S1 Ep 15- Everyday Equity: Everyday Ways to Make a Change with Kuheli Dutt MIT Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

MIT Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Kuheli Dutt joins Pooja Kothari for a conversation about how bias quietly shapes academia. From the language used in recommendation letters to who we imagine when we think of a “scientist,” Kuheli shares research and real-world examples that reveal how systemic inequities show up in everyday decisions.

Together they explore unconscious bias, the history of equity work in universities, and why institutions must look closely at data to understand who truly feels seen, heard, and valued. A thoughtful discussion about building academic spaces where inclusion and belonging are real experiences—not just intentions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Everyday Equity, Everyday Ways to Make a Change, the show that brings real conversations about fairness, compassion, and progress into our everyday lives. I'm Puja Kotari, and each week I sit down with guests from all kinds of industries and backgrounds to talk about what equity looks like, not just in their work, but in their daily choices and personal journeys. Because building a more equitable world isn't just for academics, activists, or experts. It's for all of us. Every day, in big ways and small, we can choose to be more aware, more kind, and more connected. And this is where we learn how. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Everyday Equity, Everyday Ways to Make a Change. Your host here is Pooja Kotari. I'm the founder of Almost Awareness. And we provide anti-oppression trainings and curriculum to nonprofits, universities, and companies with me. Here today is a guest that I've been so excited to have. Kuheli Dath is the Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. I'm so happy to see you, Kuheli. We met so many years ago at the Earth Institute, and I was so grateful to have met you then, to have read your research, to include it in my trainings, and just to be connected with you. Welcome. And I'd love to have you introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Thank you. And likewise, so I work. My name is Kuhili Depp. I use she, her pronouns. I'm the currently the assistant dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at MIT's School of Science. This is a role I've held for about three years now. But prior to that, I was at Columbia University at the Earth Institute and La Mondurity Earth Observatory for about 14 years. And in fact, that's where Apuja and I first met. And in my line of work, there are various levels of like diversity, equity, and inclusion stuff that I do broadly, which touches a wide range of things that I'm happy to chat about later.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Wonderful. Thank you very much. I'd love to start asking you why is anti-oppression work or DEI work or unconscious bias work or all the ways that we can say it, why is it important to you? When did it start becoming a part of your like career professional life? Did it start with research? And then how did it lead you to the position you're in today?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So there were a few different steps. I think initially, in terms of this radar, in terms of it being on my radar, I think it started when I was an undergraduate in India. And that's where there's a lot of intersection of like caste and class and socioeconomic status. And so those L areas around privilege and oppression, the other side of it, were on my radar around then. And then when I came to the US for graduate school, my PhD was actually in public policy, where I looked at certain areas like race and gender and same-sex marriage and other areas that are very relevant to this. And so that's how academically it was on my radar in terms of the actual work experience in this. It started really long ago when I was at Columbia University. So they were one of the early institutions, and I'm talking like back in 2007. So way back then, they were one of the early organizations that hired like a designated institutional DEI officer. Specifically, I was hired for the Lamont campus, which is the geoscience campus of Colombia. And the idea there being that clearly in the field of the geosciences, there's a lot of, it's very, or at least when we started back then, it was a very, it was a very certain demographic. It was typically white male was the white, hetero, cis party, able-bodied white male was the sort of default demographic. And in fact, the question that when someone says, when you envision a geologist, who do you see? And that's usually the first image that comes to mind. And at that point, they had, as part of the NSF advanced program, they had realized that in order to truly address these issues and advance and make progress in them, they needed to hire somebody whose full-time job it was to address these sorts of things. And so that was back in 2007. So that was like 17 years ago, that Columbia did this. And in that space, I began to see a lot of things that were very that I would say it was probably most closely resonates with the idea of unconscious bias. It's something that we all have. It's like we all have certain ideas of what it means. What does a scientist look like? What does a boss look like? What does a janitor look like? We all have unconscious associations. And I don't even know if bias is the right word sometimes, but it's an association we have. And I saw those getting played out in many different ways, as you would in any field that is very homogenous. And given the areas of work that I was doing, their areas of involvement. So I was the DEI person, the student affairs person, the academic affairs and diversity inclusion person. So I wore many hats because it was a very small