During Bentley University’s recent Campus Dialog on Race & Inequality, I took part in an exercise designed to help people become aware of their personal biases, explicit or implicit, and their impact on others. What I took away most is that until we openly confront these biases we compound their damage by practicing a reverse sort of bias — a compensatory favoritism — that is equally and insidiously unjust. 

This is especially unfortunate on America’s college campuses. I teach Global Studies at Bentley. The students in my classes are as diverse as it gets here. Having such diversity makes for a meaningful and valuable learning environment. That’s important, particularly when we’re studying national and global political, social, and economic phenomena and events.  

But the diversity benefit can get better still if professors and students are able to parse their perceptions through a filter that acknowledges personal biases, even if that suggests an inability to alter them. Let me explain.

We all hold many implicit biases — or maybe not that implicit, but just too embarrassing to acknowledge! And of course there are the explicit prejudices. Both types certainly can steer my behavior and influence my teaching. For instance, I am always very pleased with Asian students who write well and understand what plagiarism is. I’m also happy with Hispanic students who arrive on time for class. I am glad when American students don’t use “us” when talking about the actions of the government of the United States. I plead guilty to pampering what is often the sole black student in my class, and I am more than content when Muslim students participate in discussions on news headlines that all too frequently depict their religion in an ignorant or misguided way.

I am quite aware that I tend to reward such selected students better for these efforts than students from other groups who do equally well. And I know that that is wrong, because it confirms that for each of these groups of students I have a biased opinion, rather than an open mind, and it allows that bias to affect how I appreciate the work of all my students.

This little confessional is provided to emphasize an important point. Recognizing personal biases, not in a confrontational or judgmental manner, but in an understanding and accommodating way, creates an opportunity for improvement. In the classrooms of America’s colleges and universities, frank and open discussion of ideas and concepts is simply the coin of the realm and the key to educational success. But improvement won’t happen by itself. Programs, both voluntary and mandatory, that help students and faculty to recognize and deal with both bias and compensatory behavior are essential if we are ever to truly treat each other fairly and openly.

Johannes Eijmberts teaches in the Bentley University Global Studies Department.