Though African Americans compose 13% of the U.S. population, they received only 2.8% of the nation’s total environmental science degrees in 2016, according to DATAUSA, making environmental science among the least diverse fields of scientific study.
But rather than investing resources into recruiting minority students or researching why so few Black students pursue environmental science, many university departments fall victim to a long-held and problematic assumption.
“If you asked the question or polled a hundred departments, the number one response would be ‘people of color are just not interested in the environment,’” says Dr. Dorceta Taylor, professor of environmental justice and environmental sociology at the University of Michigan’s School of Environment and Sustainability.
Though Taylor calls it “a complete farce,” the stereotype that Black people aren’t as interested in environmental issues as White people persists in the public’s imagination.
A 2018 study conducted by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that both Whites and
non-Whites underestimated the environmental concerns held by minorities and associated the term “environmentalist” with a White face.
Yet, the irony is that, despite being perceived as the least environmentally concerned, all minority groups surveyed — African Americans, Latinxs, Asians and Native Americans — self-reported higher environmental concern than the White people surveyed in the same study. And despite the White image associated with American environmentalism, the most pro-environmental voting bloc in the United States is consistently the Congressional Black Caucus.
