Growing Racial Inequity and Underrepresentation in Engineering: We Must Go Beyond Calls for Greater Diversity

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Policy Perspectives and the Future of STEM Education

Abstract

Despite reports of growing public school segregation nationwide and the negative effects of the reversal of affirmative action on Black and Latinx college admissions, little research has been conducted on the relationship between these trends on the underrepresentation of Black and Latinx student in engineering. To address the gap, I longitudinally study the proportions of enrollments of Black and Latinx students in California public schools and public engineering programs from 1981-2013. The results show evidence that racial inequity directly affects underrepresentation, particularly in the case of Latinx students, whose underrepresentation has consistently worsened in engineering for more than three decades. Unless engineering institutions enact policy that remedies racial inequity, I argue that minority underrepresentation will continue to grow.

Author

• Canek Moises Luna Phillips, Rice University