Pathways for diversifying and enhancing science advocacy

by: fernando tormos-aponte, phil brown, shannon dosemagen, Dana r. fisher, scott frickel, norah mackendrick, david s. meyer, john n. parker

Abstract

Science is under attack and scientists are becoming more involved in efforts to defend it. The rise in science advocacy raises important questions regarding how science mobilization can both defend science and promote its use for the public good while also including the communities that benefit from science. This article begins with a discussion of the relevance of science advocacy. It then reviews research pointing to how scientists can sustain, diversify, and increase the political impact of their mobilization. Scientists, we argue, can build and maintain politically impactful coalitions by engaging with and addressing social group differences and diversity instead of suppressing them. The article concludes with a reflection on how the study of science-related mobilization would benefit from further research.

Two Years Since George Floyd’s Killing: What Have Scientific Societies Done?

by: fernando-tormos aponte

It’s been two years since George Floyd’s killing and the uprising that followed it. Something clicked for a lot of people at the time. This is why more people went out to protest in the United States than ever before to demand change. This is also why scientific societies felt compelled to say something and issue statements.

Scientific societies and academic departments were among the many institutions and organizations that felt the pressure to change. Their immediate reaction to this pressure was to issue statements. Issuing statements became a widely observed norm—a standard of appropriate behavior.

These were not just a few so-called “radical” social science, humanist, and minority-led societies that issued statements. More than 125 scientific societies issued statements, ranging from the largest and best-funded societies to the smaller minority-interest societies.

People often viewed these statements with skepticism, particularly Black scientists who have felt the toll of exclusion and underrepresentation in the sciences. Statements also elicited derision from people who argue that sciences must remain silent in the face of injustice to preserve a guise of objectivity and among those who promote the myth that anti-Black violence consists of a series of isolated incidents in the hands of a few bad apples. As sociologist Rashawn Ray affirms, bad apples come from rotten trees.

Passive solidarity

I worked with a team of researchers to get a sense of what these statements contained. The findings were frustrating for those of us who affirmed that words were not enough. We confirm the expectation among those who sensed that these statements were largely performative, lacking clear commitments to act.

There needed to be more commitment to action in statements from scientific societies. Out of 127 scientific societies whose statements we managed to obtain, only 10 announced clear commitments to action. Even among societies that said they would act, the commitments consisted of forming committees, task forces, meeting with senior leadership, or diversity trainings.

Statements can have the effect of magnifying the claims of marginalized groups. Issuing statements can open pathways for more active forms of solidarity with marginalized groups. Statements might even offer opportunities to hold scientific societies and institutions accountable for their histories of racism and exclusion. Yet, statements that lack clear commitments to action are only passive forms of solidarity. Passive forms of solidarity tend to have less political impact than more active forms of solidarity.

The problem is racism, and it is systemic and intersectional 

Statements largely failed to provide a rich understanding of the problem that led to the killing of George Floyd or to specify the systems that enable and reproduce violence against Black people.

Societies rarely mention names other than George Floyd in their statements, signaling a troubling tendency to fashion an understanding of the problem of racism as isolated and one of individual-level actions as opposed to an understanding of racism as systemic. Social sciences and the humanities, often thought to be more radical or left-leaning fields than natural and physical sciences did not live up to their reputation as radicals. Social science and humanities scientific societies were less likely to name racism explicitly in their statements. Societies are not calling for defunding the police (only the American Studies Association did), suggesting a disconnect from the more radical policy proposals and a bias for more moderate understandings of and solutions to the problem of racism.

While some might see the moderate nature of statements as the more palatable direction for scientific societies to take if they are going to step into the fold, these predispositions for moderation deny opportunities for deliberation, contention, inclusion, and democracy among the communities that belong to or are affected by scientific institutions. Further, suppose scientific societies are to be governed in ways that calculate and mirror what is politically palatable for the racial majority groups that the Democratic party does not take for granted. What credibility is there for these societies as promoters of science for the public good if they shape the content of their speech to conform to what is politically convenient for the Democratic party? Scientists must speak and demand action against injustice regardless of the political leanings of those who hold power to determine who wins US elections.

Systemic understandings of racism exist at the margins

Collectively, scientific societies are fashioning limited understandings and framings of the problems of racism and policing in the United States despite being the very institutions whose mission it is to study our world and forward ways to change it. Societies remained timid and sustained a bias for limited and more moderate solutions to this problem at a time when people risked their lives to protest anti-Blackness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across all scientific fields, however, only a third of societies offer a deeper analysis of racism.

Societies are also failing to provide intersectional understandings of racism. Intersectionality is the notion that conditions of disadvantage produced by multiple interacting systems of oppression must be addressed concurrently. Very few statements mention gender and sexuality issues in their statements. Only five scientific societies mentioned Black Trans Lives and the LGBTIQ+ community despite the centrality of these identities within organized efforts to address racism. Only three societies mentioned Black women in their statements. Despite being less likely to name racism explicitly in statements, when social science associations explicitly named racism, they provided more nuanced understandings of it as both a historical and ongoing problem.

Adopting intersectional approaches to enacting solidarity to fight racism is not just about issuing statements and diagnosing the problem. Intersectionality is a project that emerges from movement spaces. It is oriented towards a synthesis of theory and praxis. Limited understandings of the problem of racism are obstructing more meaningful action and engagement with organized efforts to subvert racism.

Yet, more nuanced understandings of racism and calls to action exist. They must be brought to the center. Those forwarding richer understandings of racism and calls to action are not the best-funded societies, and they tend to be under the leadership of people from marginalized groups. Minority-interest organizations were more likely to refer to George Floyd’s death as a killing or murder than general-interest organizations by a 26 percent margin. Less than half of general-interest organizations referred to George Floyd’s death as a killing.

Minority-interest organizations, on the other hand, refrained from referring to racism as an individual problem. Some 59 percent of minority organizations spoke of racism as systemic compared to only 31 percent of general-interest organizations. Early evidence points to the likelihood that academic departments and scientific society sections were more willing to commit to action than the institutions that house them.

The US scientific community does not lack deeper understandings of racism. The problem is not an absence of these perspectives, it is their peripheral status. We must learn from and center minority leadership if we are to engage effectively in collective efforts to subvert it within the scientific community.

Could they have done more?  

One might ask, what more could scientific societies have done? Societies could have adopted more inclusive and participatory budgetary processes that allow their membership from traditionally excluded groups greater power to allocate resources to combat exclusion in the sciences. This would stand in contrast with the condescendence with which members tend to be told that societies lack the funds to do much more than issue statements. Societies could have opened consultative processes with binding outcomes whereby people from traditionally excluded groups provided representation that more closely mirrors the demographic makeup of the regions in which they operate. Societies could have embraced mobilization, supporting science advocacy, and the leadership of the scientists who did not stand by silent in the face of injustice.

