This week, the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) released a report, as part of its “Facing our History—Building an Equitable Future” initiative, that was aimed at acknowledging past injustices in the genomics community. We encourage everyone engaged in genomics research to read this report, because while parts of it are painful, we agree with the ASHG that we must be aware of the past if we wish to rectify and not repeat it.
Even though our institute is too young to have been involved in many of the historical wrongs that ASHG lays out in its report, we are still impacted by their harmful legacy, and the lack of diversity in the field that they have engendered. We need to do our part to make sure that the promise of genomics is truly for everybody. This is essential work that will require sustained collective effort.
In a statement accompanying the report, the ASHG urges individuals, institutes, and centers who make up the human genetics community to “engage in similar individual and institutional reflection and action” and “to reflect on how everyone’s contributions will help foster inclusive equity agendas.”
This work is something that many of our members have already been working on both individually and collectively, particularly since the formation of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee in 2020, but we hope to create more spaces and opportunities for these conversations, as well as concrete plans for action.
Creating dialogue and enabling action
Our Diversity Committee is working on creating spaces to promote dialogue and action that will lead to a more just and anti-racist culture of research. Throughout the rest of the year, we will be announcing speakers who we hope will help guide us toward more anti-racist practices in genomics, beginning with a February 1st lecture by Tshaka Cunningham, who has been participating as an expert panel member in ASHG’s “Facing our History” initiative. This series will culminate in a half-day symposium that is scheduled for May 19th, with keynote speaker Erich Jarvis. We encourage wide participation in these events.
Other ways to participate:
For our members who are looking for ways to help create a more equitable future, here are a few ways you can get involved:
Engage in advocacy. An easy place to get started is to participate in the Racial Justice Learning Action Group facilitated by Mary Goldman. This group engages in advocacy such as writing letters to editors of scientific journals and creating wikipedia pages for BIPOC scientists. To join, please join their google group (UCSC email required).
Outside of our institute, ASHG has developed a helpful advocacy center with webinars and fact sheets on how to get involved in science advocacy.
Look for ways to encourage a more diverse student body to enter genomics research. Many of you are already working toward this by serving as mentors to students in STEM Diversity or our RMI programs, by working on projects like our Live Cell Biotechnology Discovery Lab’s efforts to bring complex lab experiments to more classrooms, and by building and participating in training programs like TUBI and our coding short courses. We are grateful for your efforts and hope that others will get involved in these or new initiatives. We welcome suggestions for how we can better support these projects.
Share your ideas and concerns with us. We acknowledge that there is always more that we as an institute can do, and places where we will fall short of our goals. If you have ideas or concerns, we encourage you to share them with us via our diversity committee’s anonymous feedback form.