Good afternoon or good morning if you're here with me on the West Coast. We are thrilled to be presenting a timely panel entitled Implicit Bias Training. Does it help combat racism or is it racist? Sponsored by the ABA section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, this panel is one of many in a series of rapid response webinars. We are actively planning additional programming on a variety of issues.
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Our panelists today are the Honorable Bernice Bowie Donald, who is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where she has served since 2011. She is a frequent lecturer and writer on implicit bias and is a contributing author to the book Enhancing Justice, Reducing Bias. Ted Small.
is a lawyer and diversity equity and inclusion DEI facilitator and leader nationally recognized for originating university and community-based programs to facilitate candid discussions about law and the intersectionality of race diverse identities and poverty. He is the recipient of numerous community service and leadership awards including the NAACP West Volusia Branch Difference Maker of the Year Award, and the ABA Presidential Citation for Exemplary Leadership in Enhancing Pro Bono Legal Services and Improving the Legal Profession. Sarah Redfield is a Professor Emerita at the University of New Hampshire School of Law.
She is a nationally respected author, presenter, and trainer on DEI, on implicit bias, and on strategies to interrupt that bias. and reduce the negative consequences of its manifestations in legal, medical, education, and workplace environments. Mark Shipman has been practicing employment law for over 40 years, providing advice and appearing before agencies as well as trial and appellate courts. He is a nationally recognized speaker and trainer and edits the California Employment Law Letter.
Among many ABA leadership positions, Mark was a member of the ABA Board of Governors and Executive Committee and a past chair of the Civil Rights and Social Justice Section, the Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence, and the Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service. I am Beth Wittenberg, your moderator today. I am the principal and founder of Beth K. Wittenberg & Associates, through which I provide sexual harassment, and discrimination prevention training as well as implicit bias training.
I'm also the chair-elect of the ABA section of Civil Rights and Social Justice, the section bringing you this webinar today. And with those introductions, we are thrilled to bring you today's program entitled again, Implicit Bias Training. Does it help combat racism or is it racist? By way of background, On September 22, 2020, Donald Trump issued an executive order which states, it shall be the policy of the United States not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the federal workforce or in the uniformed services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes.
In addition, federal contractors will not be permitted to inculcate such views in their employees. The executive order further defines race and sex scapegoating as assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex. It similarly encompasses any claim that consciously or unconsciously and by virtue of his or her race or sex, members of any race are inherently racist.
or inherently inclined to oppress others, or that members of a sex are inherently sexist or inclined to oppress others. During the first presidential debate, Donald Trump indicated that implicit bias training was inherently racist, calling it sick and insane. He stated, I ended it because it's racist. Sarah, let's start with you as the academic of the group here today. Does implicit bias exist?
If so, how do we know that? And does acknowledging the existence of implicit bias make someone a racist? So thanks, Beth.
It's always great to be on some program with you, so I appreciate it. And though I will say it's difficult to be on a program that starts with such a statement, which I so completely disagree. But let me answer the question as you put it.
I always like to start with a quotation from a psychologist, Keith Payne, who wrote in the Scientific American Now in 2018, a few years ago, that... Amidst a controversy, it's important to remember that implicit bias is real and it matters. So he was summing up then the science at the time and the science since then has not really changed very much.
So I'd like to go on and answer the rest of your question, but I'm going to share my screen here if I can so I can talk less. Hang on. So are you seeing, are you all seeing my slides? Yes. So I thought it would be good to just start with a quick definition because I'm not sure who all is on the call or where they're coming from, but it's really pretty simple to distinguish implicit from explicit.
Implicit is what we've learned and absorbed from the world around us. We respond without knowing we're doing it. Explicit is an opinion we deliberately generate.
And so I think if we keep those differences in mind, the answer to whether this is racist or not becomes pretty clear. The other thing I want to point out from the science is this, that the identifying feature of implicit bias is that it is introspectively not known to us. We don't know it.
And here, if you don't take anything else away from this little piece, take this away, that people may possess associations, which we... with which they actively and honestly disagree. So that is to say that while I may explicitly, continuously, always articulate a position, which is, let's just say, non-sexist, I may implicitly have a response which would show a bias towards men over women as leaders, for example. So The fact that we can honestly possess two different responses in our brains at the same time as the critical piece, because once we understand that, we can try to interrupt it.
So I want to answer your question next about, well, how do we know implicit bias is real? I put it this way. There are two ways we know. One is that there are manifestations of bias and discrimination and disproportionality in our society that just cannot be.
fully explain any other way. That is to say, if we are people acting in good faith, making our decision, how can we explain the huge disproportionalities we see? These manifestations are everywhere.
Our colleague Mark Bennett, when Judge Bennett went asked what aspects of our justice system showed implicit bias, our civil and criminal justice system, he said, oh, well, everything and everybody. And I think that's an accurate descriptor of the way implicit bias seeps into our work. I want to particularly show you this illustration about how we know the manifestation exists.
So this is data from the Department of Education on young children being expelled from school or suspended from school. So young Black children are 18% of the school population and 42 to 48% of those who are suspended or expelled. So what does that tell us? I personally, and I don't think most of us believe that their teachers are all racist. I do not think that there's no reason to think that.
But we have this huge disproportionality that needs to be otherwise explained. And so what the experts tell us is part of that explanation is implicit, unconscious bias on the part of the people who are making those decisions. So this manifestation data is one way we know it exists. And the other way is we developed a way to measure. So it used to be, Beth, if I wanted to know if you were biased, I'd have to ask you.
And then you would have to tell me. And you might answer honestly, you might. But you might answer as honestly as you knew. Or you might not, because after all, you're a lawyer and you've been told by your lawyers what to say, right? So after all those years of just asking people they're biased and having to rely on their opinions, Tony Greenwald and his colleague Mazra Banaji at University of Washington and Harvard brought to the board this test.
called the implicit association test. It's the leading way we measure implicit bias. It's not the only test.
