When Gene Roddenberry's starship Enterprise explored new frontiers science fiction in his show Star Trek, he cast a diverse team of actors to portray the rocket scientists of the future.
Last fall, the rocket scientists starring in the real-life drama of the Pathfinder, a toysized space vehicle roaming the Martian terrain, were all White men.
"Don't you find it almost alien, in the fall of 1997, that there is no person of color -- forget about gender -- no person of color [who] was a part of this enterprise?" asks Dr. Luther S. Williams, assistant director of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation (NSF). In this position, he is gatekeeper to approximately $100 million in federal funds. aimed at increasing the ranks of underrepresented groups in the sciences.
Williams's observations are anomalous within the scientific community. The Pathfinder mission's monochromatic casting is characteristic of a persistent and almost unquestioned phenomenon throughout science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET, to use the National Science Foundation terminology) professions -- especially among the senior ranks.
In fact, it is still quite commonplace in today's SMET communities to be considered a leader in one's field and have no African American, Latino, Native American, or female colleagues.
"[Science] is a prosperous enterprise that, by its definition, is doing quite well without [minority] participation," Williams says. "Because we were not mainstays in the enterprise, the enterprise has learned to prosper without us, ... so there is no overarching incentive to change."
Just how scarce are African American scientists? Consider the following:
* The U.S. produces nearly one third of all the science and engineering Ph.D.s in the world annually. (SOURCE: Science and Engineering Indicators, 1996, National Science Foundation)
* Blacks represent 11 percent of the U.S. workforce, but only 1.1 percent of physical science doctorate holders; 1.3 percent of engineering doctorates; and 1.4 percent of computer/mathematical science doctorates. (SOURCE: Science and Engineering Indicators, 1996, National Science Foundation)