These measures do not necessarily entail spending more money, usually cast as beyond the bounds of what is possible. Instead, these measures would subvert the means by which funds are currently allocated. Societies need not save science for groups marginalized in the sciences. These groups can do it themselves. Scientific society leaders do not need to do the dreaming for those who have long been dreaming of alternatives to the status quo.

Critical hope for change

While the lackluster content of these statements is frustrating for those of us who want to see more done, not just said, I find some opportunity for change in these statements. Statements reaffirmed that the United States is not the post-racial society that some celebrated after the election of the first Black president. They recognized that anti-Blackness pervades not just the institutions that govern us but also those that legitimize knowledge production. Efforts to subvert anti-Blackness and the system of racial capitalism that upholds it can depart from this recognition of their pervasiveness and the inadequacy of scientific societies’ reaction to the 2020 uprising.

These statements took a snapshot of where scientific institutions were in 2020. The progress or lack thereof among scientific societies to become anti-racist organizations can be measured against their status in 2020 and the performance that they put together when they were pressured to do something. Statements can be a tool for accountability. The agency that these statements denied to groups marginalized in the sciences should be exercised to transform scientific societies and reorient their practice to fulfill their mission to serve the public.

Achieving Multiracial, Multiparty Democracy

Contributing Task Force: Andrea Benjamin, George Cheung, Lee Drutman, Holly Ann Garnett, Ruth Greenwood, Pedro Hernandez, Kevin Johnson, Michael Latner, Maria Perez, Sam Rosenfeld, Jack Santucci, O. J. Semans, Heather Stoll, Fernando Tormos-Aponte, Alejandra Tres, Hannah Walker

A growing body of evidence suggests that democracy in the United States is in peril, from direct attempts to subvert our elections, to the targeted expansion of restrictive election laws, our dysfunctional party system, the dismantling of federal voting rights protections, and a resurgence of antidemocratic populism.

This report lays out a positive vision, pathway, and specific recommendations for addressing these risks and achieving truly multiracial, multiparty democracy in the United States. These recommendations include:

• Securing the integrity of elections

• Countering voter suppression by supporting voter participation

• Reducing barriers to political association

• Expanding representation by increasing assembly sizes

• Designing electoral districts to represent all voters

• Fostering more deliberative policymaking

The report also includes specific recommendations for democracy movement stakeholders, those community organizations, election administration agencies, reform and voting rights groups, and funding organizations whose collaboration is essential if multiracial, multiparty democracy in the US is ever to be realized.

About this report: This report draws from a September 2021 day-long course at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and broadly reflects the concerns and strategies voiced during the course and in the ongoing work of the Center for Science and Democracy’s education and outreach strategies. Many course participants contributed to the report, along with members of the Center's Democracy Reform Scholar-Advocate Council. See the full report for a complete listing of contributors.

Data Doesn’t Speak, People Do!

by: barbara allen

After months of collecting and analyzing data from a participatory survey on environmental health conducted in a polluted industrial region, we had arrived at the big moment: we presented it to the local community in an open public meeting in the town hall. Our epidemiological statistics revealed most of the health issues the residents had suspected, but for which they previously had no science to support their claims. At the end of the meeting, one of the residents–a shop owner and civic leader–raised his hand, then stood up and said, “We are not statistics. This data is not us!” While we were taken aback by the directness of his comment, we had planned an additional step in our participatory research process: to further interpret and analyze the data in collaborative workshops.

Unfortunately, scientists’ community engagement often ends with the presentation of data to the public and the publication of a final report. Some years ago I met with the director of an international environmental nonprofit organization. He expressed frustration that they had hired the best scientists and made sure their study had no perceived political bias… but when they gave the study to the local people, nothing happened. It was as if their work was for naught; the study was not used to promote environmental or regulatory change. What was missing from the scientists’ engagement with the public was a critical component: collaborative and deeply inclusive interpretation and analysis of the data with the community, prior to releasing the report.

Collaborative data analysis for policy impact

When those people for whom the science matters most are able to participate in the shaping of science, they are able to better contextualize that knowledge, making it more relevant to their life. The data collected can evolve from tables and statistics to meaningful knowledge that can easily be conveyed by local people to the media, regulators, and politicians.

Collaborative analysis to answer a community’s questions about environmental concerns might look something like this:

1. Scientists present the initial data they collect to local communities in a workshop. This can be data they have collected via participatory methods, and/or data they have gathered from government sources.

2.  The workshop participants are able to view the data and ask questions, suggest hypotheses and ideas for further analyses, and add their experience related to pollution or illness (or whatever the study data represents) in a collective discussion with others in their community.

3. The workshop deliberation space is a catalyst for scientists and residents thinking together towards developing science that reflects and includes local knowledge and values.

Scientific reports that emerge from such processes reflect a hybridization of quantitative and qualitative data, infusing statistics with the empirical observations of lay people. Additionally, the participatory process of workshopping data and inviting input and reflection from local people for whom the science is more relevant aligns with science communication research on attention and motivation. People have greater capacity for understanding and personally processing science if it connects to both: 1) people’s preexisting observations and beliefs, and 2) concrete events or outcomes that can impact their lives, or those that they care about. In collaboratively making and shaping science with people, it is more likely that the science will travel through the voices of the people who helped make it.

The social integration of knowledge via collaborative analysis leads to a stronger and more relevant report compared to the socially remote knowledge that is often contained in official state studies or other scientific documents. Inclusively reporting data-in-context enables laypeople to be better advocates for policy, speak to the press and agency officials, and build community capacity for further action.

Participatory science is supportive of a new kind of “scientific citizenship.” Part of the process is reframing civic institutions and institutional approaches to science to not only be more inclusive, but to also invite new kinds of “questioning communities,” a move that can strengthen not only science but also democracy. Science can also learn from other fields and social movements about how to better support communities and address inequities. We know that we need both community members and scientists to be actively involved in informing policy to have a thriving democracy. As we face multiple crises, from coronavirus to climate change to systemic racism, we would do well to remember that when we come together in discussion and deliberation, sharing what we know, we can create the best outcomes for all.

Scientists Engaging the Public: 6 Steps to Make Participatory Science More Policy Effective

by: barbara allen

Several years ago I led a team of scientists working with residents in several polluted towns in an industrial region in France to collect health and related environmental data. The participatory science project collected self-reported data by surveying door-to-door using a random sampling of addresses. The project lead led to extensive policy impacts driven by the local residents. These included stopping a local incinerator expansion and ending “excess pollution” permits given to industry. Eventually the local residents’ actions led to a much larger national impact–an unprecedented lawsuit filed by the residents against the polluting industries. While participatory science (i.e. citizen science, Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR)) is not new, there were several elements of our project that stand out for “super-charging” participatory science in the public and political realm.

There are informational resources for scientists wishing to engage with local communities as well as networks designed to facilitate those connections. There are also a few key strategies that can increase the effectiveness of scientists’ engagement with local groups.

1. Find out what local groups want to know. What are their questions that are answerable through science? Work with the group to clarify their questions.

