Day to day, Kelli English works with National Parks Service staff and leaders to oversee services for the four National Parks historic sites in the East Bay. As Chief of Interpretation for the John Muir and Eugene O’Neill National Historic Sites, Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park, and Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial, she spends much of her time at a desk dealing with budgets, staff management, and event planning. But sometimes, she gets a call to assist with public programming — a highlight, still, when she can step away from her supervisory role to engage with youth and visitors, and normalize the idea that Black people can be park rangers.
As an African American woman, English is a bit of rarity in the environmental world. In a field that continues to be majority white, she has longevity. This year she celebrates 19 years with the National Park Service. Over those 19 years, English has seen people come and go, and has seen the issue of diversity among park staff come and go. But she remains a rarity. With diversity, race and equity back in the forefront of the national conversation, it’s another chance for outdoors and conservation groups to consider why.
English says that if she were a betting person
she would put money on the idea that there is a higher rate of attrition among
people of color in environmental institutions. But there’s no data to confirm this
claim. The last comprehensive research on racial diversity in the environmental
field was six years ago, and it was national study, leaving even less of an
idea about what staff and leadership diversity looks like in the Bay Area.
Nonetheless, the 2014 Green 2.0 Working Group report is what we have, and it shows a lack of ethnic minorities in environmental institutions on a national scale. Titled The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations, it reported findings across three organizational structures: conservation and preservation organizations, government environmental agencies, and grantmaking foundations. Of the 293 institutions that took part in the study, 84 percent lacked racial diversity on their boards and among staff.
In 2018, the Annual Census of Employees in State Civil Service showed that staff diversity in the environmental and conservancy fields of state government average 61 percent white in California. The census included the Coastal Conservancy, Department of Conservation, Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many organizations to slow down operations. This pause offers an opportunity to reflect on the national conversation on race and equity and how environmental institutions can enact structural change in a field that continues to lack racial diversity. Experts who’ve studied the field say conservation leaders must address and cultivate change to the systemic structure that contributes to marginalization and exclusion of people of color. But what many have found is that it’s not just demographic surveys that are lacking – it’s any kind of information at all.
Words Matter
In 2019, a team at the Lawrence Hall of Science
and the nonprofit outdoors group Youth Outside set out to try to survey
environmental education organizations about how they were addressing — or not
addressing — equity, inclusion, and diversity. The group interviewed 51
national conservation group leaders, from a pool that’s largely white, and 26 Bay
Area-based environmental educators, all of whom identified as people of color.
The differences in perception between the two illustrate many of the problems that
still hurt the field: while many organizational leaders said diversity, equity
and inclusion were a priority, the educators interviewed suggested that many
organizations haven’t taken meaningful action to make it so.
“We recognize that many of the findings resonate
with what we know about the field, and existing research says about it,” said
Valeria Romero, research group deputy director and senior research lead at the
Lawrence Hall of Science. “We were trying to amplify the experiences of
professionals of color within outdoor science programs.”
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Laura Rodriguez, a director of programs at Youth Outside, suggested
that organizations eager to tackle the issue start at the most basic level by defining
diversity, equity, and inclusion. There, too, the report showed organizational leaders
and educators tended to have different understandings and assumptions.
“You have to tailor definitions to whatever work you’re
doing. One organization might have a different focus on what equity means than
another,” Rodriguez said. “There is no one definition or one understanding that
is right, but we have to be very clear about why what we’re talking about is
right for us.”
Many leaders saw diversity as a challenge of better
communicating goals and values to the public, from which staff equity and
inclusion would follow. Educators often saw it the other way around, suggesting
that if leadership prioritized equity and inclusion in the workplace, then
diversity would follow.
“There’s a strong desire to think about advancing equity and inclusion as strictly an external-facing policy — using the right words, having an equity statement,” Rodriguez said. “We can’t keep saying our intentions are good, I’m not a racist, therefore I’m not a part of the problem.”
“There’s a strong desire to think about advancing equity and
inclusion as strictly an external-facing policy — using the right words,
having an equity statement,” Rodriguez said. “We can’t keep saying our
intentions are good, I’m not a racist, therefore I’m not a part of the problem.”
Romero said she supports organizations creating a
paid staff position for someone to think critically about the organization and
its systems. If it’s an individual, working group, or committee, the question
of whose voices are at the table is critical.
