Race

Study by �鶹��Ƶ Engineering student, MIT takes aim at biased AI facial-recognition technology

noreen.rasbach — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 17:16:30 +0000

Study by �鶹��Ƶ Engineering student, MIT takes aim at biased AI facial-recognition technology

noreen.rasbach Mon, 02/11/2019 - 12:16

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A recent study by Deb Raji and researchers at the MIT Media Lab shows a need for stronger evaluation practices of AI products to mitigate gender and racial biases (photo by Liz Do)

Liz Do

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

Race

Research & Innovation

Technology

Undergraduate Students

A study by Deb Raji, a fourth-year student in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is underscoring the racial and gender biases found in facial-recognition services.

Raji spent the summer of 2018 as an intern at MIT’s Media Lab, where she audited commercial facial-recognition technologies made by leading companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Amazon. The researchers discovered that all of them had a tendency to mistake darker-skinned women for men.

But one service in particular – Amazon’s Rekognition – showed a higher level of bias than the rest. Although it could identify the gender of light-skinned men with nearly 100 per cent accuracy, it misclassified women as men 29 per cent of the time, and darker-skinned women for men 31 per cent of the time.

Rekognition was recently piloted by police in Orlando, Fla., using the service in policing scenarios such as scanning faces on cameras and matching them against those in criminal databases.

“The fact that the technology doesn’t characterize Black faces well could lead to misidentification of suspects,” says Raji. “Amazon is due for some public pressure, given the high-stakes scenarios in which they’re using this technology.”

With rapid advancements and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) products, this new study emphasizes the need to not only test systems for performance, but also for potential biases against underrepresented groups.

Although algorithms should be neutral, Raji explains that because data sets – information used to “train” an AI model – are sourced from a society that still grapples with everyday biases, these biases become embedded into the algorithms.

“Let’s say I want examples of what healthy skin looks like. If you Google it now, you will see mostly light-skinned women,” says Raji. “You won’t see a man for pages, and you wouldn’t see a darker-skinned woman until you really scroll down. If you feed that into an AI model, it adopts this world view and adapts its decisions based on those biases.”

These biases should be called out, just as one would hold a person accountable, says Raji. “There’s this increased danger when you embed that bias into an algorithm versus when a human makes a prejudiced decision. Someone will tell you it’s wrong, whether it’s the public or your boss,” she says.

“With AI, we tend to absolve this responsibility. No one is going to put an algorithm in jail.”

Raji’s passion on the subject of bias in machine learning comes from her time during a work experience placement at the startup Clarifai AI, where the topic of AI and ethics was regularly discussed at the research-oriented company.

“It’s something that the company noticed and was very explicit about addressing, and it’s a subject that personally resonated with me because I’m a visible minority,” she says.

It also stems from her very own personal experiences with racially biased technologies. “I’d build something at a hackathon and wonder why it couldn’t detect my face, or why an automated faucet can’t detect my hand,” she says.

Raji shared her experiences with computer scientist and digital activist, Joy Buolamwini, at MIT’s Media Lab. This led to the internship, and to Raji becoming the lead author on a paper that she presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference on AI Ethics and Society.

“I know it looks like I wrote a research paper in three months,” says Raji. “But this issue has been percolating inside of me for much longer.”

Raji is currently finishing her last term in engineering science and running a student-led initiative called Project Include, which trains students to teach computer programming in low income neighbourhoods in Toronto and Mississauga. She is also a mentee at Google AI. As part the mentorship program, she is working on a new thesis that focuses on practical solutions to hold companies accountable.

“People sometimes downplay the urgency by saying, ‘Well, AI is just so new,’” says Raji. “But if you’re building a bridge, would the industry allow you to cut corners and make those kinds of excuses?”

Martin Luther King, 50 years after his assassination: George Elliott Clarke on how to carry on the movement

ullahnor — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 17:45:13 +0000

Martin Luther King, 50 years after his assassination: George Elliott Clarke on how to carry on the movement

ullahnor Wed, 04/04/2018 - 13:45

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American civil rights leader Martin Luther King addresses crowds in 1963 during the March On Washington at the Lincoln Memorial, where he gave his "I have a dream" speech (photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Global Lens

Donald Trump

George Elliott Clarke

Global

Race

U.S.

Fifty years after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., George Elliott Clarke, a professor in the University of Toronto's department of English and Canada's former parliamentary poet laureate, reflects on the civil rights leader's legacy.

He says that even as Americans and Canadians today consider King's “I have a dream speech,” we need to embrace the message behind the words and launch another mass movement for change.

“You need to have a grassroots movement of the type that King inspired, a mass movement that would bring together Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, folks opposed to wanton gun violence,” said Clarke (pictured right).

“That would be the real legacy of Dr. King – to have that kind of mass movement sparked and active right now.”

What is Rev. Martin Luther King's legacy? Where are we today with race relations?

As we look at 50 years, half a century since the assassination of Dr. King, I think that just as we often celebrate the “I Have a Dream speech,” it’s really important to focus on his entire legacy.

It was a legacy rooted in the struggle for liberation and also involving concepts that he borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi, in terms of Mr. Gandhi’s successful drive to achieve independence for India and simultaneously Pakistan when those two nations were born out of the beginning-of-the-end of British imperialism.

It is very significant that Dr. King adopted the strategy of non-violent mass resistance and civil disobedience from Mahatma Gandhi in order to encourage millions of African-Americans, especially those in the south of the United States, to struggle for their basic human rights and their civil liberties. Because of that, he was able to lead a successful revolution. He was able to move masses of African-Americans from a state of near peonage, from a state of being violently oppressed via police and other instruments of state power into positions of equality, greater power, dignity and decency.

