Equity Ethic: As STEM Fields Become More Racially Diverse, New Values Emerge
Manu Platt, a Black engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has a world-class biomedical engineering lab, yet he spends countless hours designing and running after-school and summer internship programs for Black high school students. At the University of Texas at San Antonio, Dr. María G. Arreguín-Anderson leads a team of researchers and teacher educators who specialize in culturally responsive and critical STEM education to support the growing number of Hispanic educators who teach computer science to K-12 students. Scientist B.K. Goldtooth of the Navajo Nation joined members of other tribal groups—Alaska Natives and Hawaiian Natives, Canadian Natives, and Native youth—at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 and helped to shape its landmark Principles of Environmental Justice. Goldtooth and other Indigenous peoples were the earliest and some of the most effective US environmental justice activists, understanding that their movement would strengthen global efforts to eliminate environmental racism.