An Open Letter: Scientists and Racial Justice

What we can and must do to make science more equitable.

Written byJoseph Graves and Erich D. Jarvis

| 12 min read

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The unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, amplified by the health disparities of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ethnic disparities of the political climate, have shined a spotlight on historical and ongoing institutional racism in America. Many professional scientific organizations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, March For Science, the Society for the Study of Evolution, Society for Neuroscience, and Sigma Xi have published statements opposing it. But statements have little impact unless actions result from them. Determining the most effective actions requires understanding the concept of institutional racism.

Institutional racism means that established structures within a society are infused with racial/racist ideology and practices. This includes the “enterprise” of science, which can be separated from the “method” of science. The scientific method is an objective means to better understand nature, whereas the scientific enterprise is a reflection ...

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Meet the Author

Joseph Graves
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Erich D. Jarvis
Erich, an alumnus of the Rockefeller University and former professor at Duke University, returned to Rockefeller in 2016 as a tenured professor heading the new Laboratory of Neurogenetics of Language. As an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2008, Erich is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the 2015 Ernest Everett Just Award from the American Society for Cell Biology, and a 2019 NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award. He is also a member of the Hunter College Alumni Hall of Fame. As co-leader of an avian genomics consortium consisting of more than 200 scientists in 20 countries, he oversaw the sequencing of genomes from representative species of every avian order—48 genomes in all. Erich also now chairs the Vertebrate Genomes Project, formed with the goal of assembling high-quality genomes for all 70,000 vertebrate species on Earth. Jarvis also serves on The Scientist’s editorial advisory board.
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