King’s movement also succeeded in getting the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965. He made it possible for more African-Americans to aspire to equality for opportunity, to be able to apply for jobs in whatever field they thought they were qualified, and progress, ascend, move into management, become professionals and become owners of various enterprises. I don’t think it’s possible to understate the magnificence of that achievement. He made it possible for African-Americans to elect governors and senators, and representatives in Congress who reflected their heritage, race, or were respectful of their needs and desires as voters, and in that way made it possible for African-Americans to feel truly a part of the American republic.

His movement was revolutionary, and he did liberate millions of people from peonage, slavery-like conditions, from experiences of inhumane treatment, attacks on their dignity making it possible for them to dream of rising as high as their talent would allow them to, including becoming eventually president of the United States. In all of history, not many people get the right to call themselves liberators.

Like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King is one of the very few who can talk about liberating people. It is one thing to become the leader of the country, to be a prime minister, president or king or dictator for that matter. It is another thing to move millions of people from conditions of pseudo-enslavement to the possibility of living decent lives with the opportunity of economic advancement and even attaining social prestige. King achieved all that. It cannot be understated. He is a true hero for anyone interested in liberating people from conditions of poverty, illiteracy and oppression.

At the same time, at the point of his death he was organizing what became known as “Resurrection City.” The radical idea was that poor people, black, brown, white, yellow from across the U.S. would descend upon Congress and physically occupy the monuments, the buildings in order to impress upon legislators that they needed to have resources redirected from the Vietnam War to uplift millions of Americans from positions of poverty to middle class status. Some scholars believe that it was because of King’s radical agenda in the spring of 1968 that he was eventually assassinated. There are still questions about how James Earl Ray received the money and weapons to carry out the assassination and the connivance perhaps of various branches or a branch of the U.S. government that permitted or encouraged the assassination to take place.

I do think it is important to remember that King did not die simply as a liberal speaker of liberal nostrum of equality and dignity and humanity, but he died as a champion of freedom and equality of poor people. He was simply a Christian humanist who really tried to put those principles into play in a society that viewed itself as being about Judeo-Christian values and humanitarian values. At the time he was struck down by an assassin’s bullet, he was challenging that and calling people to task for their hypocrisy.

Martin Luther KIng (third from left) and other civil right leaders during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963 (photo by AFP/Getty Images)

Have we realized King's dream of racial equity?

King realized some success in terms of opening up the American political process to a more African-American representation, which meant that we finally had a chance to put a lot more Black people in Congress, have a lot more Black people become senators and governors, and even president. He also made it possible for more Black Americans to become middle class, to become professionals, to build businesses. But to a certain extent, the agenda of equality was also short-circuited by the apparent success of the civil rights movement.

Because folks could see there was visible change, it was possible for people to say, “OK, we have accomplished King’s dream. We’ve gotten there. We’ve made it to the promised land.” At the same time that that’s true, there is persistent inequality, underemployment, unemployment, as well as racist behaviours, especially on the part of police forces versus Black youths and Black men in particular. It might sound incendiary, but if you’re a Black American – especially Black male, especially young Black male – and you do not feel that you have the right to move unhindered and unhampered through a city street, drive down a particular road, buy a house wherever you might be able to afford, or aspire to ascend in whatever institution or organization in which you find employment, and if you feel like your life is in constant jeopardy because someone might feel that you are not where you are supposed to be and they can get away with shooting you – whether it’s an armed citizen or a police officer – then you’re still living in a police state.

This is where the teachings of Malcolm X continue to haunt the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.

While it’s extremely important to have that dream, and work for that dream, I think it’s also important to maintain a degree of Malcolm X realism, that some people who have power and privilege don’t want to give it up and are quite prepared to continue to oppress others “by any means necessary” in order to maintain their own hegemony, their own high status within society. For that reason because of the entrenchment of notions of white supremacy, including the idea that Black people should not be permitted to occupy high office, earn high employment or enjoy high status outside of stereotypical entertainment and sports, it has left people feeling they are still in an unequal position. Keeping in mind that the election of someone who seems to be as president of the United States, quite OK with notions of white nationalism or white supremacy or simple racism against African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims – 50 years after King’s assassination this should also suggest that the dream of real equality and real liberty for all has not yet been achieved.

I would say this is a terrific moment now as we focus on this anniversary, especially for Americans of all backgrounds, to think about rekindling a mass movement that would bring together anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, pro-environmentalist, the anti-gun lobby, progressives and everyday citizens in the United States to turf out all the politicians who represent a backward, regressive, inhumane, environmentally destructive agenda. Vote them all out. Clean house and do it while chanting, “Remember Dr. King, Remember Dr. King.” In order to do that, you need to have a mass movement. You need to have a grassroots movement of the type that King inspired, a mass movement that would bring together Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, the folks opposed to wanton gun violence.

That would be the real legacy of Dr. King to have that kind of mass movement sparked and active right now. If anybody really want to get rid of what people consider regressive backward Republicans, they need to start educating the electorate now.

How should we embrace his message now, especially with the rise of white supremacists?