campus. And looking at the intersection of how all of those worked, it got me into the space of thinking about it in a professional way. And because I was also involved in things like promotion committees and faculty search processes and research scientist search processes, I also had access to data firsthand in terms of applicants, letters of recommendation, and things like that. So it was a combination of my day-to-day administrative work guiding my research and my research being guided by day-to-day administrative work. On the topic of racism in particular, I was pretty astounded to find that was just not on the radar of geosciences. Like it was something that I, when I wrote my paper on race and racism in the geosciences, like it's been four years now, but back then I scoured every single geoscience journal I could possibly get my hands on. And it was the same story again and again. Like either there was nothing about any DEI type of subject, or if it was usually framed in a pedagogical way, learning outcomes or something like that for a certain subject, for certain groups of people. But the topic of race and racism was just not something that was addressed at all. It was just not a single article around those themes. So that was what made me realize the importance of actually devoting time and attention to that.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah. When you said growing up in India and just being so conscious about caste and class, and then talking about Columbia's initiatives in 2007, a lot of people were in 2024, almost 2025, a lot of people, their awakening was 2020. Or, you know, when I say, Oh, my started Boundless Awareness eight years ago, they're like, Oh, in 2016 that people were doing this. And so there's a very short memory when we're talking about DEI work. This is you have been doing this work for so long. Your consciousness has been awakened from a very young age. Can you talk to me about your earliest memories of why anti-oppression work, even if you didn't call it that, why it was meaningful to you? And how did it awaken your consciousness? What were the circumstances there?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Yeah, growing up in India, I mean, there's already gender issues, and in many ways, it's a very patriarchal society. And so that was something that we normalized. Growing up, the I was fortunate that my parents were both very progressive. And so there was very, they were very that was a liberal progressive Indian upbringing that I had. But then I went to this college for undergraduate, my undergraduate work, that was known as this feminist college of India. It was like an all-women's college, it was extremely known to be like in those days, of course, maybe even now, any anyone who's fought against the established patriarchal order was labeled a troublemaker. And so my the college that I went to, uh Lady Sri Ram College, or for short form, we called it LSR, was often labeled as troublemaking college and you know, and so on. And because yeah, so we went, we it was a badge we wore very proudly of being troublemakers, but it was mostly from a very feminist lens rather than all other types of and I think one of the things that as we started to, as I started to engage in those conversations, a few things that came up were caste and class. And one of the things in India that that is very common is that the people who do the menial work, such as the janitorial work or in the custodial staff, they tend to be people predominantly from the lower classes and lower castes. And we had an initiative in college, and I think this was probably one of my earliest or strongest earliest instances where I remember a really strong impact. We had this event called, which literally in Himvedra translates into donating labor. And so for a certain, I think it was a two-day period or something something like that, or three-day period, the students did all the physical work of what all of the custodial staff did. So we swept the floors, we cleaned the toilets, we basically did all of that work for the whole campus. And I think that was probably a pivotal moment in what we realized that how much we take for granted, how much we assume that the things that we don't have to do, that you know, that others do for us, and that is done for us in a way that we don't are not necessarily familiar with the challenges and struggles of groups that have known that sort of oppression, specifically caste and class oppression. So that was, I would say, my aha awakening moment. And then of course, as I came to the US, the those areas are perhaps not as relevant here as other things such as racism or sexism or those in in that space.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, it's making visible the invisible labor that we all rely on. Yeah, yeah. And when we when I think about South Asian cultures and dynamics and oppressions, the colorism sticks out to me, the sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, and it's almost, and of course, casteism is the the biggest, biggest meaning. It's an oppression that people that it's so normalized that it when you're not part of the caste, the oppressed caste, it seems like it's okay. Cast, yeah, caste exists, yeah. That's why those people do XYZ. That's why we people are over here, and it's so normalized that it's like, of course, that's how it is. And the and I'm one my question is, where is it easier? Or with whom is it, which culture is it easier to talk about all of these oppressions? Is it easier in South Asian society because there are some things that are so glaringly obvious, like the patriarchal society, or is it easier here, like in in the circles like at Columbia or MIT, to challenge people on anti-oppression work? And maybe easier isn't the right qualifier, but yeah, yeah, the awareness levels, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