2. Find out why groups are asking questions. What problem or concern are they trying to address? What kinds of outcomes are they hoping for? For example are community groups hoping to change permitting policies, strengthen environmental regulations, alter city refuse disposal, or shift pesticide use to greener alternatives?

3. Explain to lay people the kinds of data or science that can enable them to find an answer to their questions. Find out if this data or analysis already exists and how to access it. If the data does not exist, what kind of participatory study or citizen science project could produce an answer to the communities’ questions? This may involve consulting with other subject matter experts along the way. 

4. Investigate what kind of science is most likely to inform policy makers or to influence politicians and regulators. Research the kinds of science and data standards that inform current policy. Design the participatory science project with the local group to try and answer their questions with science that will align with what regulators and government officials currently use for decision-making.

5. Any data collected with or for local groups should be analyzed with the group in an open, deliberative fashion. Through collaborative discussion of data, new ideas on how to analyze the data can occur. The local group’s experience and personal evidence informs their understanding of the relevant science. Ideally, their empirical knowledge informs the further analysis of data done by scientists.

6. Final reports should include a robust accounting of the community’s ideas and input gained during the collaborative analysis phase. This qualitative data interpretation and analysis by regular people should be recorded alongside any quantitative data reported. This shapes a final report into a chorus of local voices, which is ideal to promote press coverage and attract political notice. At the end, scientists should get out of the way of promoting the outcomes and findings from the report and let community members do their own talking. Including local people in data analysis can lead to a powerful science-infused public voice informing media, pressuring politicians and government regulators, and potentially, leading to better policy outcomes and structural change.

When scientists work with communities to ensure that data and technical information addresses their questions in the context of their lived experiences, a more robust science can emerge. Local residents can add great value to science both in the kinds of questions they ask and their on-the-ground knowledge of the issues at hand. In the project I led in France, the health issues we were able to collaboratively document and analyze with the residents were, in part, responsible for the state taking the following actions: providing more access to health specialists; continuing operation of a local health clinic that was slated for closure; agreeing to establish a regional cancer registry; and funding medical research to understand the co-morbidities of exposure to industrial pollution in the region. Participatory science, doing science with the people, can promote scientific rigor, social relevance, and policy reach, the 3Rs of participatory research. 

We need more, and more effective, tools for science advocacy to help us achieve these outcomes.

Science Activism After Trump

by: dana r. fisher

Roughly three years ago, Scott Frickel and I wrote about science activism during the Age of Trump. The piece focused on the ways that Americans – many of whom were scientists themselves – were turning out in support of science. We concluded our piece by noting “the power of getting scientists out of their labs. Keeping them engaged in politics can only heighten their influence on issues from climate change to space exploration and beyond.”

Since Joe Biden took office in January, the new Administration has substantially changed how the US government is engaging with science. Instead of rejecting scientific consensus around wearing masks, getting vaccinated, or addressing the climate crisis, the Biden Administration is working to implement aggressive policies that follow the science. While the new President and his team have shown a lot of support for science, science activism and advocacy persists. Based on the results of two waves of surveys with members of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Science Network, there is strong evidence that science advocates continue to be very politically engaged: 94% voted in the 2020 election. Moreover, the Science Network has grown by 20% since Joe Biden was elected President in November, gaining more than 3,000 new supporters.

As this network of science activists continues to grow and the Administration pushes to implement an agenda that is informed by science, what are the most effective ways to advocate for science moving forward?

There is little doubt that science advocacy and activism will be helpful to the Administration as it works to implement a national climate policy that responds to the warnings from the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Not only do members of the Science Network identify climate change as their top issue, but their advocacy and activism would be extremely valuable to the Biden Administration as it struggles to follow through on the President’s campaign promise to “enact the most aggressive climate agenda in history.”

Although there have been a number of recent successes for the climate, including some wins against big fossil fuel companies, fears are growing that the Biden Administration is considering watering down its climate plans. At this point, the future of the American Jobs Plan, which aims to get Americans back to work while addressing the climate crisis, is uncertain.

Science advocates are particularly well suited to support the climate provisions in the Plan by mobilizing their networks to apply pressure to Senators in key states to support the bill. Moreover, they can join with other climate activists who are mobilizing around the Biden Administration’s efforts to pass a clean electricity standard, as well as the many other efforts to keep pushing the Administration to follow through on its climate-related campaign promises. 

Beyond supporting a national climate agenda that is consistent with the science, there is a clear need for activism and advocacy at the state and local levels. Since the 2020 election, Republican lawmakers have been working to limit political participation by implementing voter restriction bills and passing policies that curtail peaceful protest in states across the US. These bills are a clear response to the activism that swept across the nation after George Floyd was murdered in May 2020 along with indigenous-led protests that focus on projects that expand fossil fuel infrastructure.

These state-level attacks on democratic participation provide another opportunity for science enthusiasts to engage in activism and advocacy. Not only will these efforts limit representation and participation, but they are likely to have broader effects on who gets elected and what policies those elected officials support. In response to these threats to democracy, the UCS Center for Science and Democracy is currently working on the Science for a Healthier Democracy campaign that is advocating for democracy reform and helping scientists and communities form productive partnerships to advance just, evidence-based solutions.

Part of this approach involves adopting a “distributed organizing” model that encourages building power at the state and local levels. As I write about in American Resistance, distributed organizing is a geographically distributed model that facilitates bottom-up engagement by taking advantage of digital connections to build capacity for social change. The distributed organizing model holds real promise for creating and sustaining networks of activists, but it is most successful when it complements personal connections and social ties rather than replacing them with digital ones.

These efforts by the UCS provide great first steps for mobilizing the science advocacy movement to support federal climate progress while also paying close attention to local and state-level efforts to attack democratic participation. The implications of these policies will have significant effects on politics and climate change at all levels of governance in the United States moving forward.  

How Can Scientific Organizations Support Science Advocacy? 5 Ways to Get Started

by: rose hendricks

Scientists have many reasons to organize, mobilize, and advocate — whether it’s to stand up for democracy and voting rights, to push for evidence-informed solutions to threats like climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic, or to demand structural changes that make the scientific enterprise itself more inclusive and anti-racist. In recent years, more scientists have used their voices to advocate for changes like these and many others. 

Just as research provides the basis for many scientists’ advocacy goals, it can provide a basis for their movement-building strategies as well. A recent strategy brief developed by the UCS Science Advocacy Working Group distills recommendations for using insights from the social sciences to increase the effectiveness of science advocacy and public engagement.

Beyond articulating recommendations for individuals, the brief also articulates opportunities for scientific organizations like societies and professional associations to support science advocacy and public engagement. Many of these organizations have been supporting researchers in their professional lives for decades, while working to advance their respective discipline and ensure that the research conducted benefits society. As a result, societies have strong networks of experts who can weigh in on a technical topic, relationships with federal policymakers and agencies, and strong reputations both within the scientific enterprise and outside. 

