Underrepresentation
I was at a daylong biotech conference two weeks ago and during one of the less interesting presentations I counted people in the audience. Out of sixty or so attendees, the rough percentages were 40% white, 40% asian, 20% Indian/middle eastern. Cross-checking with the presentation schedule and people I actually talked to, attendance was split 50/50 between grad students and company reps.
There were no black people in attendance. I doubt that every university and company invited to attend is racist in either their hiring or selection of representation, which actually raises the more disturbing hypothesis that the pool of highly educated people that gets drawn into biotech or graduate school is significantly depleted of black or Hispanic persons relative to the general population. In turn, this suggests basic deficiencies in the equality of early education, and economic priority of public education, that disproportionately affect these ethic groups…
Of course, we know this. But it is disturbing to go to a conference and think, "If my skin color was different I probably never would have had the opportunities to get here regardless of natural ability". This isn't a problem that can be fixed by individual companies spending money on diversity recruitment; it's caused by fundamental inequalities that still exist within American society that pre-emptively hinder members of ethnic groups from entering that talent pool at all.