Oceanography | Vol. 38, No. 2
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retired/emeritus stages, respectively. Heterosexual white women
show a largely normal distribution over the career stages, with
the mid-career stage covering the largest period of an individ
ual’s career. As OSM24 collected aggregated data that did not
distinguish early, mid, and late career, it is difficult to compare
these distributions with the overall distribution of career stages
at OSM24. Therefore, assessing whether these distributions indi
cate personal perceptions within each group as to when BAJEDI
work is most “valuable” professionally is outside the scope of
this study. While the increased representation of minoritized
individuals at the graduate and early-career stages is encour
aging, a longitudinal analysis between 2007 and 2021 examin
ing 55 ocean sciences graduate programs in the United States
showed that while the recruitment of minoritized individuals
into graduate programs has increased substantially, the gradu
ation rate for this group has not concurrently increased (Lewis
et al., 2023). Structural equity, which refers to the intentional
design of institutional policies to minimize systemic bias and
incentivize equity work, is necessary to remove existing barri
ers to the long-term retention of historically minoritized groups
in ocean sciences. Specific examples of structural equity include
funding first-year graduate fellowships accessible specifically
to minoritized groups (as is common for first-year fellowships
for women), requiring anti-bias training for advising faculty,
considering faculty contributions to BAJEDI initiatives during
tenure and promotion review, and funding equity-focused fac
ulty chairs that offer salary support for BAJEDI work. While
the demographic composition of career stages offers interest
ing trends, it is important to note that these results represent a
limited sample and cannot be compared to the overall OSM24
attendee demographics, as information connecting conference
attendee gender to career stage is not available.
Survey results show that many individuals, particularly those
in minoritized communities and heterosexual white women,
continue to experience marginalization within ocean sci
ences (Figure 2b,c). On average, minoritized individuals and
heterosexual white women personally experienced bias, dis
crimination, or bullying in the past two years at rates that
were statistically higher than those experienced by hetero
sexual white men (48%, 58%, and 0%, respectively, Figure 2c;
ANOVA F(2, 90) = 3.09, p ≪ 0.05). Similar results were seen when
participants were asked if they had personally witnessed bias, dis
crimination, or bullying: minoritized individuals and heterosex
ual white women were significantly more likely to respond in the
affirmative (69% and 84%, respectively), compared to only 15%
of heterosexual white men (Figure 2b; ANOVA F(2, 90) = 3.09,
p ≪ 0.05). Minoritized individuals and women reported statisti
cally similar levels of both experiencing and witnessing bias and
discrimination (Welch’s t-test, p > 0.05 in both cases). In gen
eral, prior studies have shown that minoritized individuals and
FIGURE 2. Career stage distri
bution (a) and responses from
questions 1 (b) and 2 (c) of sur
vey respondents broken down
into broad demographic cat
egories. Minoritized individ
uals and heterosexual, white
women both personally wit
nessed (b) and personally
experienced (c) similar levels
of bias discrimination, or bully
ing, and these rates were sta
tistically greater than those
witnessed or experienced by
heterosexual white men.