Representation of BIPOC Ph.D. earners remains low in EEB
As a case study of BIPOC PhD representation, we looked at annual data of
EEB PhDs awarded to US citizens and permanent residents from the
National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Survey of Earned Doctorates (Data
available from the NSF: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf20301/; seeSupplementary Methods). The data shows a continued trend of low BIPOC
representation through time (Fig. 1a), which even lags behind the low
BIPOC representation seen in STEM in general (Supp. Fig. 1S). The number
of PhDs earned by Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Asian individuals
remain consistently and substantially lower than that of their white
peers. Notably, Indigenous scholars earn an average of fewer than 10
PhDs per year (Fig. 1a). In total, white scholars earned nearly seven
times the number of EEB PhDs of all BIPOC scholars combined from
1994 to 2018. When adjusted for racial population size, BIPOC scholars
remain under-represented, whereas white scholars are moderately and
consistently over-represented (Fig. 1b). Except for a notable boom in
PhDs earned by Asian scholars in the mid-1990’s, in most years all BIPOC
scholars fall under the line of ‘fair representation’ (Fig. 1b).
Hispanic and Black scholars are the least represented, and have not been
fairly represented at any time between 1994 to 2018 (Fig. 1b).
For nearly a quarter-century, as the effects of anthropogenic climate
change have tangibly intensified, we find that, paradoxically, the pool
of advanced knowledge holders has not diversified to represent the
communities most negatively affected. White scholars continue to make up
the overwhelming bulk of all PhD graduates in EEB, and are consistently
over-represented when adjusted for population size. We affirm our
personal observations that EEB is particularly lacking in diversity; a
discouraging fact, considering that EEB-related challenges continue to
disproportionately impact BIPOC communities in North America and
elsewhere.