But for anyone who's in the audience who hasn't done one of these tests, I really urge you to go and try it and learn something about your own implicit responses. So that's the background about how we know implicit bias is real and how it exists. And I think there was one other part of your question. which was, and so does learning about all of this make us racist?
And the answer to that is no, I guess I'd have to say it was a resounding no. And those who look at a piss at bias training and say it's making us racist, I think are talking about something called a rebounding effect. So if I tell you all, do not think about pink elephants, think only about purple elephants, you will have a really hard time thinking only about purple elephants and rejecting the idea of pink elephants. So if I tell you all, don't think about race, don't think about these attributes, you're going to have a hard time. Don't think about bias, don't be biased, you're going to have a hard time, just like the pink elephant.
But that is not what good implicit bias training is about. Good implicit bias training avoids that rebounding effect. And it also avoids labeling anyone as any kind of an ist, as it should, because remember back to the definitions.
It's implicit. It's not what you really intend. We should not be blaming you for it.
We're all human. We all have implicit bias. If you labeled me, if you called me a racist right now, I would be very disturbed by that.
I would not appreciate that label or any other is. I would not appreciate that label. And I would say I did not deserve it.
So that's a wrong place. There is no blame here. It's that we are human. We have these biases. We know they exist now.
then we can respond to them. So I look forward to later in the conversation talking about how we're going to respond. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Sarah. And thank you for making the point that this is not about laying blame on anyone, right? That we are really talking about something that we all have. And if we become more conscious of it, then we are less likely to put it into practice or put it into action, which most of us don't want to do.
So I appreciate you making that. point. Ted, parts of the executive order speak in terms of sensitivity training. Is there any difference between racial sensitivity training and implicit bias training?
And also, can you define your methods of training and how training would differ from facilitating? Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair-Elect.
Beth, thank you so much for the kind introduction and good to be with all of the panelists. And welcome to the audience that I know at least includes, you know, some family members from South Florida. So just welcome aboard.
I am glad that Professor Redfield, you know, started the way she did. And I'm going to do what I think we do well in the ABA is to, you know, challenge each other and take some different points of view. So. You know, I think there, I'll answer the question, the last question first, because I think that's easiest for me. I do mostly facilitated sessions with willing participants who, you know, want to come around the table and talk about an agreed upon issue.
So, you know, very recently, you know, I was engaged. to bring together a group of leaders within a nonprofit. And there's a lot of discussion about what material we'll read.
I'm proposing White Fragility, which is a New York Times bestseller, as a way to kind of engage that discussion about looking at the work of that organization through a race equity lens. Others in the group are talking about, let's use the newest book, Cast, you know, as a, you know, different. piece of literature, but the facilitation will ultimately depend on everybody coming around the table with an agreed upon kind of framing question and a willingness to participate. A training, by contrast, is something where, you know, generally one person or a couple of people standing in front of the room. you know, and they are effectively lecturing and, you know, asking for Q&A.
You could call this and, you know, more a training than a facilitation, because we will not be asking for participation from the what it looks like 223 people that are actually looking at us. But we will be talking among ourselves because we've agreed upon this topic. So it could be a hybrid, both a training and a facilitation.
So I hope that you know, just as a nutshell kind of, you know, makes for you the distinction. And I prefer, you know, for reasons we may get into later, to do the facilitation. Because once you say that you're coming in as the morally superior person to train someone, and you are the font of all knowledge on that, you know, there's a certain, you know, obstacle that you have to getting through. Whereas if somebody has a agreed to come to the table and talk about the topic of interest, then I think there's more receptivity on their part to actually hear what it's saying.
Now, of course, you have to be somewhat expert in what materials you provide and what questions you allow to be brought to the table. So you do have to moderate it. You do have to facilitate it.
But I think there's more reception. to a facilitation than a training. Now, in terms of race, racial sensitivity training, that's loaded for me. And, you know, I think there are a couple of other definitions that need to be put on the table for this discussion.
So in my mind, race is a fiction. It's a social construct and agreed upon myth, you know, invented to justify the enslavement. of African-American laborers in the late 1600s.
The reality of it is, and why we call it a fiction, is that 99.9% of our DNA as human beings is shared. There's no genetic difference, you know, underneath the surface. So this notion of looking at the superficial characteristics of someone and determining they are different and that there's a reason to be biased against them is a fiction that has been utilized for, you know, and then we get to racism. Let's define that. And there are obviously many ways to define that.
So racism, in my view, is a belief system that... relies upon visible external characteristics to justify race-based prejudices, violence, discrimination, economic and social inequality, and institutional control. So for me, the phrase racial sensitivity training is just reeking with oxymoron. How can you talk about something that was responsible race for 246 years of brutal enslavement, rape of Black women, separation of Black children from families, and merciless whippings and murder of Black men who refused to be submissive.
How can you talk about being sensitive to that? There is no way to be sensitive to that. So those who use that phrasing effectively, you know, demonstrate their lack of knowledge. My mom used to always say, if you would not speak, your ignorance would not be known. So for me, listening and reading that executive order, you know, just demonstrates the lack of knowledge, you know, and lack of understanding of the people who wrote it.
So then I want to go to you. something that, you know, I'd love to go back to. Many people feel that white fragility because it's been written so long by...
Robin DiAngelo, that it's outdated, you know, and that we need to move on from, you know, that discussion to something else. In part, I find in my experience that people just get turned off by the title. They have an implicit bias, you know, to the notion of using a label that they consider to focus on race. when in America we have been taught, you know, for some time that it's okay to be colorblind. So the notion that this white sociologist chose to name her book, White Fragility, is offensive from the start.
I don't like to work with those institutions because it already tells me that they have decided they want to be trained, facilitated in their comfort zone. And the type of facilitation I like to do, and I think we're going to get to that later, is courageous discussions, courageous discussions on race. And there is one quote, and I, you know, I don't know what all the copyright rules are for this, so I'll cite it. White fragility, Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestseller, page 109. And I think this encapsulates.
you know, some places where I think some on the panel might disagree. The paragraph reads, one way that whites protect their positions when challenged on race is to invoke the discourse of self-defense. Through this discourse, whites characterize themselves as victimized, slammed, blamed, and attacked. Whites who describe the interactions in this way are responding to the articulation of counter narratives alone. No physical violence has ever occurred in any interracial discussion or training that I am aware of.
Me neither. These self-defense claims work on multiple levels. They identify the speakers as morally superior while obscuring the true power of their social position.
The claims blame others with less social power for their discomfort and falsely describe that the discomfort is dangerous. The self-defense approach also re-inscribes racist imagery. By positioning themselves as the victim of anti-racist efforts, they cannot be beneficiaries of whiteness.
Claiming that it is they who have been unfairly treated through a challenge to their position or an expectation that they listen to the perspectives and experiences of people of color, they can demand the same. that more social resources, such as time and attention, be channeled in their direction to help them cope with their mistreatment. Effectively, what this executive order that we're discussing did was to manifest exactly what Robin DiAngelo said is the discourse of self-defense. So... people within the federal workforce and federal contractors said, we're just being overwhelmed with this implicit bias training.
Oh, God, we're victims of it. Help us, mighty leader, the one who has the ability to take this victimization away from us. And unfortunately, President Trump and those who drafted that order fell right into that. framework of protecting the very ones who are probably perpetuating continuing efforts of discrimination and oppression within the federal workforce from even having to learn about the history of it and to even have to become, you know, aware of their biases.
So I'll leave it there, Beth, but that's my initial salvo on this. All right, Ted. Well, thank you for that perspective.
We appreciate it. And I appreciate you touching on what I think is becoming called in the common vernacular. courageous conversations by way of facilitating.
So I appreciate you explaining that approach. So Mark, you and I are from California, and in 2019, our state passed AB 241 and 242, which require all health care providers, judges, and judicial staff to undertake a continuous course of implicit bias training. Then the ABA passed in August of 2020, this year, a resolution 116G based largely on those laws. And I believe you actually played a large part or a large role in getting those resolutions passed through our House of Delegates.
How do you reconcile those laws and that resolution with the executive order? And how would you counsel the new administration to act on this issue? Thank you, Beth.
You know... I'm hoping that this executive order is an outlier. I think it is going to be an outlier, and I'm not too worried about the next administration adopting it.
I do a lot of trainings, and at the end of every training of 50 people, there's always one or two people who react in this manner and say it's not for them. And the notion about training is Trainings usually work for about 80% of the people in the room. The rest of the people in the room, you've got to figure out another way to deal with it, which is one way I want to underscore what Sarah said about people Googling Harvard and IAT, implicit aptitude training, and it will come up. And it not only asks about issues of race, but it really... identifies the issue of otherhood, whether it's race, whether it's religion, whether it's short people versus tall people, skinny people versus fat people, people of one religion versus people of another religion.
And it really does identify. And I think I want to expand what Ted said a moment ago. I think in a lot of ways, this goes, it's very true what you said for the past several hundred years, but I posit that it goes back way.
before that, where the idea of protecting your own clan against others has become something that implicitly we deal with. And whatever, you know, somebody might look at Sarah's statistics about kids being suspended from school and, you know, try to identify, well, that's because the behaviors might be different. But there are double blind studies that...
really make the same point. And where there is no behavior, what there is, is an African American sounding name or an Hispanic sounding name versus an Anglo sounding name. And that is the basis of the decision that's made. So I really, you know, for those, everybody learns in different ways.
And as Ted points out, you know, training and facilitation are a couple, but there's this notion of self-awareness that I think that you deal with by taking this implicit aptitude test. And for a lot of people, it's going to be a real eye-opener. And I really urge that you engage in just that as you go through it. Beth, in terms of the laws, California has got a law that requires training.
And as you point out, it requires implicit aptitude training, particularly for people in the medical and the legal profession. One reason... why I don't think it's new.
And I think I say the same thing about states that require training for sexual harassment the way California does. It's great that there's a specific rule about that, but I would say that that's an obligation on employers even before that. There's a California jury instruction that asks a jury in terms of finding whether harassment or discrimination took place. Did the defendant take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment and discrimination of the victim?
from occurring. Whether or not there is a statute that says that this kind of training occurs, if you don't engage in this kind of training, I would be counseling, I'd be counseling employers that you've got to give this kind of training in order to show that you are taking all reasonable steps to try to stop discrimination and harassment from occurring. And so I think that in terms of the law, on the question that you're asking, yes, that there are specific states that speak about implicit training or harassment training or discrimination training.
But even if you don't have that explicit law, I would suggest that you're still subject to it. The other thing I'll add about this is that when we engage in this, we don't I think it's too much to say over the course of a training or any issue you want to talk about, you're going to change somebody from having biases or not having biases. As Sarah pointed out, the definition of an implicit bias is that it's going to be there. And despite what you say, despite what you think, despite what you believe, implicit biases are there. But I think what it can do is it can say...
In every decision point that you are making, are you trying to deal with those implicit biases or not? And that's what the training does. And that's what the laws do. When a doctor is hearing symptoms from a patient, the doctor needs to say to himself or herself, am I filtering this with what I believe people of this race or this religion or this gender, how they react? And if so, I need to stop doing that.