Look, the whole planet went through 500 years of white European control from the beginning of the 16th century to the beginning of the 21st century. That European Caucasian control of the entire planet, economically, politically and militarily, it had to include notions of white supremacy. Even though many nations are now free of obvious European control and are able to enjoy more self-determination, it doesn’t mean that the underlying ideology of white supremacy has disappeared. It’s still here. We see it in terms of carding here in Toronto where police officers want to stop somebody who happens to be brown or Black, and ask them to explain why they are where they are. This is because of the white supremacist view that Black people especially shouldn’t be able to enjoy freedom of mobility. Even though slavery is long over, it doesn’t mean the attitude that Black people should not be able to move freely has disappeared.

Same with stopping people for driving the wrong kind of car or living in the wrong kind of neighbourhood. The idea behind those notions, right here in Toronto, right here in Canada, is that Black and brown people should be poor. They should have to always justify their possessions, whether it’s an expensive car, expensive house or expensive neighbourhood by essentially demonstrating that we’ve been permitted to have these items because we’re understood to be OK, because otherwise we should be somebody’s employee, somebody’s peon, we should be somebody’s “slave.” Those attitudes, even though they’re not often voiced, still persist in our society. Canada, like the United States, was a slave-holding society. Just because we got rid of slavery, or the British Empire did in 1834, doesn’t mean that the attitudes that supported slavery disappeared. They’re still there. Just like the attitudes that oppressed Indigenous people. Residential schools may be long gone – that does not mean that the attitudes that allowed for residential schools have disappeared. Even though there may be physical advancement, progress, people are not walking around in chains anymore, people aren’t forced at gunpoint to do this or that, it doesn’t mean the underlying attitudes have disappeared.

That’s the struggle that exists now. If we really want to have real liberty and real equality, we have to overthrow all these notions that justify white privilege and white power.

I value being in Canada. I value the multicultural nature of our society, and I think we are going to become more and more multicultural, more and more hybrid, a Métis society. I think that is our future, a beautiful future that we need to nurture and protect, especially since the country adjacent to us seems to be going rapidly in the wrong direction.

White supremacists, Antifa: �鶹��Ƶ experts on protesters in Charlottesville

ullahnor — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 20:23:04 +0000

White supremacists, Antifa: �鶹��Ƶ experts on protesters in Charlottesville

ullahnor Tue, 08/15/2017 - 16:23

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Neo Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists encircle counter protesters after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va. (photo by Shay Horse/NurPhoto/Getty)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Global Lens

Race

UTM

Faculty of Information

Faculty of Arts & Science

Sociology

The violence in Charlottesville, Va., and U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial comments have turned the spotlight on the emergence of emboldened white supremacists on the far right and the presence of some Antifa protesters on the far left.

�鶹��Ƶ News spoke with sociologist Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, whose work focuses on race, crime and criminal justice, about the prevalence of white nationalists in the U.S. and Canada. Owusu-Bempah, who returned to �鶹��Ƶ in the fall of 2016, says that while he was teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, the local Ku Klux Klan would hand out flyers, and the campus had white nationalist groups.

David Roberts, who specializes in geographies of race and racialization, and Alex Hanna, who uses data collection to analyze protest movements, talked about Antifa, the counter protesters who surfaced in Charlottesville. Trump has also blamed them for the deadly violence, inciting criticism from politicians on both sides.

“I think it is extremely important that we avoid even the slightest appearance of drawing equivalency between white supremacist/white nationalist/fascist groups and those organizing to resist them in the fight against racism, xenophobia, homophobia, fascism,” Roberts says. “While there is no denying that Antifa groups do engage in violence in various forms, their organizing is not predicated on the hatred of others. This is an important and key distinction.”

Anti-fascist counter protesters hurl insults at white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the 'alt-right' in Charlottesville over the weekend, where a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is slated to be removed (photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Akwasi Owusu-Bempah is an assistant professor of sociology at �鶹��Ƶ Mississauga:

White supremacy in the United States has been very open historically – first, with slave holding, and then, the public lynching that came afterwards. Entire families would go and watch the lynching of Black men. In the post-civil rights era and certainly in the ‘80s and ‘90s, we started to see a change in how open Americans were with their racism. It was a more polite, more subtle racism.

I think this has always been present in the United States. But I think Donald Trump has specifically provided more fodder for this type of public action. Trump seems to have not only re-legitimized but also provided a space and set an example for people that hold these views. During the election campaign, he said a host of overtly racist things. His election has signalled to people with those views that it's OK. If the leader of the most powerful country in the world and their leader is saying these things, that provides them with a justification and further motivation to espouse these views and act in public.

I came back from Indiana, where the local branch of the KKK in Bloomington would often distribute flyers saying they were going to hold demonstrations, and we had white nationalist groups on campus. Those individuals didn't hide their identities. The FBI has been warning about the threat of white nationalists and white supremacists for some time. They've said that white supremacists pose a threat to the nation, and they actually highlighted the fact that white supremacists have been quite effective in infiltrating American law enforcement. This is something that is not new. It is ongoing, and it's very dangerous.

Likewise, we have a history of white supremacy in this country too. Specifically the first 16 legislators of Upper Canada held slaves. J.S. Woodsworth made comments on the inferiority of Black people, views that were supported by the Macdonald government. That's not to even mention how Indigneous populations have been viewed and treated. Rob Ford's sister, Kathy Ford, was involved in a relationship with a white supremacist. Of course, we've had Kellie Leitch and her campaign. [Over the weekend] I retweeted the example from B.C. of a KKK flyer distributed earlier this year – the second time in three months. In the last five to ten years, we've had fairly prominent cross burnings on both sides of the country. In Halifax, a mixed race couple were antagonized, and individuals basically run out of town. And we have white supremacist groups here in Ontario and nationally.

