We need conferences which truly value papers which apply an understanding of intersectional oppression in their work. By “value” I mean that submissions are judged for cultural competency, for their critical awareness of racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism, classism, casteism, capitalism, and colonialism, and how these impact engineered, automated, and educational systems. I want conferences in which submissions that have a pattern of disfavoring citations to authors in marginalized groups are not accepted. This call goes beyond the words “fairness” or “diversity” or “broadening participation”. I want more than an ethics statement or checklist, which sets a minimum ethical bar for papers. Instead I want to see papers in the field that best contribute "to the people" and to "studying up" accepted. I want to read papers good at "recognizing and rectifying structural inequality". Even if social justice words and goals are used to advertise a conference, current ideals of “merit” and “technical depth” in CS and engineering broadly discount actual expertise and experience with, and ability to accurately represent, subjects related to social justice. Ironically then, researchers more capable of directing high quality and effective research, education, and advocacy with anti-oppression as a goal, are less able to publish and present their work.
Standard CS & engineering conferences employ a kind of gatekeeping, enforced during review, to preserve the status quo. Many of us have seen this in our paper reviews. The best case is when reviewers outright reject a submission for discussing “racial problems” (shout out to reviewer #1!) – at least we know the real reason. Other reviewers hide their distaste for submissions related to oppression and criticize instead some made up concerns – sometimes they inadvertently leave evidence, a “Hook” if you will. Relatedly, Dr. Nicki Washington shouldn’t have been denigrated for suggesting a K-12 educator for a panel on identity-inclusive K-16 CS education! In general, our field artificially defines “technical” to preserve the discriminatory ideas of “merit” (as Dr. Timnit Gebru describes during an interview for the Radical AI Podcast) created by and for the benefit of the dominant group. Instead, I want a conference that allows us to see what happens, as Audre Lorde asks, “if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves from the manner of saying.”
How should we do this? I suggest we start with the review process. A conference should use reviewers with technical depth in historical and present-day systemic oppression, in white supremacy, neocolonialism, critical disability studies, intersectionality, and others. Such reviewers exist in engineering, CS, and many other fields. A person does not need expertise in all critical fields or topics, but must have some demonstrated ability to apply ideas from one critical field, to be allowed to be a reviewer. These reviewers should critically evaluate each submission on how it shifts power; papers which the reviewers conclude preserve the status quo and insufficiently address issues of oppression, both in the field and broadly in society, will receive a low rating. Reviews have always engaged in criticism based on what the contribution of the paper is; here I’m simply saying that a paper’s contribution is also along multiple axes of power and oppression, and how it shifts power among readers, users, and society, is something that should also be evaluated.
This is not a call for a single new conference; nor is it a call to abolish any existing conference. I believe there should be a range of conferences across STEM subfields which actively value critical perspectives, rather than the current state-of-the-art, conferences which enforce white supremacy, broadly speaking.
I’m looking for your feedback and ideas. But please don’t comment to tell me that this idea is “reverse racism” or “reverse sexism”. If you don’t understand that oppression requires both bias and power, you should not be submitting to a conference of the type being proposed. And that’s not because of your identity, it’s because you don’t have the required technical depth.
