Response to “Diagnosing the Leaky Pipeline”

Reading the results of Lavariega-Monforti and Michelson's study of Latinas and Latinos in the profession in the January issue (“Diagnosing the Leaky Pipeline: Continuing Barriers to the Retention of Latinas and Latinos in Political Science”) made for depressing reading. Sadly, their observations are deadly accurate on the experiences of endemic institutional racism that Latino and Latina political scientists face in American academic institutions. This culture of endemic racism was vibrant in graduate school while I was getting my Ph.D. and appears to have changed little since then. For that reason I am very pessimistic that this situation will change in my generation and, frankly, the APSA has been very slow to act on this problem. In my personal experience, in British universities I have been evaluated on my merits, rather than on my ethnic background. I would urge other Latino and Latina political scientists to consider using their skills in the UK and elsewhere

Criminology · Ethnic group · Face (sociological concept · Institutional racism · Pessimism · Political science · Politics · Racism · Reading (process · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Political Science Research and Education