We as Canadians have done a better job of erasing our racist past. But I would suggest that racism and white supremacy lurks under the surface of Canadian society, and at times rears its ugly head. There's a potential for the same thing to happen here.

David Roberts is an assistant professor, teaching stream in the Faculty of Arts & Science's urban studies program:

The Antifa (anti-fascist) movement is a term used to describe militant anti-fascist organizations who embrace a variety of tactics, including physical violence, to confront white supremacy, racism, homophobia and fascism.

The movement has its roots in 1930s Europe and paramilitary organizing against the rise of fascism prior to the Second World War. In the United States, the emergence of Antifa groups is most closely connected to the late 1980s punk scene in response to neo-Nazi infiltration. The growth of the North American Antifa movement in recent years can likely be traced to a response to an emboldened white supremacist/white nationalist movement, as well as a belief that governmental institutions are complicit in the perpetuation of racism and white supremacy. While I do not know the details of Antifa organizing in Canada, just as Canada is not immune to white supremacist organizing, I am certain that there is Antifa organizing as well.

Given the emboldened white supremacist movements and their embrace and advocacy of violence and hate, we are likely to see more violent confrontations and violent acts perpetrated by extremists. It is really hard to know how many of the counter protesters are actually Antifa – though some of them have definitely claimed that label. My guess is that the vast majority of those who showed up in counter protests did so with more peaceful intentions. It seems to me that the attempts to paint the counter protests with a wide brush as Antifa are largely coming from white supremacist organizers and sympathizers in an attempt to justify their violence – but again, this is just a hunch.

Part of what I am trying to say is that while the white supremacists were organized in their message and approach, those who oppose them in Charlottesville and elsewhere represent a pretty diverse collection of groups with various opinions about violence.

Alex Hanna is an assistant professor at U of T Mississauga and the Faculty of Information:

Antifa is hard to discuss in general terms, mostly because its members’ ideologies tend towards anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism and autonomist strains of Marxism and socialism. These ideologies by and large tend to be anti-state and left libertarian, which means they see a more perfect society to be composed of small, autonomous groups of individuals working together in mutual respect and aid.

Antifa has been in the news lately because they have been very visible in shutting down and combatting white supremacists emboldened by the election of Donald Trump. Antifa tends to be different from other modern liberal and left movements in the U.S. such that they are willing to destroy property and inflict violence on not only white supremacists but the property of corporations and the police. Antifa in Berkeley, Calif., caused enough of a disruption, for instance, to prevent the former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos – who has regularly promoted racist, sexist, and transphobic views – from speaking at the University of California-Berkeley. It isn’t surprising that they would be involved in counter protests to the recent events in Charlottesville.

The resurgence of Antifa groups is a response to rising nationalism and white supremacist movements. In the U.S., far-right and nationalist organizations are heavily armed and are disproportionately the progenitors of violence. Antifa arise as a reaction to far-right movements and mostly seek to clash with them.

We’ve seen more nationalism in Canada, yes, but I don’t think nationalists are as emboldened as they have been in the U.S. So far, they have been met with a left and liberal response with little Antifa involvement. My hypotheses would be that stronger gun laws dissuade white nationalists from carrying weapons as openly as they do in the U.S., and that the public discourse coming from the highest officials in the government is one of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism (often in opposition to their past and current actions which harm Indigenous communities and communities of colour). This public discourse provides nonviolent counter protests with some level of government support. Therefore the Antifa response seems to be less present.

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, �鶹��Ƶ study finds

ullahnor — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 15:49:54 +0000

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, �鶹��Ƶ study finds

ullahnor Mon, 04/24/2017 - 11:49

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The study shows the majority of students entering the TDSB arts high schools come from a narrow set of feeder schools that also have an over-representation of white, wealthy students

Lindsey Craig

Author legacy

Lindsey Craig

Topic

Subheadline

“Our research is important because it suggests that these schools undermine the board’s commitment to equity by benefiting those who are already socially advantaged by race and class”

A recent �鶹��Ƶ study shows students entering specialized arts high school programs in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) are twice as likely to be white and many come from wealthy families, compared to students across Toronto public schools.

Despite the arts high schools’ open enrolment status, the study shows the majority of students entering them come from a narrow set of feeder schools that also have an over-representation of white, wealthy students.

Researchers at �鶹��Ƶ's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) say the findings are concerning because the arts high schools – also known as specialized arts programs, or SAPs – were established to provide greater access to arts training to all students across Canada’s most ethnically diverse city.

“Our findings show that these specialized arts schools are implicated in producing racial segregation and inequality, that they are places that cater primarily to white and privileged students in the board,” said the study’s lead author Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, associate professor and acting director for OISE’s Centre for Urban Schooling.

Read the Toronto Star story

Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, associate professor at OISE, is the lead author of the study

Researchers examined three of Toronto’s four specialized arts high schools, which are dispersed throughout the city. The study was published on April 23 in the journal Education Policy Analysis Archives.

“Our research is important because it suggests that these schools undermine the board’s commitment to equity by benefiting those who are already socially advantaged by race and class,” said Gaztambide-Fernández, who is also the lead investigator of the Urban Arts High Schools research project, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Using demographic and program data collected by the TDSB – one of the only school boards in Canada to collect such extensive data – Gaztambide-Fernández and fellow researcher Gillian Parekh compared the students entering specialized arts high school programs in Grade 9 to students across TDSB in elementary schools with Grade 8.

Three variables were explored – race, family income and parental education.

