Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity: Home

Welcome to the OCC Library Research Guide on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion!

This guide is intended to provide access to resources that explore issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion across many disciplines and highlight resources for teaching, professional development, and leadership. This is by no means exhaustive, if there are resources you would like to recommend to add to the guide, you can recommend them by contacting Erin Gratz. This guide was created in support of Orange Coast College's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

The Time for Equity is Now

"The American community college system is the most egalitarian system of higher education in the world. We accept the top 100% of every high school graduating class, all of them without exception and without apology. We accept learners of all ages at any point in their life. Our colleges are beacons of hope and opportunity. For some, they are the first chance to go to college, and for others, the last and only chance."

Text source: "Why Diversity and Equity Matter: Reflections from a Community College President" (linked under Articles)

"By substituting diversity and inclusion rhetoric for transformative efforts to promote equity and justice, colleges have avoided recognizable institutional change."

Text source: "Language of Appeasement", March 2017 Inside Higher Ed, (linked under Articles)

Understanding Implicit Bias

From the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. (2015). Understanding Implicit Bias.

Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.  These biases, which encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.  Residing deep in the subconscious, these biases are different from known biases that individuals may choose to conceal for the purposes of social and/or political correctness.  Rather, implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.

The implicit associations we harbor in our subconscious cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance.  These associations develop over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages.  In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations.

A Few Key Characteristics of Implicit Biases

• Implicit biases are pervasive.  Everyone possesses them, even people with avowed commitments to impartiality such as judges.
• Implicit and explicit biases are related but distinct mental constructs.  They are not mutually exclusive and may even reinforce each other.
• The implicit associations we hold do not necessarily align with our declared beliefs or even reflect stances we would explicitly endorse.
• We generally tend to hold implicit biases that favor our own ingroup, though research has shown that we can still hold implicit biases against our ingroup.
• Implicit biases are malleable.  Our brains are incredibly complex, and the implicit associations that we have formed can be gradually unlearned through a variety of debiasing techniques.