May 2020 Newsletter

A Statement from Deborah Daro, PhD, Fellowships Chair

Dear colleagues:

Recent events should leave all of us questioning our routines and trusted narratives. For researchers, these routines include a commitment to rational decision making. A core value of our fellowship program is that carefully crafted studies and their rigorous implementation contributes to more effective and efficient policies and interventions. Today, these tools seem woefully inadequate to define our current reality much less chart a fitting policy response. George Floyd’s horrific and inexcusable death has exposed the reality of racism for all to see. You cannot hide from it, dismiss it, or believe you are not part of the problem because you do not condone police brutality or treat others differently based on their race. You are fair minded, as if being fair minded absolves you from any responsibility for the consequences of systemic racism. Today, our bubble of self-protection is gone and the need for self-reflection never greater. Achieving racial justice is everyone’s responsibility – we all have a role to play in making our society and institutions work for everyone.

COVID-19 and the widespread social unrest erupting across America should remind all of us of the power and limitations of rational, evidence-based decision making. On the one hand, the public health crisis precipitated by COVID-19 celebrates the promise of the empirical process. Science is being used to better understand transmission, craft effective treatments, and hopefully develop a vaccine that will allow us all to return to the in-person social interactions so critical for healthy development. Science is a powerful engine that can move us forward. On the other hand, the pandemic also underscores deep inequities in our society and social safety net. African Americans are dying at a far higher rate from COVID-19, in part because they have limited access to quality health care, relevant social services and economic resources. These shortcomings, as with the broader questions of police brutality and social injustice, are not easily addressed by science alone. No amount of scientific know-how will produce a “cure” or vaccine for structural racism. Understanding and resolving these dilemmas is far more complex. The task facing researchers is not just collecting more data. Rather, we need to explicitly consider the impact our values, priorities, and implicit biases have on the variables we select to study and the conclusions we draw.

Using our individual and collective skills, seasoned and emerging researchers need to take stock of how our careers can contribute to the new, expanded dialogue and evidence base sorely needed to advance the cause of justice and racial equity. Each of us needs to examine our own portfolio and the policies at our institutions. Are we examining the right issues to address key equity questions? If so, are we using methods and strategies that engage and equally value all perspectives in how issues are defined, resources allocated, and impacts assessed? With respect to our institutions, are advancement opportunities equitably provided to those from diverse backgrounds and perspectives and do these opportunities result in a more diverse workforce and leadership team? In our dialogue with others on these critical issues, do we listen more than we talk? Are we empathetic to what others are experiencing or have experienced? Can we set aside our own ambitions and focus on building a context which embodies racial justice, allowing all to thrive?

As we embark on this learning process, we need to bring along a large dose of patience and compassion in navigating our history of contradictions and privilege. People of good faith will make mistakes. They will say things that seem insensitive and often fail to recognize their own limitations. Building trust across racial lines on how best to move forward will take time and sensitivity as we muddle through the territory between where we are today and where we want to be tomorrow. The Doris Duke Fellowship staff and Leadership Committee are committed to addressing diversity, inclusion and equity in our work and the work of our peers. As we have for over a decade, we will continue to foster a deep respect for all individuals as research partners and research subjects, seek diverse perspectives in formulating our studies, and welcome critical comment on our research findings and their application to policy. Collectively, we will work to create a space where examining research designs and public policies through an equity lens becomes commonplace. We move forward with great humility, knowing that we have more questions than we have answers. Failing to move forward, however, is not an option.

Deborah Daro, PhD

Chair, Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being