Background/Question/Methods Ecology as a profession was built on a biased, discriminatory, and exclusionary past. These legacy effects continue to infiltrate, perpetuate, and amplify inequities in determining research priorities and influencing who participates in knowledge production. For many of us entering and pursuing careers in ecology in present-day, the field was already whitewashed and sanitized prior to our involvement, resulting in a largely singular trajectory of thought. Whitewashing is particularly evident with contributions from Black STEM professionals either being largely ignored, buried, or stolen and repackaged without attribution. However, these unsung heroes have been crucial to the development and practice of ecology. While some names are broadly familiar like George Washington Carver, others, particularly Black women, are less so. These include Ruth Ella Moore, a bacteriologist and the first Black woman to obtain a PhD in Natural Sciences in 1933; developmental biologist Mary Reddick; marine biologist Joan Owens; and veterinarian microbiologist Jessie Isabelle Price. And Gladys West, a Black female mathematician with the U.S. Naval Proving Ground who was seminal to the creation of global positioning systems (GPS). With skewed knowledge systems, narrow categorization of excellence and pervasive nepotism, ecology is not only underperforming, but is facilitating its own destruction.
Results/Conclusions "Doing science while Black" is increasingly challenging in the 21st century amidst a global pandemic and social unrest that highlights health inequities, mass incarcerations, and state-sanctioned police brutality. And yet for far too long Black scientists have been forced to compartmentalize our professional identity from our racial identity, despite ongoing societal factors operating in concert with the advancement of ecological practice. For example, environmental governmental agencies (e.g., USDA Forest Service - 1905) and ecological professional societies (e.g., ESA -1915) were established well before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 granted important rights to Blacks in the U.S. Ultimately, by failing to actively recruit, support, elevate and retain Black ecologists, ecological institutions and departments explicitly signal who belongs and is valued within the profession. For a change to actually come, systems inherent to ecological infrastructure, community, and activities that oppressively act in concert to maintain racial disparities must be dismantled by individuals and institutions. To envision the future of our profession, we must acknowledge the biases upon which ecology was built, promote anti-racism and pluralism, and create an alternate state to induce a new trajectory with ideals grounded in principles of equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion.
