The Threat to DEI Initiatives

As someone who has built a business around increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in wildlife conservation, I would be remiss if I didn't address the Trump administration's attack on DEI. On January 21, President Trump signed an executive order entitled "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," which claims that DEI initiatives are discriminatory and violate civil rights laws. This action revokes five executive orders that were intended to combat discrimination, and it sets forth new directives intended to demolish existing DEI programs in government and the private sector. Among the most concerning of these directives is the requirement that federal grant recipients must certify that they do not operate any DEI programs that "violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws." While it is unclear exactly how a DEI program would violate anti-discrimination laws, the message seems to be that promoting DEI discriminates against individuals from majority communities. For non-profits like the Wildlife Research Alliance, as well as larger institutions like public universities, this means that we are potentially ineligible for any federal funding.

Why is this bad?

I was on a panel to review federal grant proposals this week. The panel was open to all applicants of this specific grant, and the purpose was to provide feedback on the 60+ proposals that had been submitted to assist in determining which proposals to fund. Each applicant was required to include a statement detailing how their project seeking funding would promote DEI (proposals were submitted in October 2024, well before this executive order). Some applicants had thoughtful, detailed statements including trainings their staff had taken, paid positions being offered to individuals from minority backgrounds, and free education opportunities they provide for underserved communities. Others simply copied and pasted their institution's DEI statement and put no additional effort into describing a plan for how their project would combat systemic discrimination. I couldn't help but feel that, in a white-dominated field (this particular federal grant aids marine mammal research), not all players can be relied upon to advance DEI on their own.

Here's the thing: if people could be trusted to do the right thing, DEI initiatives wouldn't be necessary. Throughout history, we have seen that people, unfortunately, cannot always be trusted to do the right thing. This is why we have things like the Civil Rights Act, on which this executive order relies to combat discrimination. However, according to this article by Dr. Russ Wigginton for the Civil Rights Museum, the Civil Rights Act was merely a stepping stone toward further anti-discrimination action. Dr. Wigginton writes:

"[The Civil Rights Act] shrouded the criminal acts of subconscious racism and emboldened race-neutral policies that resulted in racial prejudice and exclusion."

The Civil Rights Act alone is just not enough to combat institutional racism and unconscious bias. Here is a very basic example of how anti-discrimination policies still enable racism:

Two people apply for the same job. One is Black and one is white. The hiring manager is white. Both applicants are equally qualified and both interview very well, but the hiring manager just feels more comfortable with the white applicant, so that is who gets hired. The workplace has an anti-discrimination policy in place, but without a DEI initiative to combat the hiring manager's unconscious bias, the Black applicant is left without a job. This is an incredibly simplified scenario, but the point is that, given the choice, it is more likely that people from a majority will hire people from that majority, essentially ensuring that other populations do not get equitable access to the same opportunities.

The fear that DEI initiatives violate civil rights laws is based in racism and ableism. I can't find any evidence that majority communities have been harmed by these programs; on the contrary, DEI benefits everyone. Rolling back these programs mainly serves white, male, able-bodied populations, none of whom have historically experienced discrimination or underrepresentation. I can only imagine how disheartening this is for young people from populations DEI programs were designed to help as they prepare to enter the workforce. It is important to remember that systemic racism and ableism, along with generational trauma, are present throughout a person's life; by the time someone affected by one or more of these factors starts their career, they have likely experienced several instances of being devalued. Experiencing inequitable employment opportunities adds to the cumulative stress that research has shown can prematurely age people.

It is easy to get discouraged by presidential actions such as this one. I think the goal is to make it harder and harder to do the right thing so we eventually stop trying. I am so proud of the work we do here at the Wildlife Research Alliance, and I am excited to be on the right side of history. Will must keep making our voices heard and pushing for equity. There truly is no down side when we diversify the workforce, whether in science or any other field.

Why Paid Internships?

Paid internships are important to us at the Wildlife Research Alliance. So important, in fact, that it's mentioned in our mission statement. Everyone likes to get paid, but you may not realize how important paid internships are to leveling the playing field for everyone who wants a career in conservation behavior.

You'd never guess there was a manatee trapped under this tree!