What can organizations do to support science advocacy? Here are some promising possibilities:

• Enact policies to make their discipline and organization more anti-racist and anti-sexist. Codes of conduct and visible responses to violations are two ways of doing this. Other opportunities include making travel grants available to researchers who might not otherwise be able to attend career-enhancing conferences and auditing practices and outcomes for the awards they offer, to examine whether the recognition reifies the status quo or makes the field more equitable and inclusive.

• Enhance researchers’ ability to conduct research that can inform policies and address communities’ priorities. Scientific societies can offer training, grants, and networking opportunities to advance science professionals’ ability to conduct research grounded in equity. AGU’s Thriving Earth Exchange is one example of a program that helps scientists build long-term relationships with communities to partner on research that benefits the community.

• Build relationships with policymakers at all levels and establish their organizations as trusted sources of information. Scientific associations frequently maintain relationships with federal policymakers and agency staff, and they create opportunities for scientists to meet with members of Congress to discuss their work and shared priorities. Because there are many more state and local policymakers than federal, it can be a challenge for these organizations to build the same kinds of relationships at these levels. But by partnering with groups like Engineers & Scientists Acting Locally (ESAL) or the National Science Policy Network (NSPN), and by leveraging their members’ existing relationships with local policymakers, scientific societies can greatly expand their connections.

• Mobilize members to participate in advocacy and public engagement. Science organizations can leverage their resources and expertise to create tangible opportunities for researchers to engage, like setting up meetings with policymakers or building relationships with diverse communities. Then, they can tap into their membership to invite scientists to take advantage of those opportunities and help shape new ones. 

• Celebrate scientists’ public engagement and advocacy efforts and make them visible. Because science organizations tend to have large audiences and strong reputations, they have a unique opportunity to share the stories and successes of researchers who engage with policymakers and communities. This has multiple benefits: First, it can affirm the researchers, providing much-deserved credit and visibility, in addition to opportunities and connections that result from the visibility. Second, when societies elevate positive examples of engagement and advocacy, they signal to the research community more broadly that these efforts are valuable. This is an important component of a broader culture change, toward a scientific community that holistically supports and values engagement

For researchers, it may not always be clear how to leverage science organizations to boost the impact of organizing, engagement, or advocacy efforts. To begin understanding the landscape in your particular discipline, you might start by becoming a member of a scientific society and looking for opportunities to join committees. Many associations have committees focused on policy, public engagement, awards, and early career members. By joining one of these, you can learn about ways the organization has attempted to support advocacy or engagement in the past and what it currently does. 

You can also introduce your ideas for increasing the organization’s support of these activities. If there aren’t committee opportunities, you can ask a staff member or volunteer leaders what’s been done in the past, what opportunities they see for expanding, and how you might pursue any specific ideas you have for the organization. In many cases, societies are eager to support scientist-driven efforts and can help get these off the ground by sharing their expertise, communications channels, and connections within and outside the scientific enterprise. 

Although the Biden administration has been much more eager to prioritize science in the decision-making process than the previous administration, the need for scientists to organize and advocate for equitable uses of science in society remains high. Science remains an exclusive institution, producing innovations and insights that are not shared equitably across society. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take far too many lives. And the Earth continues to warm at an alarming pace. As scientists continue to embrace their roles as global citizens and community members through public engagement and advocacy, scientists and science organizations will both benefit from working together to ensure that science is used to ensure a better world for all.

We Must Urgently Build an Inclusive Science Advocacy Movement

by: fernando tormos-aponte

On March 4, 1969, the Union of Concerned Scientists held its first public event at MIT. On that day, UCS founders staged a teach-in with the goal of disrupting teaching and research to give way to a different kind of teaching—reflecting on the misuse of scientific knowledge and protesting the atrocities that the US government perpetrated against the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War.

In a statement distributed to participants of that teach-in, UCS co-founder Kurt Gottfried spoke on behalf of fellow founders about the issues that motivated the day’s action. He expressed a sense of urgency as he decried the undemocratic character of a government that excluded the vast bulk of its constituents from scrutinizing some of the gravest issues. He asked: “Can the American scientific community all those who study, teach, apply or create scientific knowledge help to develop effective political control of the technological revolution?”

The continued relevance of March 4th

The March 4th statement provides useful guidelines more than 50 years from its publication. UCS founders conceived of the scientific community in broad terms. They called on democratizing the US political system in ways that enabled the participation of the scientific community in decision-making processes on science and technology.

Founders placed within the scientific community a responsibility over scrutinizing and informing the public about technological developments that the US government weaponized. They called on this community to assume responsibility over evaluating the social consequences of scientific endeavors and providing guidance in the formation of public policy.

A humane application of scientific and technical knowledge, they argued, required broad popular participation in policymaking processes. They urged the scientific community to embrace their role in popular efforts to build a broad and inclusive democracy.

Why we need collective action on science to fulfill this vision

The scientific community’s responsibility for justice and democracy must be accepted personally and collectively. We must accept responsibility for justice and democracy collectively because injustice emerges from the accumulated outcomes of the actions, intentional and unintentional, of masses of individuals and from the exclusion of groups from the decision-making processes that affect them.

The scientific community’s responsibility for justice stems from recognizing the role that scientists played in producing and perpetuating inequality and oppression, and from an aspiration of repurposing it with emancipatory aims.

Acknowledging complicity with injustice is not just about looking back to assign responsibility, it is also about looking forward for ways to upend injustices. To this end, we are invested in building collective power to challenge the inequalities that we had a role in creating.

We build these collective vehicles for social change because they are effective means by which we can represent the perspectives and back the demands of marginalized groups. Effective movements turn their supporters into active agents of change. They turn activists into organizers and mobilizers. They invest in diverse leadership and training. Effective movements combine tactics and coordinate action across various organizations.

Yet, for movements to be meaningful avenues for the advancement of the demands of marginalized groups, they must prioritize their issues; they must be inclusive and under the leadership of the groups that they claim to represent.

Why we must build an inclusive movement

Movements that fail to include and support the leadership of marginalized groups can do more harm than good. Efforts to adopt sweeping policies that lack inclusion and grassroots support continue to fail, further delaying action on urgent crises like climate change.

Grassroots organizations have been calling for their inclusion and support for their leadership for decades. Just as we take guidance from the March 4th statements, we must also build science organizing that aligns with the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing. 30 years ago environmental justice leaders gathered at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit and began to develop these principles, which they finalized during the Working Group Meeting on Globalization and Trade held in Jemez Springs, NM, in 1996.

Environmental justice organizers called on well-funded, predominantly white-led environmental advocacy groups to transform their advocacy agenda and organizing practices to confront the ways in which environmental degradation and climate change predominantly affected marginalized groups and communities.

We must continue to feel a sense of urgency

While some progress has been made in our efforts to support and follow the leadership of the marginalized and frontline communities that are affected by the issues that we advocate for, environmental justice scholars have documented the troubling absence of ethnic and racial diversity in major environmental organizations.