I think it's probably a bit of both. I think so. There's this really amazing book called Cast, written by Isabel Wilkerson, and I would strongly recommend reading that. And if any audience here would really strongly recommend reading that. What it does, what Wilkerson does in her book is she looks at three three areas. One is racism in the US, caste in India, and Nazi Germany. And it's uncanny how she draws all the parallels, just basically all based on the fact that certain groups of people are more privileged or viewed as a certain with a certain higher status compared to others. And to answer your specific question, I would say that very much like how you said that, oh, yeah, it's so normalized in in South Asia that caste is something that, yeah, it's there, but it's really not a big deal. In much the same way, I would say in the US, a lot of white people were talking about caste up until this whole larger awareness. It was more like, yeah, I mean, yeah, race is there. It's not a thing. So usually what you would have is the privileged class, like whether in India it's the upper caste people, or whether in the US it's white people, or white or white passing in in some instances, where when they haven't personally experienced something and only have a theoretical knowledge of this is how it is, and it's normalized a certain way around them, they don't necessarily have a sense of how it might impact someone who is actually in the oppressed group of that particular identity. And I think in terms of who it's easier to talk to, I think, again, this is strictly my experience. I would say that people who are receptive to it, I'd say have been more progressive, they're more able to look at this look at this larger issue in terms of what what it means for society and looking at years of how it came into being. So I think that is a little bit easier to talk about because sometimes if you whether you whether it's the topic of race or caste, if you bring it up with someone who isn't receptive to that mindset, there's an accusation that they're being blamed about something, there's that tricky element as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, yeah. It's one of the ma most brilliant aspects of white supremacy is to tie individuals to the in individuals' sense of goodness to the idea of being not racist. How I'm not racist, I'm a good person. That's not those are two distinct things that are actually have nothing to do with each other.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

We're actually completely irrelevant, and that but it's a brilliant of white supremacy to stop the forward progress of anti-racist movement because you just get everybody on the defensive and you all the gears get stuck and you just can't move forward because people are really intent on proving on how good of a person you are that they are. Um so, in that vein, when you hear defensiveness or excuses to not engage in anti-oppression work, not to engage in DEI work, we don't need that. We're all good people. People don't have any issues here in our organization. I don't have any complaints. So when you hear excuses to not engage, what are some of the ways you go about responding to that? Or maybe programs that you've thought of to like programming to get people more engaged. What are your in all of your years of experience, what are your ways to talk about it?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

So I think there are a few different strategies that I've used over the years and a few different angles, coming from a few different spaces. So one of them, one of the most common things I hear, and again, this is well-intentioned people, like I'm not suggesting people mean badly, but they will say things like, oh, why do we need to, why do we need to think about race or gender? Let's just focus on merit. And that sort of an argument makes the assumption that anytime you're looking into unconscious bias or oppression, somehow you are taking away from merit. And another default assumption is that a professor is a white male, or that's the default thing, and that's the normal hire. But if it's somebody, a woman who's an excellent candidate, or a person of color who's an excellent candidate, then that is more likely to be labeled as a quote unquote diversity hire. So I very gently point out that to them in a way that says, oh, like the implication here is that formal hire means it's going to be a white male, but anybody else is a diversity hire. And so when you talk about merit, we all of these people we hire do have merit, and that's why they got hired. They were not hired because of their race or because of their gender. They were hired because they were suited for the job. And when we talk about larger issues around unconscious bias, then you know the research documents the ways in which women or people of color or non-majority groups are perceived in a way that minimizes their contribution to science or minimizes their contribution. For example, there's so much research, including my own research, that talks about how when we're describing male scientists, we use words like genius and star. And when you're describing female scientists, you will use words like reliable and nurturing and team player. So there I one is I'd point that out to people. The other thing I do is sometimes I turn it around and I move away from the more politically sensitive topics like race or gender, and I move, we turn it on to myself and I talk about, I give examples where say I made a mistake because I didn't know any better. And in one example I often give, and sometimes I start unconscious bias sessions with this example, is that one time, and this I was brand new at MIT, and I was rushing to attend, it was an in-person DEI seminar somewhere, and I was rushing to