If I am a juror and I am listening to somebody speak, I need to be conscious of the fact that I am apt to believe somebody who is like me more than I believe somebody who's not. And when you look at the executive order, there are a number of things in there that are not radical. I mean, to say that...
The United States should not be viewed as an inherently and irretrievably racist nation. You can make that political statement. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but you understand why that's there.
To call it an act of racial stereotyping, that is illegal. It needs to be stopped. For somebody to believe that there is any implicit tendency to favor.
our own, people of our clan, of our race, of our description. And to say that it is inherently unlawful and the terms that are used in that executive order are outrageous. To say that recognizing that is something antithetical to American values is the most distressing thing about that.
So I think in terms of trying to reconcile with that, with that executive order, I think it's very difficult to reconcile the entire body of law to that executive order. And I would bet good money that that's not going to be an issue anymore by January 25th. And I do think that states have, that every state has got an obligation to engage in some kinds of training that that executive order... would ban. And when I'm speaking to clients about how to reconcile it, most of the time I say, wait six weeks.
Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. And that's actually a pretty good segue into the next question that I have for Judge Donald. Judge, how does understanding implicit bias help judges on the bench? Thank you, Beth.
And as others have said, I want to join and echo their thanks for the presentation of the program and for all of those who are participating. Sarah began by saying that all of us have these implicit and some would say unconscious biases. And when I talk about this, I'm talking about bias as a preference or an association.
And I want to comment on a couple of things that have been said thus far, but judges are people. And there is no one group that is exempt from the effect of these preferences or associations. All of us as judges and lawyers are trained in the law. And we judges take an oath to treat people coming before the court fairly.
And we absorb those norms of equity. But judges make a lot of... decisions where discretion plays a role.
And I'm not talking about the intentional exercise of discretion for or against a group or a sect. I'm talking about how the brain functions. We absorb all of these biases or associations from many places, from our environment, from our experiences, from history, all along the way. And as a Ted said, when we're viewing things, we view them through a lens.
And you might say, well, that's not really relevant to judges. But of course it is, because if all of us looked at the the same text and heard the same facts and there were not filters, we would need appellate courts because we would all come to the same conclusion based upon our learning of the Black Letter Law. And the literature says that where we have the greatest discretion, that's also the greatest opportunity for these unconscious biases to manifest and influence decision making.
So let's think about what judges do. Judges here testimony of witnesses if they're at the trial level, and we make credibility determinations. Sometimes our unconscious biases can affect how we make those credibility determinations, who we believe, as Mark just alluded to.
We view papers, we view complaints. Many of our cases, especially in the federal system, come to their early termination at the motion stage, whether it's a 12b6 motion, where we're now employing a plausibility standard. What does plausibility mean?
It embodies a certain amount of discretion, and two people looking at that with our own internal and societal unconscious biases may very well look at those that complain and draw different inferences, make different conclusions, and the same with the summary judgment phase. I understand that we're not to draw certain inferences, and we're not to make credibility determinations at the summary judgment stage, but we are determining whether or not there is a genuine issue of fact. And that is not a decision made in the abstract, but our own unconscious biases can impact.
that determination. So it's important for us as judges to learn brain functioning. And this is one of the things that we emphasize, I think, as Sarah put up in her slides.
So much of this is talking about how the brain functions, that cerebral software package that's running in each one of us that helps us view and weigh and shape decisions that we make. We see it in the criminal context a lot in the bail determination. And we're not just talking about race.
We're also talking about socioeconomic conditions, because there are huge biases when it comes to poverty, poor and marginalized people. And that is not relegated to any particular race. We've talked about this today largely in terms of Black and white, but it's not just a Black and white issue.
And so I want to... expand my comments beyond those framed in the executive order. The invisibility suffered by the Native American community has its own set of concerns with respect to this unconscious bias.
And I want to share a comment that many of you heard now Chief Justice Steve Gonzalez make. He said, you know, For anyone who still questions whether or not implicit bias is real, I don't have time for them. Of course it is, and I think Sarah made the case quite well for that.
So with judges, we have to be concerned about our own biases in the body of the work we do. I mean, many of you who are acquainted with criminal law and habeas matters know that in a case called McCluskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court. of United States said, you know, in response to a death penalty case, well, we have to accept a certain amount of racial discrimination, a certain amount. Well, you know, we should never accept that as a reality. We ought to always be constantly working toward justice.
And I know that we have stats on who is admitted to bail, who is released on their own recognizance. who is more trustworthy. But these same things occur in sentencing matters, which is, again, not within the province of the prosecutor or the police, but we judges bear that responsibility solely. And when we look at the disproportionate numbers of one group that has sentenced to much harsher penalties for same or similar conduct, we have to ask ourselves whether or not we are correct. appropriately holding ourselves accountable, acknowledging and trying to do something about our biases.
And so for that reason, I think judges should certainly engage in implicit bias training and be concerned about our own biases because we have to. hold ourselves accountable. There is, I think, a real concern about decreasing confidence in the justice system based on many of the factors that speakers have already said. And I want to give you a concrete example about, and many of you may have heard this before, you know, I was a trial judge for 15 years and presided over a certain drug trial. And this is going to talk about how stereotypes those associations that we've made over time and over history create in us these biases for which we may be unaware.
But I was presiding over this trial and I had done voir dire as had the prosecutor and the defense attorney stepped into the well of the court and she asked the following questions. Question rather, how many of you know what a drug dealer looks like? Raise your hand.
And all of the Benari raised their hand. Well, none of us know what a drug dealer looks like because there is no singular profile, but that. That graphically displayed a stereotypical conception of what people thought about a certain category of crimes and who might have committed those crimes.
If you say on the front end, I know, and it looks like you, how then do we guarantee that person a fair trial based on the evidence? Judges have to... to make understand this brain functioning, this bias, and we have to be willing to not only hold ourselves accountable and try to do whatever we can to create an environment where bias does not negatively permeate that environment, but we also have to make sure that jurors, lawyers, and litigants also understand this brain functioning.
