When faced with questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion, detractors often respond with demands for evidence or complaints about cost.
Husbands Chad Topaz and Jude Higdon spend their time trying to find answers to those questions — on top of their other jobs as math professor, university administrator, and parents to a son and two dogs.
It started when Topaz, a mathematician, found himself as one of the only people in justice spaces able to quantify some of the issues facing marginalized communities. When community members pointed out that all the artists in the new wing of a local museum were white, Topaz then researched the diversity of artists at major museums. The study found that in 18 major U.S. museums, artists are 85% white and 87% male. On top of that research, Topaz determined more diversity existed in regions, time periods, and even museum permanent collections than was being displayed. “You’re taking a bad problem and making it worse through your curatorial decisions and practice,” says Topaz.
As it turned out, it also meant that Topaz was sometimes one of a few mathematicians with a concern for justice. When a colleague pointed out that there was only one woman on a 50-person mathematics editorial board—one of the highest professional achievements for an academic—Topaz set out to figure out if that was the exception or the trend. He looked at 435 journals, and it was indeed the trend.
These experiences were transformative. “My activism and sense of justice and my quantitative skills could be brought together,” said Topaz.
But finding projects was another story. Higdon, the administrator who Topaz praises as an “organizational genius,” was able to channel some of Topaz’s math-justice energy into collaborations with community partners. “I’m not afraid of tech nerds [and] mathematicians,” said Higdon, looking affectionately at his husband, “I know how to speak their language enough, but I also know how to build an organization and how to connect that work with other folks.”
So, following the success of early projects, the two co-founded the non-profit research institute QSIDE in 2017, which “uses data science to promote justice.” Citing Ida B. Wells’s famous quote, “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them,” Topaz says they believe that “data science can be a potent form of that light of truth.”
“My activism and sense of justice and my quantitative skills could be brought together.”
Chad Topaz
Since then, the team—which has grown beyond Higdon and Topaz—has published more than 15 peer-reviewed research articles, in addition to writing white papers and creating data tools.
One of their biggest projects bucks up against some of the biggest arguments against any work concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion: that it’s too expensive. At least in one case, they have the numbers to prove otherwise.
QSIDE works with community partners who make programs to lower incarceration rates. People of color are more likely to be incarcerated. Community partners make programs for youth to “disrupt these cycles of incarceration and poverty,” says Higdon.
Regardless of how effective the programs are, state governments often opt not to fund them because of their cost. That cost analysis fails to acknowledge broader economic benefits from the programs—and losses from incarceration.
“We’ve built this econometric model that models out what’s the true cost of incarceration versus the cost of a program that can be used by community-based organizations,” says Higdon.
Topaz is also the author of a forthcoming book on the intersection of data and criminal justice, titled Counting on Justice. It explores the numbers behind inequality in the U.S. criminal justice system.
In the recent weeks, Higdon, Topaz, and QSIDE have been hit by the wave of anti-science and anti-DEI actions washing over the nation.
Higdon said that QSIDE lost a major corporate funder out of the blue, despite being assured they were set for renewal two days prior. “Is this because we have DEI in our name?” Higdon asked the grant manager, “and he kind of hemmed and hawed about it,” before saying no, but Higdon was not convinced.
Topaz, a career academic, has been watching the cuts to scientific agencies with horror. As a member of an advisory subcommittee at the National Science Foundation, Topaz had a mechanism to lodge an official complaint against the cuts, but the rest of the group balked, citing unspecific rules. When the group didn’t budge, Topaz publicly resigned.
“The director of the NSF is complying with illegal executive orders and not complying with stays that judges have put on those illegal actions,” Topaz said, “It seems to me like now is exactly the time we should be speaking out about these cuts.”
Topaz said the idea that any of these actions will promote better science or a meritocracy is a lie. “[It] is essentially segregation and keeping a vast pool of talent away from opportunities so that those opportunities can belong to white men. I won’t even use the word meritocracy to describe what they’re doing because that is a lie.”
With the widespread cuts to science funding, especially science concerned with DEI, the team is dedicated to doing the work. “We can weather this storm in a way that organizations that have a bigger infrastructure are not,” Higdon said. “We can stick to our principles despite the headwinds that we’re facing right now.”
At every point in the interview, Topaz and Higdon emphasized that while they are excited about the power of math and data, they don’t view their contributions as more important than others. Each project has partners from “boots on the ground, community members or community-based organizations that can represent the voices of affected people,” alongside any other subject-matter experts they may need.
“We don’t think our technical skills are better in any way,” said Higdon. “They have superpowers. We have superpowers. Together, we have a Justice League.”
This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.