The urgency felt in the March 4th statement in 1969 must again permeate our efforts to combat structural racism and climate change. This urgency must energize our efforts transform our organizations into vehicles for anti-racist and climate justice struggles. This urgency must fuel our acceptance of responsibility for justice and commitment to subvert racial domination. The solidarity enacted on March 4th, 1969 with those impacted by the US invasion of Vietnam must again inspire our solidarities with those who are still fighting colonialism and its consequences.

As the history of the Union of Concerned Scientists shows, striking has lasting pedagogical and political consequences. Today, we must again commit to striking within and beyond the scientific, academic, and educational settings. We strike for Black Lives and for addressing our climate crisis. We must fight for broader recognition of the intersectionality of these issues and those who are at the frontline of our struggles to subvert the structures that produce conditions of marginality and oppression. We must help to build this struggle under the leadership of these frontline communities.

Scientists Are Becoming More Politically Engaged

By: fernando tormos-aponte, scott frickel, and john parker

For many, the 2016 presidential election represented an existential threat to science and jolted large segments of the research workforce into street protest mode. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust scientists into global prominence, while the Black Lives Matter uprising has forced a reckoning with science’s problematic past and present. In many ways, science itself was on the ballot this Election Day. Prominent scientific journals endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, scientific societies issued statements in the wake of the George Floyd killing, and thousands of scientists went on strike in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.


With scientists and scientific organizations now more politically engaged than at any time since the Vietnam War, we sought to understand the scope and focus of their political engagement. Before the November 3 elections, we surveyed more than 1,500 researchers belonging to the Union of Concerned Scientists Science Network (UCSSN)—a multidisciplinary network of more than 19,000 politically engaged scientists, medical doctors, and engineers. What we learned may have important implications beyond the current electoral season. Scientists are becoming an important mobilizing force at a time that urgently calls for their political involvement.    

SCIENTISTS ARE PART OF THE BLUE WAVE

UCSSN scientists vote. Of those we surveyed, nearly everyone who was eligible to vote cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election (93 percent) and the 2018 midterms (92 percent). For comparison, just 53 percent of the voting-age population in the United States voted in the last midterm election, itself a historic high.  

And they are consensus Democratic voters. Eighty-nine percent of survey respondents voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016; only 1 percent voted for Trump.

Not surprisingly, their view of the president has not improved with time. UCSSN scientists rate the administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic very poorly, take issue with the way the administration uses science to handle the pandemic, and identify White House attacks on science generally as a serious social threat. To be sure, our respondents are highly politically mobilized and skew left ideologically; in comparison, the scientific community is more ideologically diverse, and traditionally avoids political advocacy. Nevertheless, our results suggest that a scientific blue wave was likely a factor in the election.

To be clear, scientists represent just under 5 percent of the U.S. workforce and tend to concentrate in coastal cities and regions that are already overwhelmingly blue. In this respect, scientists do not represent the kind of strategic voting bloc we find in labor, evangelical, or Latinx voters.

Yet scientists have significant emotional grievances against the Trump administration. Scientists have been disrespected, their work stifled, their data hidden or destroyed, and consensus around basic scientific ideas challenged. These grievances fueled their involvement in electoral politics, organizing, and advocacy, among other forms of political engagement.

ACTIVISM BEYOND THE BALLOT BOX

Voting is just the tip of the iceberg for UCSSN scientists, who tell us they are actively engaged in a range of political activities related to national politics. Nine out of 10 respondents engaged in at least one form of political activity in the past twelve months. Even more striking, 99 percent report engaging at least two types of science-related activism, and 83 percent report engaging in at least four. These scientists are also much more likely to have engaged in protest activities during the past 12 months than the average U.S. voter. What have they been doing?

Most UCSSN scientists have contacted an elected official (84 percent) and would like more guidance on how to engage with them, the general public and their communities. Elected officials can expect to get calls, e-mails, petitions and letters from scientists. Respondents also reported being very active on social media and protesting in the streets. Half of UCSSN respondents attended one or more demonstrations – nearly four times the national average (14 percent). Most signed a petition (94 percent) and donated to a non-profit organization (79 percent). Some have even started new organizations (7 percent).

Engaged in multiple types of political action, these scientists are far more committed to engaging politically than the average U.S. voter. These findings run counter to the perception of scientists as being “above” politics. And although this is a small population, as a group, scientists are exceptionally well connected to various kinds of organizations, including universities, think tanks, civil society groups, social movement organizations and—not least—scientific societies. Even self-described “non-political” scientific societies are mobilizing their members. Three fourths of scientists in our survey report receiving support from their employers for science-related advocacy. Less than 10 percent reported that their careers were affected negatively as a result of engaging in science advocacy, a finding that flies in the face of common wisdom suggesting that advocacy risks career suicide.  

MOBILIZING SCIENTISTS BEYOND 2020

The unprecedented high-profile endorsements of Joe Biden from prestigious academic journals signaled to rank-and-file scientists that political advocacy is no longer anathema to scientific research, but should be embraced as a central aspect of science’s social mission. An ongoing chorus of calls to defend science in the context of climate change, attacks on health care, and environmental justice, among other pressing issues only reinforce and legitimate this message.

Beyond the election, scientists and their organizations should focus on building mobilization capacity among the various the groups that they are connected to. These include scientists’ own professional communities, as well as students and staff on college campuses, members of the science and engineering workforce, and the more than 24 million workers employed in education and health services.

The Trump administration’s sidelining of science drove scientists to the streets. The real work of organizing the political capital of scientists will continue. Now that the yard signs are coming down, we must be prepared to engage with what remains and advance the political struggle in defense of science.

Understandings of Science Advocacy can Strengthen it

by: fernando tormos-aponte

Back in January, I reached out to scholars and civic leaders with an interest in science-related advocacy. I asked each of them to share their insights about organizing and social movement building so we could put them in the service of strengthening and diversifying science advocacy. We planned to meet in March, and then COVID-19 happened.

Science, advocacy, and the confluence of crises

While we had been working to form a working group for months, the pandemic made this work even more relevant. Many of us realized: winning the fight against this devastating virus would require something that the US had not been doing very well in the recent past—supporting science and its use for the public good. Scientists, uniquely equipped with the tools to stop the spread of this virus, would have to devise ways to defeat the virus while mobilizing to defending against attacks on science. Science activism would have to flourish in the hardest of times.

Science advocates and activists are not alone. The COVID-19 pandemic raised our awareness about the importance of evidence-based policymaking, scientific innovation, and technological advancement. For a moment, scientists elicited the unparalleled attention of US households who sought insights on how to avoid getting infected, how to get tested, and how to seek treatment. Then, the US was forced to reckon with its racist past and present. Together, the COVID-19 pandemic, its disproportionate impact on people of color, and the Black Lives Matter uprising made it clear: science advocacy must both diversify and grow stronger. Further, science must be an explicitly anti-racist endeavor.