And it's not about, as Sarah said, it's not about assigning blame. I mean, none of us can claim moral superiority. We have as a nation, our history, we have to reckon with that.
But I think we have to acknowledge where we are and how we got here in order to make advances and improve upon creating that just and an equitable environment. And I'll stop there because I know you want to get into other questions and have a greater conversation. Well, it's hard to have you stop because everything you're saying is... It's so relevant and so wonderful.
So I appreciate that and your perspective, of course, as a judge. Let's turn just back to Sarah for a minute here. Sarah, in a paper that you recently wrote, you ask, do we think implicit bias training can interrupt the manifestation of implicit bias?
And in that paper, you answer yes. Can you briefly please explain your answer to that question? Sure. So let me start by saying you read correctly what we wrote, and we did not say that we thought implicit bias training could de-bias anyone. So when we first started working in this field, I think I thought that we might be able to de-bias ourselves.
I no longer think that. What I think now is that we can learn to recognize and acknowledge our implicit biases and interrupt them. at the points where it's appropriate to do so. I think, Mark, you were talking some about this in your remarks, at decision points where it's important, let's interrupt our biases. So that said, I would say that my saying that is based in as much of our work is in the science.
So there is research, a large amount of which comes from the largely women faculty in STEM fields. who have been engaged in implicit bias training and implicit bias training evaluation and measurement now for years. And they show us what well-constructed training can do to change people's approach and their behavior. And based on that, you can see, again, that well-constructed training can do that. So we can talk a little later about what I mean by well-constructed training.
But let me say right now, I don't mean... you go to a lecture for 15 minutes or even an hour and you leave. It's much more interactive and self-reflective than that.
But I guess I just end, Beth, by saying that the research that long-term accountable evaluation has done shows us that this kind of bias can be interrupted. And if it's interrupted enough, and if we learn the vocabulary together, norms can be changed. Sarah, that was very helpful.
Before we turn to a discussion of best practices, which I can hear we're all anxious to get to, I just wanted to ask Mark one more question here. Is there any legal requirement, Mark, for employers generally to provide implicit bias training at this point? I think there is.
I think that when you talk about what all reasonable steps are to avoid discrimination. I think that this is part of it. In any kind of trial, you're going to be faced with an expert witness who asks why there were no trainings, if in fact there were no trainings. And so I think that that has to be done.
You know, there has always been this discussion in evaluating the obligations under Title VII in terms of, you know, whether you are giving an untoward. preference to one entity or whether you are avoiding and trying to eliminate discrimination. But especially if you've got an underrepresented group in any particular field of employment endeavor, I think that that issue comes in. And by the way, just as one other check on this, and this deals with a...
question that I saw posed in the question shot. What if you have two equally qualified people, can you utilize your implicit biases at that point to say, well, they're both equal on paper, and I know I've got an affinity for this kind of group, so I'm going to give the extra points. over there.
And one of the reasons why employers have to frequently put in EEO1 forms to talk about the demographics of their workforce to see what the impact of that is. And we've always been able to see from that, statistically, whether whatever bias you have is being translated into the workplace. And it's really a distinction. I think... is important.
And, you know, when Sarah said, we can't de-bias somebody, I think that that's true. People are going to have whatever beliefs that they're going to have. Legally, the question is, are you transferring those biases into your employment decisions? And if it's shown that the biases are transferring into these employment decisions, I think that that's... where the issue comes in.
You can believe, let me just shift the example, you can believe that people with Christian beliefs or with Jewish beliefs are going to be more trustworthy than people without those kinds of beliefs. You can believe that. You've got an absolute right to believe that. You don't have a right to put that in your employment decisions. And so that's where I think the distinction comes in.
And this kind of training is a hugely important tool to de-bias those decisions, even if you can't de-bias the person. Thank you, Mark. Yes, I always make the point in my trainings when I do this, that bias, if you look it up in the dictionary, is both a noun and a verb. Right.
So as a noun, it's what we're thinking. right? But as a verb, it's what we're putting into action. And you're making the point that in the workplace, you know, we need to provide that fair and level playing field for everyone to advance, right? Without bias being a factor in that.
So it's important to understand that we don't want to make that noun bias into a verb bias. And I think that's what you were saying. And I appreciate you making that point. So with that, let me... turn to a discussion now of best practices of what should be included in these trainings.
I know, Ted, you spent quite some time on that already when you spoke about preferring the facilitation method over a strict training. So I think I'm going to start maybe with Mark and have you pick up where you were sort of leaving off then. What would be your best practices, if you will?
And then I'll give each of you a chance to say something before we circle back to some of questions I'm seeing posed in the chat here. Sure. You know, I want to say that a lot of the things that were suggested in the executive order as being part of this kind of training is clearly not part of the best practice and should not happen.
I agree wholeheartedly that you can't sit there and say all white men are responsible for all acts of racism and sexism. Your training should never go there. Your training should never accuse an individual in that kind of manner. The EEOC issued a report in 2016 that spoke about the thousands of trainings out there, and I think that they estimated that about 70% of them are bad trainings. And so what you have to do in your training is you've got to individualize it to the circumstance.
You've got to individualize it to that particular workplace. You have to make it relevant to that particular workplace. So I think that the first... best practice that I would put forward is to tailor your trainings to the circumstances that people are in, not to try to demonize any individual, any group. If you do that, your training is not going to work.
I mentioned earlier that I thought that about 80% of the time The training works in people in the room and you recognize, I think it's like any other classroom that you're teaching, you're looking in part of the room and people are just disengaging with you. And you can kind of see that as a teacher, as a trainer, when you see that, the thing to do is to try to engage those people. At the end of the day, there are going to be instances where employers are going to have to engage in counseling and discipline and go beyond the training function when people. when people don't get it. So it's not a panacea, but I think that the trick to it is to identify what's going on in that workplace.
