8 Deliberate Steps AGU is Taking to Address Racism in our Community

8 Deliberate Steps AGU is Taking to Address Racism in our Community 

Robin Bell, AGU President and Susan Lozier, AGU President-elect

The killing of George Floyd has cast a harsh light on systemic racism and the deep harm it has inflicted
across our global society for centuries. This harm extends to the scientific endeavor, as expressed by
many voices in #blackintheivory and #blackinivory. A recent “No Time for Silence Petition” calls on
scientific societies to take a lead in addressing racism within their communities. As AGU leaders, we
understand that now is the time to double down on our efforts to create an inclusive and equitable
community for all across the Earth and space sciences. As such, we have formulated a set of deliberate
steps that are planned for the weeks and months ahead. These steps, supported by leaders across AGU’s
Board, Council, and Committees, build on our newly updated AGU Strategic Plan and our existing AGU
Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Strategic Plan. They are the first of what we consider a long journey and
dedicated effort to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in partnership with scientific societies,
institutions, and others around the globe.

1. Expand Funding for AGU’s D&I efforts

We will ensure that AGU’s robust D&I plan is appropriately resourced by prioritizing the funding needed to
implement the new strategic goal of promoting and exemplifying an inclusive scientific culture. The
recommendation for funding will be included in the 2021 budget and presented to the AGU Board of
Directors in Fall 2020 for approval. We are prepared to invest over the long term to make a lasting impact.
2. Diversify AGU’s Governance and Committees
Because we are committed to the diversity of AGU’s governance at all levels, we will work with the D&I
Advisory Committee and AGU senior staff to develop a holistic plan to diversify all volunteer positions.
AGU’s Leadership Development/Governance Committee has already applied the lessons from No Time
for Silence and developed a diverse slate for AGU’s 2021-2022 Board and at-large Council members. This
slate is available at agu.org/elections. AGU will expand its ongoing education on diversity, equity, and
inclusion topics, including those focused on race and racism in STEM, for all AGU elected leaders and
committee members.
3. Enable, Recognize, and Reward Diversity in our Honors We pledge to honor, recognize, and reward what we value. We will ask the Honors and Awards Committee
to redouble their efforts to identify and implement changes needed to secure more diverse nominations
and awardees. We will also ask the committee to recognize diversity and inclusion efforts as criteria for
current honors and expand the categories in which awards are offered. Our overarching goal is to ensure
that the entire honors process is more transparent and equitable.
4. Create Truly Diverse Meetings
We will ensure that awareness of diversity is woven into the fabric of all AGU meetings. The shift to a
virtual Fall Meeting in 2020 opens the door for increased participation from a broader, more diverse
community across the globe. We will be working with the D&I Advisory Committee and the Fall Meeting
Programming Committee to highlight racism, diversity and inclusion in several plenary sessions and we
will encourage session conveners to include discussions of diversity in their programs. We will encourage
speakers of invited talks to reflect on their commitment to diversity and inclusion as part of their lectures,
allowing us to inspire our community moving forward.
5. Review diversity, equity and inclusion across AGU’s Publications
Building on our strong record of data-driven efforts, AGU will conduct an audit to identify inherent biases
in the review, publication, and citation processes. AGU has recently joined with other publishers to share
findings of such audits and data, and to improve practices across scholarly publications from submission
to citation. To work toward the elimination of these biases, we will ask the D&I Advisory Committee to
collaborate with the Publications Committee.
6. Support the Success of Emerging Underrepresented Scientists
We aim to more strongly focus on the inclusion of students and early career scientists of color in our
thriving AGU mentoring programs. We plan to expand partnerships with racial and ethnic STEM affinity
groups so that we can expand the pool of mentors and mentees from underrepresented groups. As a
further step we will link high school programs, minority serving institutions and historically black colleges
to research institutions, and AGU community science programs such as the Thriving Earth Exchange and
Voices for Science.
7. Advocate for Policies that Eliminate Racial Injustice
The new AGU strategic plan includes a goal of broadening the intellectual footprint of AGU science by
supporting, recognizing and rewarding discovery and solution-based science. Because environmental
degradation, climate change and public health crises are known to disproportionately impact Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, this new emphasis gives AGU an opportunity to address and
call out the role of racism in effecting these damaging impacts. We plan to amplify this AGU goal by
strongly advocating for policies that address these inequalities, and by providing our scientists with
additional education and training on how they can proactively partner with communities to help mitigate
these disparate impacts.
8. Partner with Leaders across STEM to Remove Systemic Racism and Foster Culture Change
We will convene discussions on racism in government research labs, academic departments and
commercial settings where Earth and space scientists work. Toward this end, we will work in partnership
with other ESS organizations, particularly other scientific societies, to facilitate conversations on
confronting racism in STEM and fostering culture change with deans, department chairs, institute leaders
and the next generation of leaders in diversity, equity and inclusion.
For additional context on these eight steps, please refer to the 13 August 2020 From the Prow post

WHO WE ARE

AGU supports 130,000 enthusiasts to experts worldwide in Earth and space sciences.

Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

AGU was established in 1919 by the National Research Council and operated as an unincorporated affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences for more than 50 years. We were independently incorporated in 1972.