Got a great student, junior scholar, or former employee who is a person of color (POC)? Planning to write them a super letter of reference? That’s great. Remember that letters of reference can make or break a candidate’s application for academic and other jobs, fellowships, awards, and more. If you want to give them the best possible recommendation, you should stop and make sure you don’t fall into common traps rooted in unconscious bias.
When we, two scholars of color, recently reviewed applications for academic positions, the differences between the letters of reference written for white scholars (or those with western European or “American” names) versus scholars from minoritized communities became abundantly clear.
In each of our “aha!” moments, we were reading a letter from a white academic describing an immigrant or POC from a community that is underrepresented in our field. Often, the letter was an overall positive recommendation that described a candidate’s above-and-beyond performance over the years, but every statement was couched in language that “other”-ed them.
Sometimes writers emphasized a candidate as someone “not from here,” or compared them to people from their region. Others expressed surprise about a candidate’s good work ethic, creativity, and productivity for someone from their “background.” These were all formal letters on university letterhead—submitted in support of the candidates’ applications to join a research group or university department—and not isolated incidents.
While it was clear the letter writers meant to praise the candidates and were supportive of their success, stereotypes and biases were rampant. The statements we encountered were problematic and disturbing. They conveyed surprise that people who are not American or white were excellent at their jobs or that they produced top quality work and even performed better than their peers. As minoritized scholars ourselves, we were mortified to read that mentors expected so little from people who shared our backgrounds and that they couldn’t help but express how unique they thought it was that these scholars met and surpassed their standards.
At one point, Asmeret reached out to a group of POC academics on Facebook to express frustration and seek feedback (keeping the identities of the applicant and reference anonymous, of course). During the discussion, it dawned on us that racial bias in letters of reference for non-white candidates is pervasive throughout disciplines and career stages.
Both of us knew about the guide for avoiding gender bias in recommendation letters from the University of Arizona’s Commission on the Status of Women (UACSW)—which is based on research that not only found differences between letters written for men and women, but also identified the negative impact of this gender bias in letters on women’s chances of being hired. So we thought a similar guide would be helpful for well-intentioned letter writers who want to avoid racial bias.
We developed these guidelines as part of an attempt to shine some light on the pervasive nature of racial bias and to help improve racial diversity in academic institutions, where we have both chosen to make our careers. However, most if not all of these tips apply to anyone writing a recommendation letter for a POC candidate in any field.