As a stranding biologist, responding to live and dead stranded sea turtles, manatees, dolphins, and whales on Florida's Gulf Coast, I got to experience the highest highs (releasing a manatee that I had helped rescue after he had been entangled in a floating Christmas tree for weeks, unable to eat and nearly losing his tail), and the lowest lows (watching a sea turtle take its last breath after being struck by a boat propeller). It was rewarding and exhausting, challenging and fun.

It was also REALLY white.

The only entry point into stranding work is to intern with a stranding response or marine animal research organization, and most of those internships are unpaid. I got my start with an unpaid Rescue Team internship at Clearwater Marine Aquarium in 2017. If you're lucky, you get accepted to an internship that allows you to have a job on the side (mine didn't). If you're really unlucky, you end up having to take an internship that actually charges their interns a fee. Often, the fee includes accommodation, and sometimes food, but many organizations list things like "tuition" and transportation to and from field sites, as if free labor wasn't enough. One two-week program in Mozambique offers a dormitory or tented accommodations with a shared bathroom facility and meals for $1900. Ouch.

Yours Truly, on my way to recover a deceased sea turtle on Christmas Day 2017

The tide is beginning to shift on this issue, but we are still a long way from fair pay for all internships in the stranding and marine animal research fields. You may find yourself thinking "why do interns need to be paid if they're gaining valuable experience?" That's a great question, and I would love to tell you.

Imagine you're a Black college student in the U.S. Perhaps you're lucky enough not to be one of the 21% of Black students who feels "frequently or occasionally" discriminated against in your program, so you're not up against that every day (though there is little chance you haven't faced some form of discrimination). You're twice as likely to be a caregiver for at least one family member, which means you probably need a job. In fact, you're also twice as likely to have a full-time job while completing your bachelor's degree courses.

Figure from the Lumina Foundation

Maybe you live in Ohio, and the full-time internship you desperately want to complete is in Florida. Your current job pays you $15/hr, and you work 35 hours per week while going to school. In order to continue supporting your family, you now need to figure out how to get a job that will pay you $525 per week while enabling you to devote 40 hours to your unpaid internship, and you have to pay for travel to Florida and find a place to live. Even an internship that paid a stipend of, let's say, $2,000 for the season wouldn't be enough to make this a realistic opportunity. The reality of the internship quickly slips through your fingers, and you're left trying to figure out how to get the necessary experience in your chosen field to be competitive when you graduate while still taking care of your family.

Even if you managed to make an unpaid internship work, the road ahead may be far from easy. Hopefully you are paired with a great mentor who teaches you what you need to learn while being sensitive to your needs. But what if you end up with a mentor who has never examined their own biases, and the effects of their microaggressions leads you to seek out help from human resources? Imagine your surprise when HR informs you that unpaid interns are not employees, therefore you are not protected by workplace discrimination laws.

This is not just a hypothetical. One study found that 60% of college students who wanted an internship but did not take one cited needing to work as their primary obstacle, and 33% cited insufficient internship pay. I have personally witnessed the fallout of the workplace discrimination issue, and it was heartbreaking.

Figure from Hora, Wolfgram, & Chen, 2019

Paid internships are not the only solution necessary to the racial disparity in conservation science. There are myriad systemic issues at play that keep this and other fields out of reach for marginalized communities. It is a piece of a larger puzzle, but it is an important one. Thankfully, the movement to do away with unpaid internships is gaining momentum.

In July of 2020, a petition was sent to the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) requesting that the Society take a stance on the role of unpaid internships in perpetuating a lack of diversity in marine mammal science. While the SMM, unfortunately, has yet to make meaningful changes to their policies on this issue, many research organizations around the world signed the petition and started working toward ending unpaid internships. One exciting step forward in this fight came via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Notice of Funding Opportunity for the 2025 John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Grant. This federal grant is a staple of the marine mammal stranding community, providing over $75 million in grant funding since its inception in 2001. Each year, NOAA releases a set of priorities for the Prescott grant, encouraging applicants to apply for funding to address things like emerging diseases, critically endangered species, inter-agency collaboration, etc. For the first time, one such priority is paid internships, with the goal of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Finding funding is the biggest challenge in the fight for paid internships, so the 2025 Prescott grant presents a HUGE opportunity for a number of marine mammal rescue and research institutions!

