Inspired by the ESP Call to Action: Dismantle Anti-Black Racism in EPS we adapted some of their recommendations for our organization       

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The leadership of the TVS SC, the and the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) group are responsible for ensuring full support for the activities described below, and the regular reporting of their progress to the TVS SC membership and the LSST Science Collaborations community. The leadership of TVS is responsible for ensuring that JEDI recommendations are enacted.

1. Create a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion group. [link to charge to the committee]

2. Collect, retain, and publicly release anonymized TVS demographic data.

Having statistics of the current organization demographics will help us identify areas where we need to increase diversity. It will also enforce accountability, help us measure progress, and provide transparency for prospective applicants. The leadership of the organization, in collaboration with the DEI committee to be formed, is hereby charged with creating a survey following best practices, distributing it, and collecting the results into an anonymized shareable document. The TVS should also commit to fund-raising efforts to involve specialists in the collection and analysis of these surveys. However, the lack of funds should not be an excuse not to conduct or release demographic and climate data.

3. Establish formal, structured mentoring relationships to pair senior members with new members, particularly students, and ensure that all members have the support and preparation they need to be successful.

One example by which TVS perpetuates exclusionism is by assuming knowledge upon entering the organization. This is seen by the use of acronyms, facts about the survey, software, etc. We need to establish a mentorship program that enables new members to quickly ramp up their knowledge.

4. Recruit diverse cohorts of members, especially junior members.

1. Create a recruitment and advertisement strategy focusing on the multiple Minority-serving Institutions (MSI) including Historically Black Colleges in the US and institutes with similar missions in the other countries where TVS members exist around the world..
2. Identify projects that can involve or be led by  students who have newly joined the organization to get them familiar with the current and future work of TVS. We are including a list in our roadmap of the various small projects that our organization needs done that fit this strategy.
3. Prepare a slide deck/pamphlet to advertise research opportunities within TVS. Here is a non-exhaustive list of potential STEM URM-focused conferences/organizations:    

1. The National GEM Consortium
2. Ronald E. McNair Post-baccalaureate Achievement Program
3. Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)
4. The American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)
5. National Society of Hispanic Physicists
6. National Society of Black Physicists
7. Great Minds in STEM
8. Latinas in STEM
9. Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES)
10. Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU)
11. The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program

5. Fundraise to advertise our organization at meetings of the organizations listed above. This should be a regular proposal through the enabling science grant and other funding opportunities.

6. Keep our webpage up to date and make it more accessible to all, taking into consideration the needs of differently abled members and prospective members of our organization.

7. Create a Slack channel where questions about TVS can be asked. Assign primary members to the channel to make sure that the questions are answered. #tvs-whos-in-the-what-now

8. Create a speaker’s bureau that ensures the representation of TVS at conferences and meetings is diverse.

9. Develop and collect Bystander Intervention training resources for our members

Bystander Intervention training will empower members of the TVS community to speak up when they witness acts of harassment or discrimination.

10. Enable and reward URM mentoring training for senior members.

URM students face specific challenges that all potential advisors must be made explicitly aware of prior to taking on an URM student. Examples of such training can be accessed through Movement Consulting (https://www.movebold.ly/). To encourage participation in this training from our members, upon completion of the training they should be given access to the highest tear of membership, and all members in the highest tier should be required to take this training.

11. Commit to hosting meetings only in places that are near minority serving institutes and in areas where police practices are progressive and don’t make our members and guests unsafe.

That is: committing to choose host institutes that are minority serving (e.g. HBCs) or that are close enough to minority serving institutes to be accessible to students and scholars from those institutes, and commit to fundraise to cover travel expenses to scholars from these institutes that are not in TVS. We will screen police practices using databases such as http://useofforceproject.org/#review