Abolishing the Harmful and Racist Label “Underrepresented Minority"
Join us for the next IDEA Institute meeting on Wednesday, November 13th, 2024 @ 12:00pm for a discussion entitled, Language Matters: Abolishing the Harmful and Racist Label “Underrepresented Minority," led by Dr. Tiffani Williams. Language influences how we feel, react, and understand. Thus, dismantling racism starts with analyzing the language we use since it says much about how we see people. This talk will address why the label “underrepresented minority” (URM) is racist language and how its harmfulness hides in our everyday conversations. Additionally, this talk will consider inclusive anti-racist language for expressing under-representation and conclude by discussing ways to identify and abolish URM-like language.
Tiffani L. Williams, Ph.D., is a Teaching Professor, Associate Director of Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC), and iCAN Director in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urban-Champaign. Prior to joining Illinois, she was the Director of Computer Science Programs and Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University-Charlotte, and an Assistant and Associate Professor (tenured) in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University. Tiffani’s honors include an Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Fellowship (2002), an Edward, Frances, and Shirley Daniels Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2004), a Denice Denton Emerging Leader ABIE award (2011), a Distinguished Award in Teaching by the Association of Former Students at Texas A&M (2016), and the Grainger College of Engineering’s Award for Sustained Excellence in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity at Illinois (2024).