One other point on this, I announced at the beginning of trainings that this is not a privileged conversation. This is not the place to stand up and get into individual accusations across the room or items like that. So you've got to keep your training.
on a level one step above that as well. But I think that those are the real keys to what you should be doing in a training of this kind. Thank you. Sarah, did you want to weigh in on this issue of best practices?
Yes. Let me start by agreeing with what Mark just said. I think that good training requires us to understand who the audience is for the training and to tailor what we do for that audience, for that situation, for who we are and who they are. I think that's really a critical thing. I would say the other, in a generic way, significant best practice is that our training should be research-based.
And there is now enough science, Mintoni Greenwald and Mazra Banaji put out their early work on the IAT in 1995. So, you know, on the scale of time, that's not a very long time. But in the original, I guess, the first several years of time where other scientists reviewed that work were spent saying, well, is this good science? Is this any good? Is it reliable?
What's its reliability rate? All of those things came first. And it's only later.
closer to now that we are beginning to see people evaluating different strategies and different aspects of the training and weighing in on what is useful and what can be a good piece of strategy for people to take away with training. So I think it's incumbent on us as trainers to understand all of that research and pick and choose carefully in terms of what strategies we recommend. during our training.
So that research-based piece I'd say would be a really important best practice. Thank you. Ted, I'm going to go back to you and I would like you to sort of fold in a couple questions that we're getting here with your response, if you don't mind.
And one of them relates to whether if we call it a training versus facilitating, is it the label that counts on this? Or would it be better to call it training so as to emphasize the need for us to understand the employer's goal to defeat the biases that we have? Well, I, you know, I'm glad that that question was actually raised because as I listened here, you know, I think there's so many different labels that have come into this process, you know, and you got implicit bias training, you got courageous race conversations, you have racial sensitivity, you know, as something that others prefer to use to call it. What it's all getting at, I think, is a recognition that there is a problem, you know, in the way our society has structured itself.
And we, as facilitators of a solution to this problem, are trying to come up with tools that are effective to address it. So please don't understand anything I said earlier to say that I don't believe that implicit bias training is an effective tool. And I like the fact that for some organizations, it's the only way that you can speak to the audience because they are so close to being uncomfortable with talking about race that the only thing you can talk about is this. more nebulous concept of implicit bias, which of course does not point the fingers at anyone. But I also think, consistent with Mark's earlier comment, you need to know your audience and respond to your audience.
And after George Floyd, after those eight minutes and 46 seconds, I have gotten contacted by more organizations who have more courage to talk, frankly, about the fire on the block. So the notion, you know, I'll just use this, and I know we're short of time, but one of the microaggressions that a lot of people like to train about is, you know, when somebody responds to Black Lives Matter with All Lives Matter. One of the ways that I like to explain that, and if we're having a conversation about it, is, well, if you had a fire in the neighborhood and one house was on fire, it would not be appropriate for the neighbor down the street to come out and say, well, all houses matter.
You go to the house that's on fire. Right now in our country, the house, the bias that's on fire is race and implicit bias. talks about all kinds of, you're going to talk about, I do diversity training on, you know, that's my broader rubric of my softer way of dealing with things. But there are all kinds of characteristics and experiences that encompass, you know, diversity training and bias can be, you know, geared to any one of those weight, disability, you know, orientation, but I'm going to stop here.
The one that's on fire for us as a country is race. So when we do this implicit bias training, and I sat through one recently with a law enforcement agency, and everything was about implicit bias, implicit bias, all of the science, all of this, race never came up. How can you effectively address the house on fire without talking about race? and racism. So there needs to be a merger of the science with the immediate need.
Thank you. I've heard that analogy too. And I think that is a helpful one for people to conceptualize what we're trying to say or what we're talking about. Judge Donald, would you like to weigh in with what you think are best practices around implicit bias training? Sure.
And as Ted said, I know we're short of time, so I would just adopt and concur in the comments of my co-panelists that trainings... Let me say that we do have a little more time, I think, than you're thinking. I believe...
Okay. Okay, very good. So I think that the trainings need to be tailored.
And somebody in the chat box said, I hope that tailoring doesn't mean... sugarcoating. And I would agree with other people who said, we actually have to have some difficult conversations. It's not worth anyone's time if we're not going to really address the critical issues and talk about them.
But I think you can talk about critical issues without engaging in shame and blame. And it's important, I believe, to avoid the shaming and blaming because what happens is people will withdraw. They may be in the room or they may opt to leave the room, but they can be in the room and not be participating in the conversation.
I think it's important to structure the conversation so that you are able to talk about real issues, be able to talk about hard truths, be able to talk about the brain science, and I think you have to talk about the house being on fire, but you have to also talk about the other issues in the society where bias can come in. I find that it's important important to have a diverse team because for me and people who are on this who can see know that I am an African-American female. When I stand up, no matter how credentialed I am, there is going to be a discount for what I say because people are going to say, okay, I am articulating this position because I am of a certain race.
But As Ted said, I should not have to deny my history to do this training, and I don't do that, but I also recognize that it is not just my history and where I am that has to be encapsulated in the training, and I have to keep in mind the objective, and that's why I said before, we have to talk about and understand the brain functioning, the associations, the stereotypes that we've internalized, and I know the... some of the research says that we prefer our own no matter who they are, that doesn't hold true in many communities of color. If you look at poor and marginalized communities, especially in African-American communities, we don't necessarily prefer our own. And part of that goes back to some historical issues and where we are today in the larger society. So we have to recognize that.
