Thanks to recent work by Dr. Ibram Kendi (2019), the Black Lives Matter Movement, and decades of research by critical race theorists (Bell, 1995; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller & Thomas, 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Williams, 1998), the terms anti-racism and social justice have become increasingly acceptable and widely used. The engineering education community should continue to use the contemporary social momentum and fight against injustice to create more anti-racist engineering classrooms. The question becomes, “Where and how do engineering educators start the process of creating more anti-racist engineering classrooms?” Many Black scholars have already provided an initial roadmap. These scholars research student/faculty racial composition, power dynamics between faculty and students, and the overall racially hostile climate in engineering (McGee, 2020; McGee et al., 2019; Strayhorn et al., 2013). Black scholars have discussed the syllabi, textbooks, and accompanying curriculum as minimizing Black STEM intellectual contributions (Bradley, 2019; Long & Mejia, 2016; McGee, 2020; Provenzo, Shaver & Bello, 2011). They’ve highlighted pedagogical techniques involving active learning and real-world context, frequent and formative feedback, and entrepreneurship as ways to empower Black students (Long, 2019a; 2019b; Long & Sun, 2018; Strayhorn at al., 2013). More generally, but just as important, Black scholars have shed light on unconscious bias, microaggressions, and various forms of racism (Baber, 2015; Burt et al., 2016; 2019; McGee, 2020; McGee et al., 2019). As engineering educators, we must protect the mental, physical, and spiritual well-being of Black people, which urgently necessitates boldly denouncing racism and enacting anti-racist practices in engineering classrooms.
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