Reducing Bias
Since much of my research is on implicit bias, this part of the site, which is still under construction, includes concrete proposals for reducing prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination.
For Cal Poly Pomona’s Fearless Campus initiative, I recorded these two ~15-minute videos
Overcoming Implicit Bias in the Fearless Classroom
Overcoming Stereotype Threat & Impostor Syndrome
I discuss several further concrete proposals in the concluding 10 minutes of this web presentation delivered to the CSU Student Analytics Program, “Understanding and Overcoming Implicit Bias in the CSU.” The first 20 minutes include an introduction to implicit bias (note: the audio feed briefly cuts out in the beginning). The video is here and the PowerPoint slides are here.
I also elaborate on specific proposals for bias reduction in several articles and chapters, including:
- “Individual and Structural Interventions” (2020). Chapter 12 of my textbook, co-edited with Erin Beeghly, An Introduction to Implicit Bias: Knowledge, Justice, and the Social Mind (Routledge).
- “The Inevitability of Aiming for Virtue” (2019). Pp. 85–100 in Overcoming Epistemic Injustice: Social and Psychological Perspectives, edited by B. R. Sherman and G. Stacey. Rowman & Littlefield International.
- “Biased against Debiasing: On the Role of (Institutionally Sponsored) Self-Transformation in the Struggle against Prejudice” (2017). Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4 (6): 145–79.
- “Virtue, Social Knowledge, and Implicit Bias” (2016). In Implicit Bias and Philosophy: Metaphysics and Epistemology: Volume 1, edited by Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul, 191–215. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- “Implicit Bias and Latina/os in Philosophy” (2016). APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy 16 (1): 8–15.
In my first-ever implicit bias training presentation at CSU East Bay in May 2014, “Understanding and Overcoming Implicit Bias in Higher Education,” I sketched the widespread evidence for implicit bias, the sources of implicit bias, and some specific effects of implicit bias on teachers and students, before concluding with a variety of concrete proposals regarding what individuals and institutions can do to combat implicit bias. Here is the Powerpoint presentation. (If you are already familiar with the basics about implicit bias, you may still find the concluding discussion of individual and institutional reforms helpful.). I’ve continued to update the presentation in the intervening years, with an ever-expanding list of references here. A YouTube video of that presentation is here:
For a somewhat higher-level presentation about the nature of implicit bias and our individual and collective responsibility for it, here is a talk I gave at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, June 2018, “Responsibility for Interpreting Implicit Bias.”
Since I came to Cal Poly Pomona in the 2015-2016 academic year, I have delivered numerous talks, workshops, and training sessions on Implicit Bias & Stereotype Threat for administrators, faculty, staff, and students of Cal Poly Pomona, including presentations dedicated to overcoming bias in faculty recruitment (which have been attended by all members of faculty search committees in 2018 and 2019), a presentation to the incoming class of Resident Advisors in the CPP dorms, and so on. See my CV (especially the Academic Service section) for more details about my presentations at CPP and numerous other institutions around the country. For example, Michael Brownstein and I delivered Implicit Bias Training to the Pima County Courts (Juvenile Court Center, Arizona Superior Court, and Consolidated Court Center) in Tucson, AZ, July 2015.
My syllabus for The Philosophy & Science of Implicit Bias links to a variety of useful and educational material.
Here are some further useful links.
- National Center for State Courts, “Helping courts address implicit bias: Resources for education“, which includes, among other things, a zip file of counterstereotypical images one could use as a Screensaver, and a (somewhat regrettably low-fidelity) Counterstereotype Training Task.
- Climate for Women & Underrepresented Groups at Rutgers
- Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)
- MIT Active Bystanders
- Gender Tutorials by Virginia Valian and The Gender Equity Project
- University of Sheffield’s page on Implicit Bias & Philosophy
- Feminist Philosophers Blog
- Project Implicit
- The Police Officer’s Dilemma
On a lighter note, I highly recommend this brief, informal, and accessible TEDx lecture regarding better ways to talk and think about race and racism, by Jay Smooth, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race.”
For another useful set of accessible resources and conversation starters, see the brief New York Times videos on implicit bias here.