Washington Monthly - September/October 2020 - 27

neering experts from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology and the University of California, Berkeley, coming
to the city to assess what had gone wrong. He recalls talking
with his father about why the levees and the Army Corps of
Engineers had failed so badly. It gave him a new goal: to become an engineer himself so he could better protect people
from catastrophes.
After the storm, McElwee dedicated himself to his classes, becoming a straight-A student. He began looking at the engineering programs of various universities. He visited MIT's
website daily. Doing so helped him find the school's Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science program-a renowned and selective academic camp for teenagers from
underrepresented communities. McElwee, who is Black, attended, and then went on to study civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Now he is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he works on quantifying
how natural disasters impact communities of color.
"Natural disasters don't discriminate," McElwee, now
27, explained. "But we do know there are disparities in the responses and reaction times." His job is to figure out how large
the disparities are and why they exist. To that end, in 2019,
McElwee built a mathematical model that predicts how floods
impact travel times in New Orleans. It's the first to explore the
reasons these times go up more for minorities. One explanation for the discrepancy, he found, is that marginalized groups
typically have to travel farther for work. But another is that
the infrastructure in their neighborhoods is more vulnerable,
and once it's damaged, authorities are slower to fix it. Minorities "typically live in communities that haven't had as much investment in terms of recovery of the network," McElwee told
me. "Previous natural disasters have shown that these areas
are usually not serviced as quickly."
McElwee's work fits into a broader trend among Black
people in STEM fields. According to experts, scientists of color are more likely than their white peers to work on problems
with a clear relationship to issues of equity. "There have been
several studies that have shown that Black students in particular, and students of color more broadly, tend to pursue careers
that are going to allow them to have some sort of social justice orientation," said Tia Madkins, an education professor at
the University of Texas at Austin. In a 2015 study of 2,697 undergraduate STEM students, more than 50 percent of underrepresented students of color said working for social change
was either "essential" or "very important" to their career goals.
For others, the figure was just 37 percent.
But, unfortunately, there aren't many Black students in
the STEM fields. Black people are 12 percent of the U.S. population and 13.3 percent of its undergraduates. Yet in recent
years, they have received just 4.9 percent of bachelor's degrees
awarded in math, 4.5 percent of those awarded in computer
science, 4 percent of those awarded in civil engineering, 3.7
percent of those awarded in chemical engineering, and 3.1 percent of those awarded in mechanical engineering-percentages that have barely changed over time. Among graduate stu-

dents, the disparities are similarly dramatic. Black Americans,
for example, make up just 4 percent of all doctorates awarded
in engineering fields.
STEM majors earn more than most other majors, and
the dearth of Black students in these disciplines is part of why
Black college graduates on the whole make so much less than
their white counterparts. (Though it's certainly not the only
reason; Black STEM graduates earn less than white ones in the
same industries.) It has led many academics to explore why
so few Black students study technical subjects. The answer is
complex, with structural causes that can date back to elementary school. But according to interviews with multiple Black academics, it's about far more than just K-12 education. Black
students' disproportionate interest in social justice and the absence of Black STEM majors are causally related. In their courses and jobs, most STEM faculty and employers do not make social change a focus. And for many Black students, that's a serious problem.
"There is strong professional and personal dissonance
that makes it difficult for them to stay in STEM fields," said
Ebony McGee, a professor at Vanderbilt University who researches Black students' professional motivations. These students are leaving the sciences, she told me, "not because they
cannot do the work but because they cannot see themselves in
traditional STEM fields." McElwee, in other words, is an outlier
in engineering not just because of his skin color. He's an outlier
in engineering because of his research.
That's unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of
which is that some of the greatest injustices in American society need technical solutions. Building offices and apartments
that are greener will require clever engineering. To make online
education more effective, especially for communities that lack
reliable internet access, the U.S. will need socially minded computer scientists. Fixing health care inequities demands better
medical expertise and technology.
But distressing as it may be, the current tendency for
STEM academics to ignore social justice presents a major opportunity. If Black STEM students are disproportionately interested in using their degrees to make the world more equitable and fair, then STEM departments can attract and retain
more Black students by making these themes central to their
curriculums. Doing so will have two sets of benefits: It will help
Black people enter well-paying professions, and it will help create a corps of scientists and engineers focused on making a
more just planet.

f you look at a list of the most popular majors for Black students, disciplines associated with public service are on top.
More than 26 percent of recent health and medical administration graduates are Black, nearly double the national average. In social work and sociology, the numbers are 22 percent
and 18.6 percent, respectively. In criminal justice, 20 percent of
recent graduates are Black.
These are all extraordinarily important fields of study. At
some colleges, they can even pay well right after graduating
Washington Monthly 27

Washington Monthly - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2020