Dominique, not her real name, is a Black electrical engineering doctoral student.She found herself in a difficult situation at a conference.A white man thought a nearby Black woman was a hotel cleaner and asked her to clean their table.The woman did as she was asked, but she also told him that she was the main speaker at the conference.The man did not say he was sorry. He made a joke about how the woman could have two jobs.Other white people at the table looked at Dominique waiting for her to approve of the joke.Dinique was not prepared for this. She acted as if she was laughing.The others laughed, too, but their laughter sounded real to her.Leon, also not his real name, is a Black doctoral computer science student.He was picking up a visiting female professor at the airport.He had spoken to her over the phone several times.When Leon approached the professor, she backed away and asked him to call his doctoral adviser to confirm his identity.Ebony O. McGee teaches diversity at Vanderbilt University.She says stories like this are common.She has collected about 300 of them in her research over the past ten years on structural racism in STEM fields:
