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Sociologist Critiques Default Racism Explanation in Academia
Confirmed
In Short: Ilana Redstone, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, argues in a recent position paper that systemic racism is often treated as the default explanation for racial disparities in academia, rather than as an open question requiring further investigation.
Ilana Redstone, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, argues in a recent position paper that systemic racism is often treated as the default explanation for racial disparities in academia, rather than as an open question requiring further investigation.
Redstone's paper, published in the journal Theory and Society, clarifies that she is not denying the existence of systemic racism or its potential to produce inequities.
She traces the ideological shift to the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Griggs vs. Duke Power Co., which embedded a causal claim that disparate outcomes are produced by discrimination into law.
According to Redstone, this decision justified treating the question of whether disparities are caused by discrimination as settled, significantly altering academic conceptions of harm, justice, group identity, and knowledge.
Prior to this decision, sociology research in the 1960s and 1970s was methodologically pluralistic, allowing researchers to explore alternative explanations for racial disparities.
However, the studies that followed concluded that differences in student discipline, health outcomes, criminal justice, and generational wealth accumulation were indicative of institutional racism.
Redstone acknowledges that these conclusions might capture real issues but argues that the moralization surrounding these disparities has made it difficult to challenge the concept.
Redstone argues that labeling an outcome as discriminatory assigns blame, even if the practice was adopted without intent to exclude, and removes the question of alternative explanations.
Tatyana Ali, an actor and singer, has become an important voice in the movement to improve maternity health outcomes for Black and Indigenous mothers and babies by addressing systemic racism and inequity in maternity care.
Ali's advocacy stems from her own experience of what she calls 'obstetric violence' during the delivery of her son Aszi in 2016.
Healthcare professionals and researchers are increasingly focusing on the cognitive and neurodevelopmental impacts of systemic issues, such as those faced by individuals exposed to the World Trade Center attacks.
Dr. Joan Reibman, a pulmonologist and professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, emphasizes the need for more research on these impacts.
What this adds
The paper highlights the professional costs and challenges faced by those who question the default assumption of systemic racism in academia.
What's confirmed
- Ilana Redstone, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, argues in a recent position paper that systemic racism is often treated as the default explanation for racial disparities in academia, rather than as an open question requiring further investigation.
- Redstone's paper, published in the journal Theory and Society, clarifies that she is not denying the existence of systemic racism or its potential to produce inequities.
- She traces the ideological shift to the 1971 Supreme Court decision in Griggs vs. Duke Power Co., which embedded a causal claim that disparate outcomes are produced by discrimination into law.
- According to Redstone, this decision justified treating the question of whether disparities are caused by discrimination as settled, significantly altering academic conceptions of harm, justice, group identity, and knowledge.
- Prior to this decision, sociology research in the 1960s and 1970s was methodologically pluralistic, allowing researchers to explore alternative explanations for racial disparities.
- However, the studies that followed concluded that differences in student discipline, health outcomes, criminal justice, and generational wealth accumulation were indicative of institutional racism.
- Redstone acknowledges that these conclusions might capture real issues but argues that the moralization surrounding these disparities has made it difficult to challenge the concept.
- Redstone argues that labeling an outcome as discriminatory assigns blame, even if the practice was adopted without intent to exclude, and removes the question of alternative explanations.
- Tatyana Ali, an actor and singer, has become an important voice in the movement to improve maternity health outcomes for Black and Indigenous mothers and babies by addressing systemic racism and inequity in maternity care.
- Ali's advocacy stems from her own experience of what she calls 'obstetric violence' during the delivery of her son Aszi in 2016.
- Healthcare professionals and researchers are increasingly focusing on the cognitive and neurodevelopmental impacts of systemic issues, such as those faced by individuals exposed to the World Trade Center attacks.
- Dr. Joan Reibman, a pulmonologist and professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, emphasizes the need for more research on these impacts.
What's still developing
- “My point isn’t that any of these conclusions are necessarily wrong, as each of them may be capturing something real about institutions’ resource allocations and how disadvantage persists or grows,” Redstone wrote.
- Accordingly, injustice became organized and measured around group identity, such that “any negative outcome associated with a group that could be categorized as disadvantaged … is presumptively attributed to the disadvantage that the identity carries,” according to Redstone.
- Challenging the assumption that institutional discrimination is the primary explanation for racial disparities carries different costs depending on who does it, she said, and, for anyone, dissent can be read as indifference to injustice or complicity in it.
- “Once we treat as a given that disparities are produced by discrimination, proposing a non-discriminatory explanation for them is by definition denying that discrimination is occurring,” she wrote.
- "So excited and just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. My mother's song when she was waiting for me was ' cuando, cuando, cuando – when when, when. When are you coming?' I sang that song. I thought we were prepared," she said.
- "It went from a small group of people in the room to many people in the room screaming, yelling at me," she said.
- "Faces, screaming, terror, panic. I needed somebody to help me," she said.
- "After they pushed him inside me, and I remember roaring. I convulsed after that. Like my body – I can hear the bed just go buh-buh-buh-buh," she said, describing the sound of the bed shaking.
- "I can't tell you how many Black women have said to me: 'Hey Doc, don't let me die,'" she said in an interview.
- "The poor rates in outcomes of Black maternity patients is something that rocked us to our core."
- "We are very purposeful in looking at outcomes with a lens of demographics of different racial breakdown of different types of data," said Auguste.
- "Physician, midwife, doula, nurse, anesthesiologist, working together as a team. That is critical," said Auguste.