The UCS Science Advocacy Working Group seeks to understand the conditions under which science-related advocacy becomes more diversified and politically impactful. We seek to join efforts to promote scientist civic engagement beyond the confines of our now-empty academic institutions. Our words can make a difference, but as the ongoing uprising against police violence reminds us, words are not enough.

Our paths forward

For science to work for the public good, and particularly marginalized sectors of the public, we must seek to bridge theory and practice. The UCS Science Advocacy Working Group is drawing insights on strengthening science advocacy from various fields of study, experiences of organizers and science advocates themselves, and communities engaged in citizen science to identify the pathways by which we enable evidence-based policymaking and science in the service of marginalized communities.

We are developing an organizing strategy brief that draws recommendations for activists from existing literature on movement building, persistence, and political influence as well as from the experiences of organizers, communities, and scientists. This brief also reviews the challenges that scientists may face in advocacy and movement building and opportunities that they can seize to strengthen and diversify science advocacy.

The group is also engaged in ongoing research aimed at understanding how scientists can inform policy making and increase their policy influence. This research includes surveys, interviews, focus groups, and ethnographic work. This month, we are fielding a pre-election survey of members of the UCS Science Network that will help us gain a better understanding of the challenges that they face as they engage in science advocacy, their opinions and perspectives, and the many ways in which they become civically engaged and politically active. If you are a member of the Science Network, keep an eye on your inbox for a link to participate in this survey.

Our working group will work with organizations within the scientific community to expand these research efforts, include more scholars and communities in every step of this work, and to share findings from new and existing research.

The working group is also working to support scientists and organizations during the pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprising through a series of media pieces, including guest posts on the UCS blog. These posts draw from a variety of perspectives and use a social science lens to spotlight and analyze existing science advocacy efforts, discuss equity issues, and share information about resources that scientists can use for their advocacy work.

Below you will find some of our recent writing on these topics:

•  10 Things That the Scholarly Community Can Do to Stand in Solidarity

• “Fattening” the Curve: Funding Equitable Scientific Research After the Pandemic

• Social Distance and Social Movements During COVID-19

• On Racial Justice, Statements Are Not Enough

We look forward to broadening these efforts and deepening our relationships with those who stand to gain from the enactment of a science praxis that seeks to elevate the voices and improve the lives of intersectionally-marginalized groups.

On Racial Justice, Statements Are Not Enough

by: fernando tormos-aponte

By now, you have received a statement about the current state of race relations from almost every institution and organization that you are affiliated with. Like me, you may be asking yourself: Will these statements mean anything? Will these organizations actually do something? Universities and scientific organizations are not just expected to say something, but to take action.

Academic institutions and scientific organizations must confront race relations while navigating the difficulties of a pandemic and economic strife. They should also aknowledge their role in perpetuating systems of racial oppression. It should not have taken this long for them to realize that something had to be said, and it should not take long for something to be done. What, then, can the organizations that serve as homes to many of us in the scientific community do?

EMBRACE MOBILIZATION

Scientists are increasingly involved in efforts to bring about social change. Thousands have joined organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists, Scholars for Social Justice and the Scholars Strategy Network. Young scholars of color created new organizations like the March for Science, 500 Women Scientists and Reclaiming STEM.

On June 10, hundreds of scientists went on strike in solidarity with the fight to make all Black Lives Matter. While these actions may have caused some university leaders to lose some sleep, they need not see this as a threat. Institutions shouldn’t shy away from collective action. Rather, they should embrace it.

Organizing builds better democratic governance and more representative institutions. Civic organizing contributes to enhancing societal democracy. Collective action makes institutions more responsive to their constituents and representative of marginalized groups.

Mobilization is not at odds with our educational mission. Activism fulfills a crucial pedagogical function as it enables participants to engage in the democratic process. Many of these lessons cannot be imparted within the confines of our now-empty university halls.

The institutions and organizations that we affiliate with must embrace collective action. Minority protest has an impact on policy, including policies aimed at stopping racist violence. Social movements drove countries to take action against issues of gender inequality. 

Institutional leaders can take steps to support scientist mobilization. Educators should encourage young people to participate politically. At the very least, universities must commit to refraining from adopting disciplinary measures against those who choose to engage in collective action in the workplace, such as strikes, walkouts and public intellectualism. Yet, academic institutions must go well beyond merely refraining from repressing science activism. They can include civic engagement and service to the community in their tenure and promotion guidelines, hire and retain scholars of color, support research on race relations, and allocate resources for organizations working to address societal problems.

INACTION IS POLITICAL

It is not uncommon to see cautions against becoming political in the sciences. What these cautions fail to grasp, or choose to ignore, is that policy is a course of action or inaction. Inaction is political. Hence, inaction and silence are policies. By virtue of suppressing political activity or deciding not to engage in it, scientific organizations and institutions are being political. Insofar as the status quo is unequal, leaving things as they are is a regressive political act.

SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS MUST ALSO ACT

Universities are not the only ones who must act. Science organizations and scientific societies risk losing their legitimacy when they fail to engage in critical self-reflection and to ask themselves how they reproduce internally the societal ills that they decry in their statements. To this end, they must take responsibility for justice and enact an intersectional solidarity organizing approach. Intersectional solidarity is a form of organizing that makes space for intersectionally marginalized leadership and adopts an affirmative advocacy agenda that prioritizes the issues of marginalized groups. In doing so, these organizations will demonstrate that the statements that they issued in recent weeks are not merely acknowledging what brought us to the critical juncture in which we find ourselves, bur rather, are taking action to enact lasting social change.

ENACT CRITICAL DIVERSITY

The word diversity is now anathema to many minority scholars, not because they are against diversity in principle, but because they take exception to the ways in which diversity is celebrated but not realized. Loren Henderson and the late Cedric Herring pushed us to enact a critical diversity approach, which transcends celebrations of diversity to address power asymmetries between different social groups. While it matters to include and place minority leaders in leadership positions, resources must be allocated to make our organizations and institutions inclusive.

Diversity work should not fall exclusively on the shoulders of a chief diversity officer who is rarely given the resources and institutional support needed to fulfill their mission. The work of addressing the state of race relations should not continue to overburden devalued minorities and underrepresented groups. Institutions and organizations must create diversity infrastructures that generate ideas and are empowered to implement solutions. Those who engage in this work should be compensated for doing so.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Collectively, scholars have said: “This is not a moment to sit on the sidelines.” Beyond statements, scientific organizations must step into the fold and embrace the mobilization that will mark this juncture for years to come. Doing so is a democratic act.

10 Things That the Scholarly Community Can Do to Stand in Solidarity

by: fernando tormos-aponte

Acknowledge the history

Science has a deeply problematic relationship with race. The dimensions of this history are many, and most remain in operation to this day. Don’t expect your Black colleagues or friends to educate you on this history whenever you deem it necessary to learn about it. They have already written countless studies to help you understand it. Read them. Cite them. Striving for nuanced understanding of race should not entail giving white supremacists a voice or calling for “both sides” to be represented.