In all three categories, researchers say their findings show Toronto’s publicly funded arts schools are “remarkably homogenous” when compared with the student demographics across the TDSB.

Findings include:

Students entering into specialized arts schools are 67 per cent white. They are more than twice as likely to be white compared to students across all TDSB elementary schools with Grade 8, who are 29.3 per cent white.
More than half – 56.7 per cent – of arts high school students come from families representing the top three highest income deciles in the TDSB compared to only 30.4 per cent of students within elementary schools across the TDSB.
Students at specialized arts high schools are 1.4 times more likely to have parents with a university education compared to those at non-arts TDSB high schools. Data shows 73.2 per cent of students at arts schools have university-educated parents, compared to 53.2 per cent of students within elementary schools across the TDSB.

“The pattern across all three demographic variables shows that the student populations in specialized arts high schools do not reflect the population of our very diverse city,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

Study results also show that the student demographics at SAPs mirror the student demographics of the feeder schools. Researchers say this means most students are coming from schools in predominately white, wealthy neighbourhoods – despite the fact that arts schools are intended to serve students from across the TDSB.

“Our study shows that over a quarter of the students come from only five elementary schools. And, over half come from just 18 schools out of almost 200 elementary schools within the board,” said Gaztambide-Fernández. “This suggests other mechanisms beyond admissions are at play in producing such homogeneity.”

Researchers drew on their own previous studies of specialized arts programs in TDSB schools to try and explain the latest findings. They suggest admissions practices, curriculum and student experience may play an important role in excluding students who are neither white nor wealthy.

“For example if a school focuses on Eurocentric forms of art such as ballet or piano, those who excel in other forms of art such as South Asian dance or slam poetry may not do well in that audition process,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

The admissions process is only partially to blame, he said.

“If we could say that the reason is because of admissions, the policy solution would be simple – change the admission process or eliminate it,” he said.

“It’s not just that the admissions process works to exclude students without the right kind of background or talent. It’s also that a very Eurocentric idea of the arts shapes the curriculum, which attracts students who see themselves mirrored within it, and who share the same ideals of the school in terms of what it means to be an artist.”

Researchers say that’s going to play a role not just in who is admitted but in who even knows about the existence of the schools and then chooses to apply.

Leslie Stewart Rose, associate professor at OISE, teaches courses in music education and is director of OISE’s concurrent teacher education program.

She shares the concerns of Gaztambide-Fernández and Parekh, and says the decisions and choices made by educators reflect their personal beliefs, values and experiences.

“Even well-intentioned educators teach only what and how they have been taught. So, they continue to replicate Eurocentric curriculum and pedagogies. When a teacher rejects rap or DJ’ing as legitimate musical practices for example, then so too are they rejecting the motivations and histories behind those practices along with the students who identify with those movements,” Stewart Rose said.

On the other hand, an inclusive curriculum reflects the identities of the students, is relevant to their lives and invites the student to “proudly bring their full selves into the classroom,” she said. This is known as culturally relevant and responsive curriculum, which she says is part of the solution.

Researchers hope their findings will lead to change.

“If the idea behind such programs is to be inclusive, and if we are committed to ensuring access to all students across the city not just a privileged few, then we need to reconsider not just how students access such programs, but what kind of arts training they provide and what image of the artist we want to promote through our education system,” Gaztambide-Fernández said.

Racial bias may begin in babies at six months, �鶹��Ƶ research reveals

ullahnor — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 17:01:37 +0000

Racial bias may begin in babies at six months, �鶹��Ƶ research reveals

ullahnor Tue, 04/11/2017 - 13:01

Cutline

Professor Kang Lee says lack of exposure to other races may be the cause of racial bias in babies (photo from Shutterstock)

Lindsey Craig

Author legacy

Lindsey Craig

Topic

�鶹��Ƶ Professor Kang Lee says two of his recent studies indicate that racial bias may arise in babies as young as six to nine months of age.

Lee, a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, says that lack of exposure to other races may be the cause.

He and researchers from the University of Toronto, the U.S., U.K., France and China, show that six to nine month olds demonstrate racial bias in favour of members of their own race and racial bias against those of other races.

In the first study, published in Developmental Science, Lee showed that six- to nine-month-old babies begin to associate faces from their own race with happy music and those from other races with sad music.

In the second study, published in Child Development, the researchers found that babies as young as six months were more inclined to learn information from an adult of his or her own race, rather than from an adult of a different race.

“The results show that race-based bias already exists around the second half of a child’s first year,” said Lee, a Canada Research Chair in moral development and developmental neuroscience and lead author of the studies. “This challenges the popular view that race-based bias first emerges only during the preschool years.”

He believes the results of these studies are important given the issues of widespread racial bias and racism around the world.

“These findings thus point to the possibility that racial bias may arise out of our lack of exposure to other-race individuals in infancy,” Lee said. “If we can pinpoint the starting point of racial bias, which we may have done here, we can start to find ways to prevent racial biases from happening.”

Researchers say these findings are important because they offer a new perspective on the cause of race-based bias.

“When we consider why someone has a racial bias, we often think of negative experiences he or she may have had with other-race individuals. But these findings suggest that a race-based bias emerges without experience with other-race individuals,” said Naiqi (Gabriel) Xiao, who also led research for the two studies and now is a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.

This can be inferred because prior studies from other labs have indicated that over 90 per cent of people many infants typically interact with are of their own race. Following this pattern, the current studies involved babies who had little to no prior experience with other-race individuals.