Kelli English said the National Park
Service has an office of Relevancy, Diversity,
and Inclusion, which has helped improve conditions for staff. “It
enables the agency to hone in on this issue,” English said. “It trained NPS
staff around the country to facilitate dialogues about privilege and bias with
our colleagues.”
Workplace Environment & Retention
The Lawrence Hall/Youth Outside study also called
attention to a disconnect between where leaders and staff of color see diversity,
equity and inclusion efforts as most necessary. Leaders tended to prioritize attracting
black and brown participants to external programs, not fostering an inclusive internal
work environment. Staff reported persistent patterns of workplace racism that
made the organization’s commitment to diverse students or customers ring
hollow.
Staff members who were the only person of color or one of very few on staff said their experiences were often marginalized compared to the experiences of the dominant white culture. Survey participants also reported that when they did raise issues of micro-aggressions or racism, instead of engaging in difficult conversations, the response from colleagues was that the staff of color were “making people uncomfortable.”
The
report highlights one focus group participant who said, “I feel like my job
would have been ideal if I didn’t feel so marginalized in the space. I feel
like I have two jobs: I feel like I have to go do my job and also exist in a really
really white space… I’m the only black male on staff… I’ve been a professional
for a long time, [and then] I started working in environmental education and it
is the most racist space I’ve ever been in my life. Oh my gosh, it’s just like
so much work to be done. Racist burnout is real.”
English served as a supervisory ranger at
Yosemite National Park and community outreach specialist for the Golden Gate
National Parks Conservancy. But her path to leadership was not without what she
describes as “sad and tired stereotypes.” When she was an intern at Indiana
Dunes National Park, the park’s director of education questioned, in disbelief,
whether she had indeed graduated from Harvard. Later, a colleague at Yosemite
National Park implied that she had not earned her supervisor position.
“I think the idea of a hostile work environment has extended far beyond gender discrimination issues. It is extended to employees of color feeling like they [are] in an unwelcoming work environment.”
“I think the idea of a hostile work environment
has extended far beyond gender discrimination issues,” English said. “It is
extended to employees of color feeling like they [are] in an unwelcoming work
environment.”
Rodriguez said that the constant barrage of small racist
assumptions, like the kind experienced by English, leaves staff of color deeply
affected while white staff don’t notice what seem like small incidents that the
staff could just brush aside. “Micro-aggressions are often veiled, but their impact
on a person is not subtle,” she said.
To counter overt or veiled hostility, and build an inclusive work culture, organizational leaders need to build trust with their staff members of color and a system of feedback loops, Rodriguez said. “Leadership has the responsibility to think about what it means to create space for voices of individuals of color, especially when the organization may be predominantly white,” she said. “It takes courage to hear people give us feedback and not put up our defenses, and say, ‘This person is being problematic,’ instead of embracing the feedback.”
Recruitment
Dee Rosario, a member of the East Bay Regional
Park District Board and 37-year veteran of the Park District, recently reminded
fellow board members that in 1972, the union representing park staff and a
coalition of women’s group sued the District to force it to hire more women and
minorities. Rosario, who is Filipino-American, was part of the subsequent affirmative
action policy.
As a student at the then Cal State Hayward (now
Cal State East Bay), Rosario had applied for a student teaching credential
program. Then he learned one requirement was attending classes day and night.
“I couldn’t do that — I was head of household, taking care of my brother and
two sisters,” Rosario said. “I freaked out, dropped out my last quarter, and
got a summer job with the Park District.”
Rosario possessed rudimentary carpentry skills
and experience gardening for his neighbors. Not a broad skillset for a park
ranger. But, he added, “everybody that came into the Park District in the early
’70s, ’80s, was taught on the job. It’s almost impossible to do that now.”
While the Lawrence Hall / Youth Outside study
highlighted the importance of improving existing workplace conditions for staff
of color who are already in the field, there is still a recruitment challenge. In
2019 the Lawrence Hall team partnered with Crissy Field Center for a second
study focused specifically on hiring. One of the study’s major takeaways was that
organizations should recognize a wide range of experiences and identities that offer
value to the workforce but may not align with traditional ideas of
professionalism or academic qualifications.
“How do we think about expertise and skills?”