Address racism in our workplaces

Is your workplace predominantly white? Is your university and scientific association white-led? Are all of your collaborators white? Beyond well-crafted diversity statements and celebrations of diversity, we need to push leaders to take steps to address the under-representation of Black scientists in the scientific community.

Revise your work

It is not uncommon to read studies or syllabi that only cite and assign male or white authors. Consider how your work is informed by understandings of race.

Refuse to be complicit

Don’t take part in all-male, all-white academic panels. This undermines the legitimacy of your work and perpetuates the notion that people of color do not know about this topic.

Make space for Black leadership

Science advocacy organizations should make space for Black leadership. Black leadership and minority activism matters, particularly for addressing racist violence.

Make space for Black voices

Despite the lack of support for the academic sessions of scholars of color and their scholarship, when race relations dominate the news cycle, white colleagues seem to develop strong opinions about how to address race relations and minority activism. Scholars in the field of Race and Ethnicity in Politics have been doing this research despite the challenges of doing so.

Make space for Black innovation

Scientific innovation is less likely to be recognized as such when it comes from minority scientists.

Support autonomous Black spaces

Our Black colleagues are organizing autonomously. These spaces are important for their efforts to develop their perspective and action plans during these times. They will call on us to support their work, but until they do, we must respect the spaces that they’ve created for themselves.

Invest in Black leadership

Investing in Black leadership does not always mean that you must step down from your leadership positions. White leaders can make space for Black leadership by allocating resources to the development of Black leadership.

Expect dissent

Minorities are not monolithic groups. It may come as a surprise to some, but minority groups do have disagreements on how to best address their oppression. This should not be taken as a sign of weakness or the absence of a clear agenda. Deliberating over distinct perspectives throughout the process of deciding on actions is what democracy looks like. The ability to engage in these deliberations makes efforts to end oppression stronger. Ultimately, agendas for change are weak if they do not rest on a solid foundation of inclusive deliberation.

“Fattening” the Curve: Funding Equitable Scientific Research After the Pandemic

by: barbara allen

During the early weeks of the pandemic several visual epidemiological models were reproduced across multiple media for public understanding and persuasion: the exposure curve and the contagion graphic and COVID-19 projection curves. Using models as predictive tools to “flatten the curve” became public shorthand for the reasoning behind behavioral parameters for pandemic mitigation including social distancing measures, mask-wearing, and stay-home orders. This infusion of evidence-based science into political action and policy was heartening and commendable.

While models are useful for guiding rapid public health responses, they are based on utilitarian thinking: the best outcome for the population as whole. They are broad brush approaches to guide emergency planning by relying on statistical modeling assumptions. They narrow the social realm to a calculable entity, homogenized such that cultural diversities fall aside. While during this crisis it’s judicious to consider the population overall, there is ample evidence to suggest that some communities are bearing a disproportionate health burden in this grand social experiment. Understanding negative health outcomes falling outside of the statistical curve, or metaphorically speaking, “fattening” the curve, will be an important goal for future research.

During the initial “stay-home” phase of the pandemic, some communities, such as African American and Native American communities, have experienced much higher infection and death rates than the population as a whole. This has been attributed to preexisting health disparities, such as the elevated prevalence of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. While poverty and health inequities often align, I suspect this only tells a partial story of the pandemic’s toll on vulnerable communities. The primary tool given to “flatten the curve” and lower transmission was: to stay home, social distance, hand wash often and wear a mask. These were generic individual behavior modification decisions making them social context indifferent.

Communities, however, are not collections of individuals. Cultural norms and practices don’t easily conform to a monocultural behavior template mandated or suggested by government officials. After the pandemic subsides, we need to build reliable knowledge on the ground about successes and failures in “flattening the curve” in the hardest hit communities during the early phase of the pandemic. What social rhythms were disrupted and what suggested behavior modifications were difficult? Were they related to infrastructure (i.e. running water, transportation), patterns of financial support (i.e. hazardous employment, paydays), extended family living and caregiving, distrust of government, religious commitments, or other culturally specific activities?

Scientists could work with communities most devastated by the virus to understand the disconnect with the one-size-fits-all prescriptive measures during the early phase of the pandemic. This means doing public health research with specific communities, as full participants, from developing the problems set and questions asked about the failures/successes to analyzing both the preliminary health data and deciding what more needs to be understood. This can lead to more effective policy responses based on complexities of more vulnerable communities rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all mathematical model. Understanding disease response and developing better response for better outcomes, requires listening to people. Insights from local engagement can even help make models with local contexts and social norms accounted for making them more effective and predictive.

Funding for post-pandemic research should look to “fatten” the curve, to understand and explain the outlier health data in communities not represented by the statistical models and formulae driven response. Successful research projects will build capacity at the local level such that they can be full participants in hypothesizing, collecting, analyzing data and proposing better practices for limiting exposure and insuring the health of communities. Socially robust science that comes from collaborative research can better inform health recommendations that are deemed valid and trusted by the community.

Learning how to live with viruses and equitably lessening their impact may require different ways of living for more socially-just health outcomes.

Democracy and its advocates must adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic

By: Fernando Tormos-Aponte and Michael Latner

In the effort to improve elections in the United States, democracy-reform advocates had been making legislative progress—and then the coronavirus pandemic changed everything.

A massive coalition of civic, environmental, religious and justice organizations dedicated to securing voting rights and electoral integrity, has been working with Congress and every other level of government to stop the erosion of American democracy. These coalitions include established voting rights groups like The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Common Cause, as well as newer coalitions like Declaration for American Democracy. They are working across a range of issues, from felon enfranchisement and automatic voter registration to ending the corruptive practice of partisan gerrymandering. In 2018, millions of activists and voters across the country were mobilized to support these types of reforms.

The coronavirus pandemic has put this work, like so much else, in danger. Basic protections to ensure that every eligible voter in the US is able to cast a vote will require an estimated $4 billion public investment, as well as a massive mobilization, during a time of physical distancing. Voting rights activists, along with election administrators and the nation’s election experts have quickly moved into triage mode. Now, the work isn’t just to advance democracy—it’s to save it.

As we take measures to physically distance ourselves, electoral democracy advocates must find ways to sustain their mobilizing efforts online. The advocacy and direct action tactics that activists usually deploy in public spaces, like meeting policymakers in the halls of Congress and state legislatures, must now take place virtually, with considerably more barriers to access.

Organizing in times of crisis also means that folks must simultaneously secure the means of their survival while seeking new ways of exerting policy influence—and this poses special challenges for communities who need that influence the most. Residents of communities without access to broadband, caregivers, the unemployed, and underhoused individuals face unique challenges that may obstruct their participation in organizing efforts.

Some advocacy organizations may be able to transition their work online. Others will have little resources and capacities to build upon. Some communities, including disability advocates, have often lacked physical access to organizing spaces, and could be important sources of knowledge and leadership.

