on the willingness of faculty members. Charles Alexander, associate vice provost for student diversity, said that faculty will have different levels of response: on one hand, many of the people currently teaching diversity courses already have high awareness; on the other, many faculty members who have been teaching for years will be less open to changes in their teaching style or syllabus structure.

“How much cooperation are you going to get in an environment where everyone is outstanding in their own right?” Alexander asked.

The concerns are valid, but may be somewhat alleviated by three considerations. Firstly, an annual bias awareness evaluation would not require changes to teaching structure, nor would it force new values upon experienced faculty. Its purpose would be to objectively promote awareness of biases. The decision on how to respond to that knowledge is still in the hands of individuals. Often, it is the knowledge of evaluation alone that reduces implicit biases.

Secondly, such a training would not be a burden of time or resources, and studies have also found that participants find the knowledge very useful. The training can require annual refreshment, but if the evaluation were made constantly available, then it would become a powerful tool to be used at the discretion of faculty.

Thirdly, of all possible trainings that can be commonly offered to faculty in a broad range of fields – North and South campus alike – bias awareness training will be helpful to all of them. It does not directly coerce people to incorporate diversity, but reveals patterns at the heart of issues of diversity.

A teacher has the power to confirm or counter implicit biases. If no attention to biases is paid, then patterns of behavior, even unconscious, will reinforce stereotypes and prejudiced treatment over time. And those patterns in turn influence the formation of implicit biases in students.

Social bias is but a chain of unconscious behavior. By instituting bias awareness training, we can break that chain.