Empowerment through Inclusion: Strengthening Project Engagement with Minoritized Voices - Part 2 of 2

Authors are listed in alphabetical order of first name.

Our Motivation

Here we detail some actionable approaches to active care that you can take to help marginalized persons build trust, value their individuality, protect their identity, and promote their participation as key actions to foster empowerment through inclusion.

This is the second of a 2-part blog post series that we hope will make individuals representing minorities in your group or project feel valued. Read part 1 in this link or access the complete article in our Zenodo page here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509713

A bingo card of some suggested actionable approaches to active care for empowerment through inclusion. How many of them do you practice?

Actionable Approaches

1. The minoritized person is a peer, listen to them as you would listen to any other peer

The Intersectionality Spectrum [ 4] indicates the most marginalized minority should be centered throughout the team. We agree that this is the ideal approach. In the real world, the bare minimum is to treat marginalized persons as peers:

• When someone from a minority points out something they disagree with, try to listen to them with an open mind rather than defensiveness.
• Explaining things to your peers should not be necessary unless they ask for an explanation, especially if the person comes from a different context, exposed to different situations.
• Interact with them the same way you would with an expert you already know, and value their opinion as you would that of any other expert. The more minorities someone belongs to, the richer the experience they can offer. At the same time, if someone represents many intersectionalities they will try to bring attention to more complex problems. This, without proper attention, might even increase their defensiveness.

2. Avoid silence as response to messages in professional settings, especially when the response involves less-heard voices

Keep in mind that expressing oneself, particularly for a minoritized person, may involve a lot of extra work. Not responding, not even with a “thank you” or an emoji, can be a microaggression. There are cases in which a lack of answers can be particularly severe. For instance, when the minoritized person asks to act on behalf of their minoritized group in decisions that affect them. We have experienced it and we learned that when we are ignored, this shows how little that environment values us.

3. Ease the path for minoritized persons who speak up

It is also important to pay special attention to the ones who, while minoritized, are brave enough to speak and actively participate, as they must be going through a huge emotional effort and exposing themselves personally and professionally. Protect them and make them feel safe:

• It is crucial to ease the path for these individuals.
• Pay attention to not adding extra layers and tasks.
• Provide spaces for their perspectives, suggestions, and work to be visible and thus give them more opportunities.
• Make efforts not to have them labeled as “difficult” or “divisive” for doing or saying things that people in the majority can get away with.

Despite being minoritized, individuals who dare to participate will only continue to engage if they feel their voice is accepted on equal terms as the rest of the voices.

4. If the discussed topic affects a minoritized group, trust the lived experience of the marginalized person from that minoritized group

We know that being aware of our biases is challenging. However, in spaces where we are working to include minorities, it is key to strive to identify biases against minorities and minimize them as much as possible. Going against our internal biases to promote minorities’ rights may also seem biased, but it is only a result of our initial bias.

5. If you want to support a minoritized group, avoid being condescending

It is an excellent initiative if you are willing to help a minoritized group. To truly act as an ally, remember that fruitful alliances closely follow what minorities need rather than what well-intentioned allies may think is best. When a minoritized person proposes changes to your actions or suggests different actions, prioritize their requests even if you do not fully understand them. Even if the minoritized individual cannot articulate their reasons in the way the status quo demands, it would be difficult to find someone else in your group who likely understands better what is necessary for their community than someone committed to representing that minoritized community. The most powerful words you can say to a minoritized person is: “What do we need to do as a team to ensure you can work comfortably, without limitations?”

6. Ensure that you give minorities more opportunities to make up for the ones they have lost

You should use a contextualized Intersectionality Spectrum [ 4] to weigh those opportunities. You can also recognize that different people have different degrees of difficulty that they go through. The lack of opportunities over time cumulatively affects their employment prospects as they get older [ 4]. Make training available to familiarize minorities with skills that are “common” or relevant to the organization, like talking in public, academic writing, networking, etc. At the same time note that people from marginalized groups might not need mentoring or a new skill set: they may simply need an opportunity. When in doubt of what a person’s needs are, do not assume, ask.

7. Accept your responsibility for mistakes and apologize

It is likely that you will make mistakes when working with people who belong to minorities with whom you do not personally identify, even when acting with the best intentions. It is okay; we are humans and make mistakes!

Take responsibility for your mistakes as soon as possible, apologize to those affected (ideally through the same means by which you made the mistake, to reach the same people), correct any actions that can be righted, and commit yourself to learning from the situation and not repeating the mistake.

8. Ensure that a substantial portion of the budget goes to the minorities you aim to include

Individuals representing minorities who actively participate in your project crave tangible changes. Hearing about the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion without seeing those words reflected in concrete actions is exhausting, and one reason to stop investing time and effort in a project. To achieve changes:

• It is necessary that someone with significant power in the project leads and strongly supports the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, not someone who only relies on enthusiasm and good intentions.
• In order for good intentions to go beyond pretty words, it is necessary that your organization commits a substantial part of its budget to ensuring change takes place, and that this part of the budget reaches the hands of the minorities intended to be included.
• The burden of effort often ends up on the shoulders of minority groups, and those in charge must find a way to ensure that minorities are not contributing their work and knowledge for free.
• Beyond an “Equal pay for equal work” policy, equity also touches on benefits and other perks like the equipment needed to do the job.
• If the necessary funds are not available, then the more prestigious and visible roles should be reserved for the most marginalized individuals, while persons with greater historical privilege will take on the less visible tasks.

