Racism – unconscious bias – implicit bias – critical race theory – anti-racism – anti-anti-racism. Everyone has something to say about these terms and where they belong in our culture. Implicit bias has become the most recent idea to suffer the consequences of a polarized political environment. The battle over implicit bias—what is it? who has it? what should we do about it?—has now infiltrated the nation’s public school system.
What is Implicit Bias?
Two psychologists, Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, developed the theory of implicit bias 25 years ago. They conducted a simple experiment in which Dr. Banaji quickly sorted positive and negative words and faces of Black and white people using two keys on her keyboard. She found that when Black faces were paired with the same key as negative words and white faces paired with positive words, it was easy to sort them quickly. However, when they switched the pairing, sorting Black faces together with positive words and white faces with negative words, the task was not as simple. This was how they discovered that our decisions are guided by unknown forces.
This experiment became the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures the strength of associations between concepts, like race or gender, and evaluations or stereotypes. The IAT debuted in 1998, and millions of people have since taken the test, inspiring a wealth of further research on implicit bias. Now scientists understand that most of our brain processing happens unconsciously. Therefore, the part of our brains responsible for this processing must work automatically and quickly, and it makes many implicit associations to do that. Thus, implicit bias is the result of a critical part of our brain functioning, and nobody is immune to it.
Politicizing the Issue
In the past 5–10 years, this research has shaped public discourse about race and discrimination. Hillary Clinton brought the issue to the forefront of the 2016 presidential race, arguing that “implicit bias is a problem for everyone.” This led to swift political backlash where the accusation of bias was equated with an accusation of racism.
Despite proponents’ attempts to depersonalize the issue by stressing that everyone has bias, and therefore no one is blameworthy, opponents have largely succeeded in conflating understandings of explicit racism with implicit bias, triggering the defensiveness of many white Americans.
Fast forward to 2020, when, in the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other Black Americans by police officers, and during a global pandemic that disproportionately affected people of color and those in poverty, the United States experienced an unprecedented reckoning with centuries of systemic racism and inequality. As a result, the discussion resurged about the need for anti-discriminatory policies in workplaces and educational institutions, ones that break down systemic racism and implicit bias, not just overt discrimination. Again, the backlash was quick, decrying the liberal agenda that invents harm where it doesn’t exist. The current battle over this issue is playing out in the public school system.
Implicit Bias in Education
Implicit bias exists everywhere, and K–12 education is no exception. It is most prevalent in school discipline, with students of color, especially Black students, and students with disabilities being disciplined more frequently and harshly than their white peers. Black students account for 15.5% of all public school students, but they represent 39% of school suspensions and 36% of expulsions. These disparities only worsen at the intersections of race, gender, and disability. This overrepresentation is not due to higher rates of misbehavior by Black students but is the result of structural and systemic issues, like implicit bias. A 2016 Yale study found evidence of this bias against students as young as preschool when, by using eye-tracking technology, researchers found that preschool teachers show a tendency to more closely observe Black students, especially boys. Racial bias is also evident in the fact that students of color are more likely to be disciplined for subjective offenses like “disrespect” or “excessive noise,” while white students are more likely to be disciplined for objective offenses like smoking or vandalism. The expectation that Black boys will exhibit more challenging behaviors leads teachers to monitor and stress control over their behavior far more than white students. Teachers are as susceptible to bias as anyone else.
In 2016 and 2017, as the idea of implicit bias came to the forefront of public discussions, articles provided guidance to educators on how to combat their own biases and dismantle systemic inequality. In 2020 and 2021, the calls to require implicit bias training for educators have increased and, once again, so has the conservative backlash. The counterattack began with Donald Trump’s charges that schools were spreading lies to children by teaching about slavery and racism. Capitalizing on this momentum, recent attacks by Republican-controlled state legislatures against teaching critical race theory (CRT) in schools present an additional challenge.
Twelve states have enacted bans against teaching CRT and other “divisive concepts.” Most recently, the Wisconsin State Assembly passed a bill that would prohibit schools from teaching students and training employees on topics related to critical race theory, including systemic racism and implicit bias. This bill and others like it not only prevent educating students on racism, but also prevent schools from educating teachers on their own biases.
Illinois has been no exception to the political conflict. In February, Illinois adopted “culturally responsive teaching and leading standards,” which require teacher training programs to cover concepts like implicit bias, historical inequities, social-emotional development, and student advocacy. Prior to its adoption, conservative media outlets criticized the standards as “woke indoctrination” and “more like racism than its opposite.” These arguments rely on the idea that critical race theory and implicit bias training teach educators and students to see race where they wouldn’t have before and promote reverse discrimination. This ignores the well-documented disparities between students of color and white students, in discipline but also in test scores, advanced class placement, and almost every other aspect of education. By centering the fragility of white educators, parents, and children rather than the outcomes of all students, these critics increase the risk that disparities will only get worse.
Moving Past Politics
It is essential to move beyond the politicization of this topic to see how it can fundamentally change the school environment. Studies show that when students witness their classmates face serious discipline for trivial offenses, it affects academic performance and creates an atmosphere of anxiety. Exclusionary discipline also costs districts across the country $35 bill annually. Training will not only save money, but more importantly, it works. One study of 2,000 middle schools showed that a 45-minute workshop paired with one 25-minute online module on “empathetic discipline” was enough to cut suspension rates in half. Note that this training doesn’t tell teachers not to discipline students when they misbehave, but it teaches them to do so with empathy, searching for the underlying cause of the behavior and addressing that instead of the child’s identity. This not only alters teachers’ actions but students’ as well. The same study found that intervening with just one of a student’s teachers affected their interactions with every other teacher as well.
As with many others before it, the term “implicit bias” has transformed into a political tool, a scare tactic used to label administrators as woke leftists prepared to leave their white students behind. In reality, implicit bias training consists of programs like the one described above that train educators to make small changes in the way they approach all of their students. It consists of simple tools that offer to transform the school community. It benefits everyone.
And so it is up to every member of the school community to reshape the narrative around this issue. That may mean that the administration labels the training something else, such as “empathetic discipline training”. Or a group of parents shows support at a school board meeting. Or a teacher implements strategies in their own classroom and shares what they’ve noticed with their colleagues. Depoliticizing and changing the narrative around implicit bias training is on all of us.
Claire Bufalino is a law student at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and wrote this blog post as part of the Education Law Practicum.
