“If MIT decided this is something they wanted to do, if they wanted to create a self-sustaining nucleus of Black scientists and engineers, that’s something they could do,” Rose says.
But others who work on diversity issues at MIT say such a characterization is not fair.
“I think to say that MIT is doing very little would be a discredit and a disservice to the people who are doing this work,” counters Robbin Chapman, an MIT alumna who has been working since 2007 as the manager of diversity recruitment in the School of Architecture and Planning. “Are people frustrated? Yes, some people are. Do I think MIT should be doing more? Of course, I think everybody should be doing more. MIT is going through what I think a lot of other schools are going through now. They’re saying, ‘We should be paying attention to this.’ They’re figuring it out.”
One thing all parties seem to agree on is that MIT has a way to go before it can claim a leadership position on issues of diversity.
“Ideally, we would want other schools to look at us and say, ‘Wow, that’s innovative,’” says Chapman. “I can’t imagine anyone would think that we’ve somehow completed any kind of journey with this work. We’re clearly working on it.”
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