BLACK LIVES MATTER
What does #BLM have to do with STEM education? Everything. Our ideals, beliefs, and systems about education are in stark contrast to what we are witnessing in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the glaring inequities and disproportionate suffering by the Black community exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. We live in an interconnected world where our actions and our inactions have an impact. We can no longer accept institutional racism and power hierarchies that reinforce the status quo. Thus, the STEM Education Center is committed to working with allies in examining our privilege and how we have contributed to institutional inequities, beginning in our own local context. We are particularly interested in having conversation about what we deem as “STEM,” who is it for, who is leading, and how we educate. How do we transform STEM education to be inclusive and anti-racist in asset-based and systemic ways? Now is the time to reimagine and work towards a just and equitable world.