Romero said. “How important is it for someone who comes into an organization
with science expertise, versus someone who comes from and has experience
engaging community?”
For many people who might be ideal park rangers or
conservation staff, the expense of the traditional college route can be
prohibitive. A college degree requirement leaves out people like Rosario, who
has now spent nearly 50 years with the East Bay Regional Park District. “Education
can count, but so can experience,” English said. “I think it’s a mistake to discount
either. As a hiring official, I value both.”
Stagnation & Regional Data
Rosario joined the East Bay Regional Park District in the
1970s and stayed and grew into various roles over the years, and now as a board
member wants to make sure the same opportunities continue. It’s often hard to establish
diversity numbers at a local level, but a Workforce Diversity Committee of the East
Bay Regional Park District, which publishes its statistics annually, suggests that
the percentage of self-identified minorities among District staff was 34
percent in 2019. Only 11 percent of self-identified minorities received a
promotion in 2019, compared to 32 percent in 2018, but promotion statistics reflect
promotions to better-paying jobs, not into positions of leadership.
“I made sure I was on the Workforce Diversity Committee,” Rosario
said of joining the East Bay Regional Park District Board. “I wanted to take on
the fact that diversity in the Park District had decreased. Right now, there is
one person of color in upper management.”
The District set a goal for 2020 to extend professional
development opportunities to staff to increase understanding of diversity, equity,
and inclusion. The District’s mid-year budget includes proposed general fund
appropriations to continue training.
Other Bay Area park districts and land managers have made similar efforts. The San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission announced in September 2018 that it would establish an internal Diversity and Inclusion Committee on Equity. The committee hosts workshops and reviews policies to work towards a more fair and inclusive workforce for SF Rec and Park staff.
“You can diversify your staff, but if you are not disrupting practices, policies, and systems that disproportionately push out people of color, you’re perpetuating the marginalization of people of color.”
In July, the Peninsula Open Space Trust, one of the
wealthiest regional land trusts in the country, made a public
commitment on its blog to continue to discover blind spots around
diversity, equity, and inclusion. POST has been a majority-white organization
since its founding in 1977. The Trust listed an organizational action plan that
includes the help of outside experts.
Romero says such efforts are a critical first
step, but that agencies and districts also need to really listen, and think
about organizational change. “When we think about equity and inclusion within
the field, we have to center staff of color and what their experiences are,” she
said. “You can diversify your staff, but if you are not disrupting practices,
policies, and systems that disproportionately push out people of color, you’re
perpetuating the marginalization of people of color.”
As organizations reconsider the ways they recruit and retain staff, a new program at Merritt College offers training in the specific skills for students to get jobs in conservation and park fields outside the traditional academic pathway. “I was always told if I wanted to study biology and environmental science, and have a career, [I] had to become an academic, go all the way through to a Ph.D.,” said Brad Balukjian, the founder and director of Merritt College’s Natural History and Sustainability Program. “I saw an opportunity to create a program that could fill the Bay Area environmental sector’s job needs in many different ways. We should recast or rethink training and education to provide options for people to work in nature and for the environment.”
In
2019, Merritt’s
program included a total of 194 students. Fifty-one percent identified as other
than white, and 65 percent didn’t possess a bachelor’s degree. In
January, the public community college in Oakland received state approval to
award Certificates of Achievement for students who complete coursework in three
tracks: Natural History and Resources, Conservation and Resource
Management, and Urban Agroecology. The program has been closely involved
with the East Bay Regional Park District, city of Oakland parks, and California
State Parks, and includes representatives from each of those groups on an
advisory board.
[Disclosure note: Bay
Nature is on the advisory board for this program.]
Balukjian
said he’s encouraged by partnerships with nonprofits and government agencies
that see the program as a training ground for the next generation of
employees. “Over the long term,” he says, “we hope to create a pool of people who
will end up in leadership positions.”
But as both the lack of data and the Lawrence
Hall / Youth Outside report show, the pipeline isn’t the only, or even the
most significant problem.
“I think now is a good time for [organizations] to revisit
their strategies and stated commitment, and think about the greater national
social conversation we’re having about anti-racism,” Rodriguez said. “Structurally,
everything has to be looked at: hiring and retention polices, feedback systems,
professional development and training. Now is a good time to hold up a mirror.”