“An important finding is that infants will learn from people they are most exposed to,” said Xiao, indicating that parents can help prevent racial bias by introducing their children to people from a variety of races.

Lee said it’s important to be mindful of the impact racial bias has on our everyday lives, stressing that not only is explicit bias a concern but so too are implicit forms.

“Implicit racial biases tend to be subconscious, pernicious, and insidious,” he said. “It permeates almost all of our social interactions, from health care to commerce, employment, politics, and dating. Because of that, it’s very important to study where these kinds of biases come from and use that information to try and prevent racial biases from developing,” he said.

�鶹��Ƶ marks International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

hjames — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 17:45:27 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ marks International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

hjames Tue, 03/21/2017 - 13:45

Cutline

From left to right, Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Officer Sandra Carnegie-Douglas, award winners Dawn T. Maracle, Nana Adwoa Frimpong and Kimberly Tull, and Vice-President, Human Resources & Equity Kelly Hannah-Moffat (photo by Nadia Rosemand)

Hannah James

Author legacy

Hannah James

Topic

City & Culture

Indigenous

Truth and Reconciliation

Racism

Race

Diversity

Members of the University of Toronto community shared painful stories of racism and discrimination – including at residential schools and during the ’60s Scoop – at a conference marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (IDERD).

And they talked about how they are working toward more representation, and getting issues recognized and addressed.

“For the truth to be known, you have to listen,” said Jonathan Hamilton-Diabo, director of �鶹��Ƶ's First Nations House, and a panellist in one of the morning sessions at Hart House.

“If you don’t understand the history, how can you build a relationship when you don’t understand the people?”

The session was part of a two-day conference organized by the university's Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Office this week to highlight issues facing racialized communities at post-secondary institutions and the work being done to address them. The event included discussions ranging from how to lead anti-racism transformation in colonized spaces, to Islamophobia, anti-Black racism and anti-Semitism.

One session, “When Anti-Racism Isn’t Enough: Blackness at �鶹��Ƶ” asked the question: What good is an anti-racist framework that does not account for blackness? That panel – composed of PhD candidates from across a range of disciplines at �鶹��Ƶ – discussed how progressive groups and spaces can take up the vocabulary of social justice in ways that may mobilize ideas of diversity and inclusion but alienate Black people.

“This is the first conference that we’ve organized as part of the IDERD campaign,” said Sandra Carnegie-Douglas, �鶹��Ƶ’s anti-racism & cultural diversity officer. “This was about creating a dedicated space to engage in conversations about race, racism and anti-racism, and the various intersectional implications within the post-secondary context. While we recognize that individual manifestations of racism are important to address, and we continue to address those, a significant challenge continues to be the substantive institutional and systemic barriers.”

Another session, “A Conversation on Data Collection and Student, Staff and Faculty Recruitment and Retention” featured presentations by representatives of �鶹��Ƶ, Ryerson and York University.

�鶹��Ƶ is one of the first universities to collect detailed information about the diversity of its faculty and staff through a voluntary survey last year, hoping it will help with recruitment efforts.

“It’s important to also look at what we’ve achieved, in terms of inroads made to eliminate racism and where we need to go, what we need to be doing as racism manifests in different ways for specific groups,” Carnegie-Douglas said.

�鶹��Ƶ study probes police shootings of unarmed black men by looking at how we perceive size by race

ullahnor — Tue, 14 Mar 2017 20:49:31 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ study probes police shootings of unarmed black men by looking at how we perceive size by race

ullahnor Tue, 03/14/2017 - 16:49

Cutline

Protesters against police shootings have stood up in support of unarmed victims of police killings like Michael Brown who was shot to death in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 (photo by Joe Brusky via Flickr)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Nicholas Rule

Subheadline

The study says police shooting are often accompanied by explanations that cite the physical size of the person shot, and that people see black men as larger and more threatening

According to University of Toronto research, people have a tendency to perceive black men as larger and more threatening than similarly-sized white men.

In a paper published by the American Psychological Association, entitled “Racial Bias in Judgments of Physical Size and Formidability: From Size to Threat,” researchers say that unarmed black men are disproportionately more likely to be shot and killed by police and that these killings are often accompanied by explanations that cite the physical size of the person shot.

“Our findings suggest that people’s stereotypes distort their vision, leading them to literally see black men as larger than white men even when they are exactly the same size,” said Nicholas Rule, an associate professor of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Read the Vice story

The researchers found that even black participants displayed this bias, but while they judged young black men to be more muscular than young white men, they did not judge them to be more harmful or deserving of force.

In one experiment, where participants were shown identically sized bodies labelled either black or white, they were more likely to describe the black ones as taller and heavier. In another, the size bias was most pronounced for the men whose facial features looked the most stereotypically black.

“We found that men with darker skin and more stereotypically black facial features tended to be most likely to elicit biased-size perceptions, even though they were actually no larger than men with lighter skin and less stereotypical facial features,” said Wilson. “Thus, the size bias doesn’t rely just on a white-versus-black group boundary. It also varies within black men according to their facial features.”

Black men are disproportionately more likely to be killed in interactions with police, even when unarmed, according to Wilson, and this research suggests that misperceptions of black men’s body size might be one contributor to police decisions to shoot.

But, he cautioned, the studies do not simulate real-world threat scenarios like those facing actual police officers.

“Knowing about these biases gives us the opportunity to monitor ourselves and overcome them,” said Rule. “But because law enforcement personnel have to make such quick decisions under extreme stress, they need to rely on their instincts more than most people. We need to better understand how that stress affects these misperceptions to figure out effective strategies to help officers, and the people they protect.”