attend it. And MIT, to those who are familiar with the buildings, can be a maze. Like you could get lost very easily and very quickly. So my only focus was, and I was brand new there, my only focus was how do I get from my office to this particular spot where the workshop is happening and finding my way bare. And I felt very proud of myself when I found my way to that workshop venue. And it was a time where various it was an orient DEI slash orientation session. So many people were new, and many people had that exact same mindset, like walking through the maze that is MIT and getting lost, how do we find our way to that venue and feeling very happy that we did, which was all very well. But then the presenter said something to us, and she said that as you were rushing to get here, how many of you took the time to notice where the wheelchair access ramps were to the building or where the disability access ramps were, the entrances were? And the answer was that none of us had taken the time to notice, and we didn't because we didn't need to. And that was an example of able-bodied privilege. Like I didn't need to say, where are the wheelchair ramps that will get me from my office to the workshop venue because I didn't need to do that. And so that was really a nice way I thought of introducing this concept that when something is not on our radar and we haven't known adversity as a result of that particular thing, whether it is race or whether it's gender, whether it's sexual orientation, disability, whatever that social identity is, then often that thing is not something we automatically pay attention to. So when I hear comments about why do we need to do this, I'll give them those examples and say, unless these things are put on your radar, you're not gonna look for them because they've never been sources of adversity to you. But then sometimes we'll just go out and do certain workshops and initiatives or programs that get people involved so that they can see that there really is an urgency to do this work.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah. Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. I love that example. But it also reminds me of your article where you analyze like recommendation letters and the words and adjectives, like you were saying, of people who ask for a reference or a recommendation letter from a former professor and what adjectives they use. Again, it has nothing to do with merit. It's all about the associations and biases of, you know, how are you going to describe a scientist who's a woman and how are you going to describe a scientist who's a man? And you're not even aware in your reference, you're glowing it could be a glowing recommendation letter, but you're not using the same words. And it has an inherent, disparate effect. And then these, I think, were like international, you analyzed a huge data set.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

We analyzed different world regions. It was like some 1200 letters. And the thing is, initially, we thought the reason we grouped it out by different world regions is because we thought maybe there are differences in in different world regions. And I mean, in terms of statistical analysis, the good news was they were all similar. Social identity was the same thing. And regardless of which world region we looked at, male scientists were described in stronger language than female scientists. Yeah. And the only real differences we found in world regions were things like the length of the letter or that sort of thing. Like, for example, in the US, those tended to be longer. But outside of those kinds of technical details in terms of the content, it was just very much every region of the world was doing the exact same thing. And the other really key thing that we found amazing, like just amazing, like not in a good sense, but whoa, we were struck by it is that it wasn't just male letter writers who were doing this. Both male and female letter writers were doing this. So letter writers across the board were writing using stronger language or certain types of language when they were describing men as opposed to women, even though they were writing really wonderful letters for those women. Applicants as well. So it wasn't like a bad letter. It was like this is a wonderful person, so hardworking, so intelligent, great team player, and that kind of thing. But it was what we were not picking up on is okay, we don't use we don't see the word brilliant or genius or trailblazer or star as we see more frequently in letters from male applicants.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah. Yeah, we internalize all of that impression and then we just exhale it back out into the world. And if we're not, oh, if you're if people are like, you know what, everything's fine. Like I judge people based on their character and their actions, and I don't judge anywhere else, it's just not possible. This illusion of objectivity or neutrality as a human being is almost laughable because we are subjective inherently. I mean, you need these strict, like research methods in order to take all of that subjectivity out of research to think that we're immune to it or anybody's immune to it or can write a recommendation letter that is gender neutral or race. It's funny. It's just a funny concept. It's a pie in the sky, it doesn't exist. Okay, in the remaining minutes, we did just have an election this week. There is a lot going on. My question is considering where we know where we're going to be for the next four years, and having been in a similar place in from 2016 to 2020, what's the role universities should take? And let's limit it to the universities that do have offices where there are deans of inclusion and it's the departments are there and the structures there. What's the next steps universities should be taking?

