I thought I was the only one who thought this. I once read a winning NSF GRFP personal statement about their service w Boy Scouts.. when they were 12? Meanwhile, POC are the ones doing the meaningful advocacy and service work across their institutions in their present-day lives https://twitter.com/yasmmeme/status/1287088607165997056

Quoting a part of this thread: “Roughly 70% of NSF recipients are white. The NSF is NOT a diversity fellowship. The NSF is a MERIT-BASED research fellowship.” <—- THAT PART

This is a great time to mention an initiative that my peers have been working to bring to fruition at MIT - partial Graduate fellowships for students engaged in department or institute DEI work. It’s long overdue.

A lot of the prestigious fellowships that are supposed to uplift POC still do so sparingly. Our institutions must be the ones to fill this gap and MONETARILY demonstrate that our existence and activism has value.