9. Be transparent in recruitment and promotions

Often minorities feel less comfortable applying for a job, especially for higher positions. To help marginalized persons build trust and increase confidence:

• When recruiting, make the job post as welcoming as possible, eliminating unnecessary jargon and education or degree requirements that may not be relevant to the position.
• It’s important to be transparent about salary and provide an email address for applicants to contact.
• Including short bios of current staff can help interested applicants better understand the profile you are looking for.
• If you cannot provide a diverse selection committee or interview panel, please be prepared to pay external people to increase its diversity.
• Ensure that promotion pathways are clear and accessible to all employees. Establish transparent promotion criteria and communicate them widely within the organization.
• Providing mentorship opportunities and career development programs, particularly for underrepresented minorities, can create a more equitable environment where all employees have the tools to advance.
• Regularly auditing promotion practices to identify and address any disparities can help ensure that all employees, regardless of background, have equal opportunities for growth within the organization.

10. Maintain a Code of Conduct that includes a committee with members trained in discrimination, harassment, and mentorship

Minorities face discrimination, and this may occur within your workgroup. Most of the time, it is the principled, bright ones in the minority who are targeted. You may not want to lose them. Such individuals can also be vulnerable to exploitation by the influential team members. Ensure there is a committee in your organization (or at least one person in it) with appropriate training to address cases of discrimination or harassment, that the minoritized person can contact if needed. Ideally, it would be people who are minorities themselves.

The response to an incident that triggers the work of this committee should be fast. The process of mediation and determination of an incident’s consequences should be clear and known in advance to everyone within your group to ensure respect and protection for those who are the targets of discrimination.

As a proactive approach, ensure there is at least one member with considerable experience as a mentor to help individuals navigate the challenges of being a minoritized individual who craves change.

11. Acknowledge the contributions of all individuals in every project, especially if they belong to marginalized groups

Value and enhance everyone’s expertise. Minorities usually have diverse (thus rich) backgrounds and feel isolated or lost in traditional organizations. Ensure you take the time to encourage ideas from everyone and to acknowledge systematically what they offer. Ask them what the benefits and challenges of ideas are. Please note that some people may not be able to speak up at a meeting and may want to provide their ideas less publicly.

Remember it is offensive to repeat an idea that was previously introduced by someone else without proper citation. It is also serious to omit timely credit for the work contributed to a project. This is particularly serious when the idea was presented by a person representing a minoritized group, who has fewer opportunities to share their ideas. Forgetting to include or credit someone may happen because everyone makes mistakes. However, it is crucial to rectify these errors as soon as possible, even more so if they involve a marginalized person.

For further reading and more practical tips on active care, please see Improving Diversity and Inclusion in the RSE Community [ 7].

The sum of details leads minoritized people to choose silence in certain settings, to abandon projects and groups, or not to join new projects if they perceive certain characteristics. It is like a death by a thousand paper cuts, even occurring in projects and organizations that highlight values such as inclusion and diversity, at least in their rhetoric. If you represent one of these organizations:

• Check how your values are put into practice in the small day-to-day actions that add up to the minoritized person feeling confident of belonging.
• Transparently disclose what percentage of your organization’s budget is invested in diversity and inclusion and the types of expenses involved.
• At the core, to enhance diversity and empower the marginalized, you need a generous heart.
• Do not exploit minoritized individuals and tie them down to your project in return. Give them the freedom to fly.

We know all this because we have been lucky to take part in projects where, as minorities, we have participated as peers. We have also participated in other projects where, after a while, and maybe though we were tempted to keep going ‘to please the power’ or ‘not to lose an opportunity’, we had to put strict boundaries (as in the “Living BIG” lesson by Brené Brown [ 8]) or even chose to stop contributing because life taught us not to accept less than what we deserve.

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have others to share? Are you part of a minoritized group and want to share your experience? Are you part of a project that seeks to include or retain minorities and want to know more? Join our community in Slack (in Spanish, with English also welcome in the #english channel) and tell us your story!

Acknowledgments

This report was made possible by NASA grants 80NSSC23K0854 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8215455), 80NSSC23K0857 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8250978), and 80NSSC23K0861 (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8212072), grant DAF2021-239366 and grant DOI 10.37921/522107izqogv from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, a fund advised by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Funder DOI 10.13039/100014989), and the Digital Europe Programme under Grant No. 101100604 (BioNT).

Did you like this publication? You can reuse it freely under CC BY 4.0 license, just remember to cite it.

This is the recommended citation to use for reference:

Eunice Mercado-Lara, Julián Buede, Laura Ación, L. Paloma Rojas-Saunero, Lisanna Paladin, Luciana Benotti, Monica Granados, Muneera A. Rasheed, Nicolás Palopoli, Patricia Loto, Paola Lefer, Rowland Mosbergen, Sara El-Gebali, Vanina Varni. (2024). Empowerment through Inclusion: Strengthening Project Engagement with Minoritized Voices. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509713