The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Previous research, also published in this journal, suggested that people view younger black men as older and less innocent than similarly-aged white boys, and that training and experience can help police overcome racial bias in shoot-don’t shoot scenarios.

Asian job applicants face tougher odds: �鶹��Ƶ researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

ullahnor — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:47:37 +0000

Asian job applicants face tougher odds: �鶹��Ƶ researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

ullahnor Wed, 01/25/2017 - 10:47

Cutline

Professor Jeffrey Reitz says the findings call for an “anonymized resumé review” process to identify candidates by code not name (photo by Kathryn Decker via Flickr)

Adrienne Harry

Author legacy

Adrienne Harry

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Job applicants with Asian names and Canadian qualifications have less chance of getting called in for interviews than those with Anglo-Canadian names, even with a better education, say researchers at the University of Toronto who are part of a joint study.

Using data from a recent large-scale Canadian employment report to examine interview callback rates, the study by the University of Toronto and Ryerson University shows discrimination against Asian job seekers in Canada.

Co-authored by Jeffrey Reitz, sociology professor at the Faculty of Arts & Science and director of ethnic, immigration and pluralism studies at �鶹��Ƶ's Munk School of Global Affairs, the report assesses the extent of discrimination experienced by job applicants with Asian (Chinese, Indian or Pakistani) names.

Called “Do Large Employers Treat Racial Minorities More Fairly?” the report shows that Asian-named job applicants are less likely than Anglo-named job seekers to be selected for an interview, even if their qualifications are identical.

Asian-named applicants are at even more of a disadvantage if some or all of their qualifications are obtained outside of Canada. With foreign credentials, applicants with Asian names are 45 to 60 per cent less likely to be selected for an interview compared to their Anglo-named counterparts. These hiring biases are most prevalent in smaller businesses, which employ more than 70 per cent of private sector employees in Canada.

“A lot of Canadians think that we’ve already addressed this problem, that it was taken care of decades ago when we brought in various policies to address it,” says Reitz. “But this study clearly shows that this isn’t the case. We’re focusing on a particular part of the recruitment process – a critical part – but it’s only one stage. So whatever biases are underlying recruitment decisions might also underlie other decisions employers make.”

Reitz points out that discrimination has significant impacts on Asian job seekers as well as employers. While these applicants have to try harder to find work, employers stand to miss out on a skilled and valuable talent pool. And without continuing research, Reitz cautions that hiring bias may be hard to spot.

“We can learn a lot from this type of study because we’re looking at behaviour that is somewhat ‘invisible.’ When an employer throws a resume in the wastebasket, no one is there to witness it,” says Reitz. “For many, the obvious remedy to discrimination is to go to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. But it’s hard to speak up about being a victim of discrimination if you never find out about it.”

Reitz, along with co-authors Philip Oreopoulos from U of T Mississauga’s department of economics and Rupa Banarjee from Ryerson University, attended a panel discussion on the study thus week.

Hosted by Hire Immigrants and moderated by Senator Ratna Omidvar, the panel will discuss how to use this research to prompt meaningful action within Canadian companies, and what role government, educational institutions, and labour unions can play in creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

Although the report highlights disadvantages for a very specific group of job seekers, Reitz says it’s in everyone’s best interest to address hiring bias. “When qualified applicants miss out on opportunities for jobs, we should all be concerned. It is in our collective interest to ensure that everyone can contribute his or her skills and abilities.”

Reitz, told the Star that the findings call for an “anonymized resumé review” process, which would identify candidates by code not name.

“Some people are concerned this is something we are doing to accommodate minorities, giving an advantage to minority people by deferring to them,” said Reitz. “But no matter what political correctness is doing, it is not offsetting the problems.”

Rhodes scholar Kofi Hope – a �鶹��Ƶ alumnus – helps young black Torontonians find success

Romi Levine — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 21:45:37 +0000

Rhodes scholar Kofi Hope – a �鶹��Ƶ alumnus – helps young black Torontonians find success

Romi Levine Tue, 01/17/2017 - 16:45

Cutline

�鶹��Ƶ alumnus Kofi Hope runs the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals (photo by Romi Levine)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Subheadline

“We actually have to get off our butts and get engaged to build the future we want”

Kofi Hope has watched the lives of many young Torontonians change for the better, often in small but meaningful ways.

The University of Toronto alumnus and Rhodes scholar is the founder of the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals, an organization that helps create economic opportunities for the city’s black youth.

“Black youth in Toronto have the highest rate of unemployment of any group in the city. In a variety of areas, they're facing really depressing statistics that show that systemic anti-black racism still exists and manifests in different places from education to the legal system to children's aid,” says Hope.

As political and racial tensions rise around the world, he wants to make sure Toronto continues to be a place where young people can find a way out of economic insecurity.

CEE offers six and nine month programs to young people from priority neighbourhoods, helping them with career development, community building, skills training and job placements in a wide range of industries from culinary to trades and social services.

“Within that we weave identity based stuff, health and wellness, and we have a team with social workers and case workers that help with all the different pieces to bring people forward in that journey,” says Hope.

For Darren Brown, participating in a CEE program gave him the chance to perfect his entrepreneurial skills and brush shoulders with Toronto community leaders.

“I met a lot of great people who have great ideas. I was able to go into the program with zero network, and now I have people I built relationships with,” he says.

These kinds of opportunities are hard to find if you don’t know where to look, says Brown, who is currently a member of the CEE board of directors and runs a basketball program on the side.