I think we do have to be research-based and we have to become I think, more fulsome in explaining that research and connecting it. And I also think we have to engage in some visuals. One of the things that I use sometimes in my training when people talk about, okay, what you're talking about is giving one group an advantage.
Think about three people who are seeking to observe a ball game. We're not going to say whether they're doing this. unlawfully, but just say they're trying to observe a ball game, and there is an eight-foot barrier.
The people are in a relative height, six feet, five feet, and three feet. Some of that's a child. And they're all standing on this wall separating them from the game.
If you wanted to treat all these people equally, you could give all of them a three-foot platform. And once they stood on that, the six-foot person... could see the game because they've got an added feet. But that wall is not going to help much the five-foot person, and it's not going to help the three-feet person at all, but you're treating all of them equally. But if you want it to be equitable and achieve your goal, and from a justice standpoint, we're supposed to be talking about allowing or giving people the opportunity to use their talents and their abilities, and you're supposed to be recognizing their humanity.
so that they can all go about and have this equal protection under the law, equal opportunity. And we say that at the head level, but if we don't eradicate many of these biases that negatively affect outcomes, then we are not going to be successful in that goal. And so I believe that the trainings are important.
And I think we have to always keep in mind the goal of the trainings and do the kinds of things I talked about, in addition to what my colleagues have said about best practices. So thank you. Thank you.
Actually, you touched on another question that I was going to ask all of you, which is, you know, there are a lot of different terms now being used right in this arena of diversity, equity and inclusion. And equity versus equality was one of the ones that I was going to ask about. I think you've really answered that with your analogy already, and I appreciate that. Would one of the other of you like to address tolerance versus inclusion? And then we had a question about using the term white privilege and whether or not that is an inherently racist term.
Who would like to take that? Well, I'm courageous enough to do it. You know, I am of the mind in terms of all of the reading that I do. And I really, I majored in history at Harvard, for whatever that's worth.
But I think one of the research-based notions. that has to be brought into what we do in terms of training or facilitation in this area is history. And, you know, scholarship in terms of sociological studies about bias and non-bias is only one part of the scholarship that should be brought to bear in terms of helping people to understand where we are. And so the notion of white... privilege in particular is one that you can only really understand if you kind of unpack the terms what is prejudice versus discrimination.
Prejudice is, it's interchangeable with bias, so everything you've heard about bias could be used and was used once upon a time to describe what prejudice is. So, and that is looking at a characteristic and attributing a stereotype based on that characteristic to an entire group. So then what is discrimination? Discrimination is action-based prejudice. So you're in that, and Mark touched upon that.
You can believe whatever you want, but when you turn it into adverse decisions in the workplace, then you are discriminating and that's illegal. When you look at that notion of prejudice and how it impacts you over the course of your entire life, and we learned in Brown v. Board, and there have been some recent studies, that children from a very early age start internalizing the notion that if you're Black, you're bad. you're negative.
And I think Sarah kind of touched upon that earlier. But if, and if you're white, somehow, you're okay. And the judge touched upon it in terms of the perception of who is a drug dealer.
But all of these things don't devolve into, well, is somebody born that way? If you really look at the sociology of this, which is another area of rich scholarship on this, We're socialized as race-conscious people from an early age, and it's reinforced and it's accepted to a point where whites necessarily, because of their association with good and right and safe and healthy and non-criminal, get... certain advantages, whether it's in the employment arena, whether it's in the criminal law arena, whether it's in the law enforcement arena, they are perceived based on these stereotypes, based on this bias, based on this prejudice to be better, to be safer, to be whatever. So there is a privilege. that is associated with whiteness, but it's not the kind of privilege that is always talked about politically, where it, you know, it's about whether you're getting an admission to Harvard or not admission.
It is about the way that we have been raised in this society from birth to, you know, put whiteness. you know, at a higher level, a better level than being darker and being black. So I didn't answer everything, but I don't want to suck up all of the time.
So I'll stop there. Thank you, Ted. Did anyone else want to address that question with a different perspective?
You know, this speaks a little bit to some of the questions that have come in. And, you know, I thought it was interesting, not just in the executive order itself, but during one of the debates, one of the comments. that the president made was, you know, in these trainings, there are all these people who are getting preferences and, you know, the unstated pregnancy, and I'm not getting a preference.
You know, white males are not getting a preference, and parenthesis, as Ted points out, we're used to getting the preferences. So it's really not, I'm not being treated unequally, but it's, I'm not getting the advantage that I'm used to getting, which. which on that mindset is just as much of a self-imposed takeaway, right? But, you know, that's really where a lot of this is coming from, that, you know, there's a bit of white privilege and how come, you know, how come it's going away? And I think that that needs to be recognized as a political factor behind what's driving a lot of the emotion and just kind of recognize that that's that that's there.
The other thing I'll indicate is, and this goes to another question that one person raised, is it ever, are you saying it's never okay where I prefer people who I hang around with? I am a gay Jewish woman, and why can't I say I've got a preference for white Jewish women? And the answer is that in a perfectly social context, Of course, you can.
And there's a lot of jurisprudence that talks about, are you a member of a private club? Or are you something like some communities who've got a university club? Where to get ahead in that community, you have to be part of that club.
And there's a lot of jurisprudence that talks about, when is it a purely private association? And Ted, you point out, it's expanded beyond education, and there are issues of housing. and there are issues of education. We're seeing it right now in terms of access to medical care, right?
That also has got a disparity that people are talking about. So I think it's really important to recognize that people have got a right in their private associations to engage in whatever kinds of individual preferences and biases that they want to have. But But there comes a point where if it's a point of equal access to the important societal functions, whether it's employment, housing, education, health care or whatever else, white privilege becomes something which runs headlong into the whole the whole idea of of equal access.
