Reducing Privilege Inequities through Early Childhood Education
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Reducing Privilege Inequities through Early
Childhood Education
KELLY FIELD TROUT*
I've known that I wanted to do astrophysics since I was nine years old, so I got to
see how the world around me reacted to my expression of these ambitions. The fact
that I wanted to be a scientist, an astrophysicist, was hands down the path of most
resistance through the forces of society. Any time I expressed this interest, teachers
would say, 'Don't you want to be an athlete?' I wanted to become something that
was outside the paradigms of expectation of the people in power. Fortunately, my
depth of interest in the universe was so deep and so fuel-enriched that every one of
these curveballs that I was thrown and fences built in front of me and hills that I
had to climb, I'd just wait for more fuel and I kept going. Now here I am, one of
the most visible scientists in the land, and I want to look behind me and say,
'Where are the others who might have been this?' And they're not there. And I
wonder, what is the blood on the tracks that I happened to survive that others did
not, simply because of the forces of society that prevent it at every turn. At every
turn . . . . So, my life experience tells me that when you don't find Blacks in the
sciences, you don't find women in the sciences-I know that these forces are real,
and I had to survive them in order to get where I am today. So before we start
talking about genetic differences, you've got to come up with a system where
there's equal opportunity. Then we can have that conversation.
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson, American astrophysicist, director of the
Hayden Planetarium, author, and popularizer of science.
INTRODUCTION
The persistent, vocal resistance Neil DeGrasse Tyson experienced because he
wanted to pursue a career path outside those expected of people of color is not
unique, or even unusual. The transition from the overt racism of the Jim Crow era to
the more subtle color-blind racism of today2 means that students of color, though
technically allowed to pursue astrophysics or any other field underrepresented by
people of color, are dramatically less likely to do so because of the societal structures
and expectations forced upon them. Although the indoctrination and effects of
* J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, May 2015. 02015, Kelly Field Trout.
1. Interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Center for Inquiry, at 1:02:32, (uploaded July 21, 2009), avail-
able athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v= KEeBPSvcNZQ#t= lhlm20s.
2. See EDUARDO BONILLA-SILvA, RACISM WITHOUT RACISTS, 2-3 (4th ed. 2014) (Whereas Jim Crow
racism explained blacks' social standing as the result of their biological and moral inferiority, color-blind
racism avoids such facile arguments. Instead, whites rationalize minorities' contemporary status as the product
of market dynamics, naturally occurring phenomena, and blacks' imputed cultural limitations ... In contrast
to the Jim Crow era, where racial inequality was enforced through overt means (e.g., signs saying No
[N******] Welcomed Here or shotgun diplomacy at the voting booth), today racial practices operate in a
now you see it, now you don't fashion. For example, residential segregation, which is almost as high today as
it was in the past, is no longer accomplished through overtly discriminatory practices. Instead, covert behav-
iors such as not showing all the available units, steering minorities and whites to certain neighborhoods,
quoting higher prices to minority applicants, or not advertising units at all are the weapons of choice to
maintain separate communities.)
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Reducing Privilege Inequities through Early Childhood Education
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