Embedded Files
Like many fields, STEM has historically excluded many populations — and it continues to do so. It is worth noting, however, that the landscape has shifted significantly over the past several decades, driven by the work of scientists, educators, policymakers, and advocates who refused to accept that brilliance only exists in certain kinds of people.
How things started
For much of the 20th century, STEM fields were formally and informally closed off to women, people of color, people with disabilities, and anyone who didn't fit a certain demographic profile. Women were actively discouraged from pursuing mathematics and science careers well into the mid-1900s. Black scientists like Ernest Everett Just and Charles Drew made foundational contributions to biology and medicine, but were still denied access to the institutions and recognition their white counterparts received. Indigenous and Latino scientists faced similar systemic exclusion.
This gatekeeping existed in many ways. Sometimes it was about who got funded, whose research was published, who was invited to conferences, who was hired, who was mentored, and whose names were put on papers. These issues continue today, but in less overt forms.
Turning points
Several moments mark meaningful shifts in the pursuit of equity in STEM. Title IX, passed in 1972, prohibited sex-based discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funding, opening doors to women in university science and engineering programs that had previously been nearly closed. The visibility of scientists like Mae C. Jemison, the first Black woman in space, and mathematicians like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, whose work at NASA was foundational but long uncredited, began reshaping public understanding of who belongs in STEM.
Federal investment in STEM diversity programs, including NSF's ADVANCE program and the NIH's commitment to diversifying its research workforce, also played significant roles in bringing equality to STEM. Organizations like the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) created communities and pipelines where none had existed.
The present day
We can say with certainty that there has been progress, but it isn’t fair to argue that such progress is equally distributed. For instance, women now earn the majority of bachelor's degrees in biology and chemistry, but remain significantly underrepresented at the faculty level and in STEM leadership. Black and Latino scientists are still dramatically underrepresented across nearly every STEM field relative to their share of the population. The gap widens at each level of educational attainment and career advancement (a pattern sometimes called the "leaky pipeline”).
Even more, first-generation college students, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ scientists, and people from low-income backgrounds face overlapping barriers that intersect with race and gender in complex ways.
What this means for you
If you are a student from an underrepresented background, you are not entering a field that has always welcomed people like you, but you are entering one that has made a lot of progress.
If you are a student who benefits from systems that have historically advantaged you, understanding this history is part of being a scientist who contributes to something better than what came before.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse