Table 2 PTBi anti-racism case study domains, topics, and illustrative quotes

Trainings and competencies

Trainings

It could be re-traumatizing sometimes going through those things, and I don’t know that necessarily the White colleagues understand that to the same kind of depth or level. [POC]

Competencies

[White colleagues are] all for [anti-racism] in the moment of the racial equity training, but it maybe doesn’t come to fruition in practice when dealing with staff or community or other colleagues. [POC]

Organizational commitment

Leadership

We have to be willing to turn the mirror on ourselves and say, “Well, where is it that we are participating in White supremacist structures?” [POC]

Strategy and committed resources

Things just aren’t transparent all the time. They’re getting better, but in terms of the budget, the staff was kind of not aware of how much different teams are spending… I think, sometimes there’s an assumption that the staff knows what’s going on. [POC]

Inclusive environment

I am figuring out where I fit in terms of anti-Blackness as someone who is racially ambiguous, and how people treat me because of that. And figuring out when I should speak up on behalf of some of the Black people or help them elevate their voices or am I going to take a step back. [POC]

Practices

Recruitment and hiring

The staff was really disappointed [about PTBi’s search for Black faculty]. Because it was like, “We’re looking for someone,” and then we never hired anyone, and the staff never really got an update about that at all… So, people were like, “Are we still committed to [hiring Black faculty]?” [POC]

Professional development

It would be nice to have time to really think about, “What do I want to do next and how can PTBi help with that?” Whether that’s doing some trainings or whatever… Figuring out [university] pathways or in other places. [POC]

Integrating racial equity strategies

[PTBi] does a great job at calling things out such as racism and needs more work to operationalize how the initiative will be focusing on aligning current research projects and goals, and allocation of resources to align with its new mission. [POC]

External partnerships and communications

External communications

[We need to] articulate why we are focusing on anti-Blackness and not other forms of anti-racism. I agree with this approach, but I do not believe that it has been strongly articulated. [POC]

Partnerships

We looked at what percentage of our funds go towards community partnership [efforts], and it was 5%, which really doesn’t sound very good. [PWP]