We are a long way from true equity in wildlife conservation, but the Wildlife Research Alliance is working hard to make strides in the right direction. We aim to be a leader in this fight, and I appreciate the opportunity to tell you more about this issue!

What is conservation behavior and why does it matter?

Conservation behavior takes the study of animal behavior (which is a very broad area of study, encompassing everything from socializing and feeding to disease processes and evolution) and applies it to wildlife conservation. At its core, conservation behavior allows us to learn from animals what they need to survive at the individual, population, and species levels.

As you know, we are in a period of unprecedented climate change. Yes, the climate has changed before, but never this rapidly, and never at the hands of humans. Many of us feel that humans have a responsibility to combat climate change and try to save the earth and the animals with whom we share it. This effort is being undertaken by countless scientists from dozens of different disciplines, each contributing to the greater pool of knowledge and informing potential solutions. Some of us are lucky enough to have chosen animal behavior.

I have a master’s degree in Animal Behavior and Conservation from Hunter College, where I did my master’s thesis on training weakly electric fish.

A school of elephantnose fish (Gnathonemus petersii), the species of weakly electric fish I studied. Photo courtesy of my advisor, Dr. Peter Moller.

Yes, fish that are electric, but just weakly. In other words, they won’t zap you, but they do this really cool thing where they use self-generated electricity to sense their surroundings and communicate with each other. Fascinating! 

Here I am (left) helping transport a rescued loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta). Photo courtesy of the Anna Maria Islander.

My thesis work did not directly contribute to wildlife conservation, but it set the stage for my understanding of scientific research. After grad school, I spent five years working in marine animal stranding and rescue in Florida. I worked directly with dolphins, whales, manatees, and sea turtles; many of these species are threatened or endangered and face numerous conservation challenges.

Here are some examples of how understanding these animals’ behavior influences conservation measures:

In 2020, manatees on the east coast of Florida began dying in unprecedented numbers. Many of them were found to have starved to death, and some had inappropriate food, such as acorns, in their stomachs. The change in their feeding behavior pointed to a disastrous loss of seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon, and it told us that the manatees were not capable of adapting to such a rapid and dramatic change. Conservation efforts to address this included a feeding station where manatees were provisioned with food like lettuce, as well as addressing the bigger problem of water conditions that led to the seagrass die-off.

Sea turtle hatchlings use the light of the moon to guide them out to oceans once they emerge from their nests. Understanding this critical aspect of their behavior has saved countless members of these endangered species by way of reducing artificial light sources

(street lamps, hotel lighting, etc.) near the beach during nesting season.

These are just two examples of how animal behavior plays a vital role in conservation. Each year, hundreds of studies involving conservation behavior are conducted by scientists around the world. Like with many other scientific fields, results of these studies are published in academic journals and presented at conferences, and news outlets often highlight specific findings for the general public.

While there are plenty of animal behaviorists who don’t focus on conservation, I personally feel pulled to help the earth in every way possible, and I think those of us in conservation behavior hit the jackpot when we found a field that lets us spend our time observing animals while making meaningful contributions to their survival. Conservation behaviorists are a tenacious group of scientists who refuse to give up in the face of climate change and other conservation challenges. It is really exciting to be in a room with other scientists who are all working to make life better for various species of animals and have perpetual hope that we can make meaningful change. We are just one piece of the puzzle, but how lucky are we to get to be that piece? We are also so lucky to have you here. Yes, you! Just by reading this blog, you are supporting our work and learning valuable information that will no doubt come up at a party, meeting, or family gathering in your future. You’ll tell your Aunt Sue, or Steve from Legal, or a friend of a friend, about how sea turtles need darkness so they can follow the moon to the ocean, or how there are thousands of scientists learning how to save the world by studying animals. Maybe you have children who love animals, and you can talk to them about how we are learning what animals need so we can help them. Whatever you do with the information you’ve learned here, it makes a difference, and for that, I thank you.

Please share in the comments any questions you have or ways in which you think you might make use of what you’ve learned here today!

--Amber Lea Kincaid, Executive Director