Best Practices in Diversifying Political Science

Abstract

Racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bias are pervasive and persistent throughout academia, including in political science, and these problems have been documented extensively (Fraga, Givens, and Pinderhughes 2011; Lavariega Monforti 2012; LavariegaMonforti andMichelson 2008, 2020; McClain et al. 2016; Thomas and Hollenshead 2001). Firstperson perspectives on these challenges and institutional racism have been shared by Alexander-Floyd (2015), SinclairChapman (2015), and Smooth (2016), to name only a few. Individuals from historically excluded groups, especially women of color, have been tokenized by their departments and institutions and asked to assume extra, uncompensated service tasks (Simien and Wallace 2022). They feel invisible, are the subject of microaggressions, and report a sense of not belonging to departments that tend to be dominated by white men (Ghosh and Wang 2022). This rich literature of previous work also documents best practices for institutions and departments to adopt to ensure that they are achieving their diversity and inclusion goals. Yet, lack of implementation of these recommendations persists. After reviewing and summarizing best practices in transforming campus climates, hiring, and retention, this article addresses the persistent gap between institutional knowledge of what should be done and the lack of action among most political science departments.