“Knowing where to go, how to get there, who to talk to, is probably one of the hardest things to do,” he says.

Hope says CEE is doing its part to provide the kind of access needed to black youth, but more large-scale initiatives are needed to really address unemployment in the community.

“We do amazing work at a very micro scale, and we're able to transform 35 to 40 young people a year. That costs quite a bit of money and takes a lot of time,” he says. “We can all do part of it, but there's systemic change and macro change, especially dealing with the economy.”

The dramatic shifts in the global political landscape in the past year have taught people that any kind of change has to be fought for, says Hope.

“It comes on the backs of struggle, of engagement, of hard work, of building community, of advocating, of sometimes radical action. But, it doesn't just happen through osmosis, and it doesn't just happen through tweeting,” he says. “We actually have to get off our butts and get engaged to build the future we want.”

Real change also means a serious long-term investment in Canada’s black communities, says Hope.

“Even if you're spending $15,000 or $20,000 on that young person, to incarcerate someone provincially is $75,000 a year. Federally, it's over $100,000,” he says. “If you do put the right investment upfront and engage folks, you can see tremendous transformation, and that has huge benefits for all of us from public safety to the innovation they add to the economy to all the government services that don't have to be accessed throughout that person's life.”

While investing in young people has big societal benefits, it’s the changes to individuals’ lives that really inspire Hope.

“Sometimes it's the simple everyday transformations we see, when somebody says, 'I never realized how important networking was until we did that session or did that trip,’ or you travel with them downtown to an office space or university environment, and they say, ‘I've never thought I could be in a space like this, but now I realize this could actually be a part of my future,’” he says.

Apart from his work at CEE, Hope is on the board of the Toronto Environment Alliance, an advocacy group that looks to find solutions to urban climate issues.

He also keeps close ties with �鶹��Ƶ – working closely with Innis College and co-teaching the occasional lecture. Fellow �鶹��Ƶ alumnus Anthony Morgan is also on the board of directors at CEE.

�鶹��Ƶ PhD student helps black women apply to grad school

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 17:17:54 +0000

�鶹��Ƶ PhD student helps black women apply to grad school

geoff.vendeville Tue, 01/17/2017 - 12:17

Cutline

Huda Hassan, a PhD candidate in women and gender studies, put out an offer to help black women on Twitter (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Subheadline

Huda Hassan receives outpouring of support for her offer to help black women review personal statements for grad school

When Huda Hassan was writing her applications to graduate school, she had no mentors in academia to turn to for advice. She asked for help through social media, and three black women offered to lend a hand.

Nearly two years later, Hassan – now a first-year PhD student in women and gender studies at U of T – is returning the favour.

“If you're a black woman applying for grad school & would like a writer+phd student to revise your statement, email me: hudamina@gmail.com,” she tweeted recently.

Little did she expect the outpouring of support that ensued.

Her original message was shared more than 2,600 times on Twitter – and academics around the world volunteered to help edit black women’s applications.

“The reaction was really sweet and nice,” she told �鶹��Ƶ News. “All sorts of people responded. A lot of young black women reached out with love. A lot of allies who are in academia reached out offering their support as well.”

The 22-word message started a much larger conversation about the need for more diversity within universities. In the days that followed, she was interviewed by CBC and Metro News Toronto.

After seeing Hassan's tweet, Nicole Charles, a fourth-year PhD candidate in the same department at �鶹��Ƶ, volunteered her time to help polish applicants' personal statements. Being one of the only black women in her program, Charles says she understands the need for such an initiative.

“I thought this is a very simple thing that has the potential be so transformative,” she said.

Charles described the effort as a first step toward breaking down barriers for black students and helping them succeed.

“The more black women there are in academia, the more support we can all have,” she said.

R. Cassandra Lord, an assistant professor of sexuality studies at �鶹��Ƶ's Women and Gender Studies Institute, also responded to Hassan’s call. She offered to help in any way she could, whether through providing meals or financial support.

“Many black faculty have been doing this behind the scenes in terms of mentoring and offering support to black graduate students,” she told �鶹��Ƶ News.

With some of her colleagues, Lord founded a reading group for black students and faculty “to support our students theoretically as they move through their graduate career,” she added.

And at the faculty level, she and other professors have been appointed to working groups to discuss with �鶹��Ƶ administration such issues as targeted hiring, retention of black faculty and the recruitment of black students.

Race

Study by �鶹��Ƶ Engineering student, MIT takes aim at biased AI facial-recognition technology

Martin Luther King, 50 years after his assassination: George Elliott Clarke on how to carry on the movement

White supremacists, Antifa: �鶹��Ƶ experts on protesters in Charlottesville

Twice as many white students, many wealthy at TDSB's arts schools, �鶹��Ƶ study finds

Read the Toronto Star story

Racial bias may begin in babies at six months, �鶹��Ƶ research reveals

Read more about Lee's research

�鶹��Ƶ marks International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Read more about collecting diversity data at �鶹��Ƶ

Read more about REDress and Black’s residency at �鶹��Ƶ

�鶹��Ƶ study probes police shootings of unarmed black men by looking at how we perceive size by race

Read more at CBC News

Read the Vice story

Asian job applicants face tougher odds: �鶹��Ƶ researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

Read more at the Toronto Star

Rhodes scholar Kofi Hope – a �鶹��Ƶ alumnus – helps young black Torontonians find success

�鶹��Ƶ PhD student helps black women apply to grad school

Read more about three new university-wide black faculty working groups