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So I think the in the what the current political climate and just over the last few years or though, I think the DEI in general has come under a lot of backlash. That's in ways or the other, like whether different rulings against LGBTQ folks, whether it is the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling, whether it's just the general climate, I would say, where there is a lot of backlash against DEI and those sorts of activities. So I think given that backdrop, and also I would say right now, we're in this time that feels very polarizing, that feels very, and we've seen this happen, like whether it's political ideology, whether it's the current lasted with the whole Israeli-Palestine conflict and how it played out on college campuses. So there was a lot going on that was very that was political in nature, but had a very real impact on our university community and people in the university. So I think in terms of, I mean, I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but in terms of what my office and what we have done, I would say the School of Science is our focus has been very much to focus heavily on the inclusion piece, the belonging piece, the transparency and equity, those kinds of pieces of it. So rather than do some of the more the sort of things that are very specific around a particular group or race, it's more about our office or our community. How do we make sure that everyone feels included? How do we make sure that everyone feels like their voice is heard? So we MIT does this thing every two years. It's a huge thing. It's called the Quality of Life Survey. And they have, they ask all kinds of questions. It's, I think, 57 broad questions, many of which have subparts across different roles, gender, race, background, everything. So any every year, every time that they do this survey, which is every two years, like you have something like you have several thousand observations, like several thousand graphs just from that, looking at different roles intersecting with race and gender. And one of the things we're doing that our focus is, and I would encourage anyone who does anti-oppression work to also do something similar, is get be guided by the data. Like which are the populations that are saying that they're feeling isolated or they are not feeling heard? Which are the populations that are saying that they are not feeling recognized or they don't feel valued for the work that they do? Which and it could be like to give you a broad example, it might not even be anything specific to race or gender. Like one of our most, I would say, one of the things that was an eye-opener for me was that among the different roles in terms of different activity classes of positions, postdoctoral scientists reported being the most isolated, reported having highest stress levels, reported feeling not valued. And this is just a group, like it's a title, postdoctoral scientist. So this transcends something like race or gender. But the focus, what I want to get back to, is do your research in terms of who is your community, how are they feeling served, whether it's via a survey or whether it's checking in with them. And then when groups of people are saying that they're not feeling seen or heard or valued, to take some action to address that. Because I mean, we at some point we have to say, all right, there are certain things that are happening outside of our university community or outside of MIT that we have no control over. The only thing we can actually control is what's going on within our community that we have the power to address or take action for. And framing it around who's feeling seen and heard and valued or included, who's feeling like they're part of this community, those has those, I mean, those things have been what have really guided us and transparency around everything that we do.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah. I mean, to get the gauge and the pulse of the community is I think there's a lot of organizations that want to close their eyes to the discord that is is happening. And it's just not smart for the long run or even the medium term. Hayley, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been, I mean, I could talk to you for hours. This has been, there's just so many threads we could talk about. But this is one of many of Kuhili's articles. Please read it. It's much of it is still relevant today. I mean, it's only been four years and there's so much going on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Yes, and we will see you all in two weeks. Take care. Bye-bye. Thanks for joining us on Everyday Equity, Everyday Ways to Make a Change. If today's conversation inspired you, keep the momentum going. Connect with us on LinkedIn at Boundless Awareness, subscribe to our YouTube at Boundless Awareness, and explore more free resources to support your anti-oppression journey at boundlessawareness.com. Remember, progress isn't about perfection. It's about showing up every day with curiosity, compassion, and the courage to do a little better. I'm Puja Kotari, and I can't wait to keep learning and growing with you right here on Everyday Equity.