Newcomers to activism may face challenges to gaining entry in virtual spaces, which can have both intentional and unintentional barriers for participation. Entering virtual spaces often requires passwords, software licenses, or something as simple as an Internet URL. Conversely, efforts to open virtual spaces to all may grant access to those seeking to disrupt the work. Open virtual spaces and the use of software programs that gather user data may also facilitate repressive action. The unprecedented transition to digital organizing will undoubtedly pose new challenges for organizers.

Research centers including the Brennan Center for Justice, the UCLA Voting Rights Project, and scholars at a UC Irvine symposium have coordinated to quickly generate an evidence-based consensus on policy objectives. They focus on four linked processes: upgrading to online and same-day voter registration; ensuring that all registered voters in the United States have a mail-in ballot option to accommodate social distancing; providing at least a week of early in-person voting, with enough strategically placed, public health-compliant voting centers to reduce long lines and administrative stress on Election Day; making sure ballots can be tracked electronically and having in place a process for accurate processing, including ample opportunities for voters to verify ballots that have been rejected.

To accomplish this, policymakers must also seek ways to listen and respond to constituents and advocacy groups online. While ignoring digital forms of constituent communications may be easier for policymakers than ignoring activists occupying an office, it is now particularly important to monitor electronic and social media communications closely. The continuity and legitimacy of the US electoral system is at stake.

It can work. By coordinating the release of public letters from the nation’s top election officials, political scientists, and voting rights groups, and with hundreds of hours of phone calls, online conference calls, and social media mobilization, electoral democracy advocates were able to secure $400 million dedicated to increasing the ability to vote by mail, expand early voting and online registration, and additional voting facilities.

Unfortunately, that is less than one quarter of what is probably needed to ensure that every voter in America is able to cast a vote safely and securely in November. Congress looks like it will be on recess until at least mid-May. Voting rights advocates will have no such luxury if they hope to secure necessary funding and protections for voters when Congress comes back into session.

As long as physical distancing limits in-person collaboration, webinars, online forums, virtual petitions and pledges will be critically important tactics to ensure free and fair elections for all voters. But just as election officials and administrators must ensure that emergency reforms follow the hypocratic oath of “do no harm” when it comes to ensuring voting rights, so too the advocates of reform must work to maintain open, participatory spaces where all can have a voice in shaping the fate of our democracy.

Activism in Hard Times

by: Fernando tormos-aponte

Millions of us marched in the streets. We called on elected leaders to act on climate, healthcare, racism, and inequality. The election season was in full swing. We wondered if our dreams would fit in a ballot box. As we prepared to cast our votes, the Coronavirus pandemic changed everything.

We are now coming to terms with the fact that nothing about our politics and public policies can be taken for granted. Yet, for many, politics have never offered any guarantees.

Building and sustaining democratic institutions will require collaborations across various social and political differences. As we work to demand evidence-based policies and transition our organizing efforts online, we must build on what we know about strengthening advocacy and mobilizing across differences.

I am a social scientist who studies social movements and a new Kendall Fellow with UCS’ Center for Science and Democracy. Together, we are working to support and diversify science advocacy by sharing insights from social science on how social movements come together, how they cope with the challenges of diversifying, and why movements matter.

This is the first of a series of blog entries on this topic. This series will feature fellow members of the UCS working group on strengthening science advocacy. Our blogs will use a social science lens to spotlight important organizing work being done, discuss equity questions, and share information on existing resources that organizers can use in their work. We are working to move more of our colleagues into engaging in the political process.

Here I share a few ways for people to get involved during times of crisis, and why these forms of engagement matter.

Movements matter

I’ll start by saying that social movements matter. Movements are not only drivers of social change, they also act as representatives of the people they mobilize.

Movements can even act as representatives of marginalized groups. When they do, governments are more responsive to the issues of disadvantaged people.

The ongoing pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge for our public and institutional health. Uncertainty rules. For many, voting was already very difficult, if not impossible, and we have yet to adopt the measures needed to celebrate free and fair elections during this pandemic. This is not good for any country that claims to be a democracy.

For these reasons, we should be mindful of the many ways in which we can become engaged and contribute to enhancing democracy during this time. The continuity of our democracy is at stake.

So, how can you help?

Organizations are important drivers of engagement. They help build connections between people, coordinate advocacy efforts, and build collective power. Most mobilization occurs under the auspices of movement organizations. Organizations can also make activism more durable and powerful.

During this time of crisis and physical distancing, some organizations will be able to draw support from the relationships they built offline prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Others, however, will have less resources to draw from and must find ways to recruit and mobilize through digital means.

If you are already involved in an organization or network, this is a good time to get a sense of how the organization is transitioning its work to a digital format. Many have issued demands around the COVID-19 crisis and are calling on members to use social media to amplify these demands.

Turning outrage into action

The COVID-19 pandemic is, in many ways, paralyzing. Many of us will mourn the loss of someone we know, including friends and loved ones. The stress and grief that this moment induces affects our abilities to do what we would like to do.

While some may prefer that social movements avoid calling on people to mobilize during these hard times, we must remember that our actions are a matter of life and death. Our efforts to move governments and corporations to act can save lives.

When Puerto Ricans learned about the death toll after hurricane María, many gathered to grieve collectively, but they also demonstrated their outrage over government negligence. This outrage spilled over into the massive demonstrations in Puerto Rico last summer. During these times, we can channel our outrage in ways that push our governments to act in ways that save lives and improve our livelihoods.

Opportunities for change

These are particularly important times for us to get engaged. While crises open opportunities for us to make strides on some of our demands, we will also have to defend our longstanding victories. This is why, in the words of Stuart Hall, politics offer no guarantees.

One of the major opportunities for government action is in the area of mass incarceration. Criminal justice reform activists and prison abolitionists have been calling on governments to reduce prison populations. The diligent work of activists and scholars who raised concerns over the high risk of transmission within correctional facilities prompted one of the largest pushes to decarcerate in our times.

These government actions are certainly promising, but we must continue to push governments to enact legislation to make sure that they do not continue to incarcerate people who should have never been incarcerated in the first place. We need to fight for the permanence of these victories.

Defending our democracy

As the crisis opens up opportunities for movement victories, it also gives those who stand to win from voter suppression a chance to continue eroding our democracy. A particularly important issue to get involved in is voting rights.

The fight for voting rights is still ongoing in many fronts. Scientists can play an important role in campaigns aiming to restore voting rights and eliminate barriers to voting. For instance, UCS is calling on the scientific community to tell Congress to safeguard our elections.

The pandemic presents unprecedented challenges for the electoral system. The federal government has only apportioned $400 million out of the $2 billion needed to finance the measures needed to Corona-proof our elections.

The next few weeks and months will test our spirits and our democracy. We must find ways to ensure our physical, mental, and institutional health. Governments and corporations will not concede without demand, and this is why we must resort to collective action.