Right. And I think that that's the issue. Thank you, Mark, for addressing that part of the question so well. So I have another question for you, which I'm going to tie in with one of the questions from a participant on the call.
Can you each give me an example of how implicit bias has been effective in providing a more inclusive workplace or helped in the administration of justice? And in answering that, can you also answer our participants question of how long does the training work? In other words. what's the long-term effect of this?
Do we need doses? Do we need this to be repeated? Does it stick the first time around? We have to have one class and then another class a month later. I guess we're all into the vaccine process, so everybody's thinking about it that way.
But I guess one example I would give, I still facilitate a group A volunteer group called the Color Line Roundtable, which, you know, during this crisis, this pandemic, you know, we've gone virtual. So I have folks all across the country participating with me in this discussion. And one person who we all know, but I won't name her specifically, but she's a judge, state court bench out in Texas. And she shared during the. the last call we had that she had a prosecutor or state attorney, whatever they're called out there, to bring two different cases before her.
One, you know, case, the white defendant was being let off with basically a slap on the wrist. Another, an African-American defendant, perpetrator. And all kinds of criminal penalties were being recommended by the prosecutors. She said she called that prosecutor, you know, back into the chambers and asked him, what are the differences between these two cases? Tell me what are the substantive differences as to why one is being recommended one way?
And the prosecutor could not give any response, you know, that would satisfy that. you know, why he recommended one thing and the other. And she said, please don't bring me back any more cases where you cannot explain the difference in your recommendation.
Now, that didn't take long, you know, in terms of a training. But there was a judge who proactively just called on the carpet, you know, a biased, you know, prosecutor, you know, and I believe that prosecutor will not be bringing back any such, you know, differential treatment based on the bias that he might not have even been aware of until that moment. So it is very clear, you know, based on these types of anecdotal things, and I could share many others in my own work, but that one just still resonates with me is, you know, it doesn't take an hour, three hours, whatever, but it does take.
you know, someone to bring to the attention, you know, a person who is, you know, infected with this disease that we as Americans have all been socialized into from birth and bring it to their attention and tell them how they can, you know, kind of eliminate it from what they're doing. So I do believe it works, you know, and I don't believe there's a magic. formula, but I do believe, and I'll say this because I wanted to work it in there in some kind of way. Martin Luther King's, you know, statement that, you know, the real harm and the real danger in our society about racism and prejudice continuing itself is the appalling conspiracy of silence.
And so when we don't do something, to talk about this, to train about it. Again, these are all tools. We can use whichever tool we prefer, but we can't be silent about what comes before us. Beth, I would just add on to that.
In terms of the training, I think it's not a one-shot deal. I think, as Mark and Ted said, The training is important. Good training is important and can be helpful to raise awareness. I think trainings should also have a component of things we can do, actions we can take to further minimize and navigate around some of those biases.
Because we're not going to just eliminate. It's not like... going in, getting the vaccine, and we go to one training, and then we are immune to them. Because remember, many of these biases that we're talking about are not conscious.
So we do want to surface and raise awareness and give people tools to try and create better environments. I also would say that as judges, it's incumbent upon us, as Ted said, for us to hold ourselves accountable and also hold those accountable who are appearing in court. There are some things that are manifestations of bias that we see, and maybe we don't do anything about it. And I know judges can't get involved in charging decisions. We can't invade the province of the prosecutor.
But when we see those manifestations, we can ask the question and seek to hold people accountable. And that's something that we need to do. I know that there is an unequal power dynamic in many of these situations.
because lawyers may very well see this in judges also. And I know that presents a separate problem, but the training can help us become self-aware and we can engage in self-audits and create policies that embody that equality once we have learned and we can self-monitor. And I think that's helpful. And one of the things I think we can do, and often I see done after we go through a training, Sarah loves to give people homework. We can monitor other entities and organizations.
We can monitor what we see in the press. We can make sure that we watch out for examples of bias in reporting, whether it's broadcast journalism or print journalism. We can also look at our own environment and assess that and see if we need to make some changes there.
We can expand our circle, our official circle and our social circles. And I think those kinds of things can help us with the accountability and the monitoring. And it can also take us a step in the direction of constantly trying to reduce biases.
And we can take the IAT. Let me add briefly that this doesn't mean that all of the biases are out of the process. I think that voir dire is an exercise in bias. You try to gather from 60 seconds of learning what zip code somebody lives in and whether they've got kids or not, et cetera, and decide how they are going to behave. And so as I do this.
You can't deny that I am engaging in stereotypical thinking during every second of ordeal I'm engaging in. Yeah. And, you know, also, Mark, you make the point that biases can be negative or positive.
They can favor people or disfavor people. So when we think about this, we need to think about the dimensions of these biases. So this conversation, I think, is making it very clear that, you know, our nation as a whole needs to have these kinds of discussions, right? And it's probably not going to be taken care of on this panel today.
And I'm sensing from some of the comments and questions that I'm seeing that there's an ongoing concern of how we can address this in a way that people will be accepting of even or even open to having the discussion, right? And I just saw a question here about what happens when someone in a position of power is the one with the bias. So do you all have a suggestion for how we can get everyone to start thinking along these lines, opening their thought up to how we can solve this systemic problem?
What would you counsel that we do? Well, Beth, one thing, and I see a question in particular from Steve Hanlon, past chair of this section, who actually introduced me to the section. So shout out to Steve Hanlon about something in St. Louis.
And he's wondering how can he, you know, you know, kind of inform policymakers in the city about, you know, past. instances of systemic racism with respect to the way that they have zoned and, you know, kind of kept impoverished, you know, the African American parts of that community. And, you know, I've actually addressed this, Steve, with my Color Line group. You know, for a time, we were just coming around talking and feeling, you know, I think very comfortable with just sharing personally with each other our anecdotes.
But at a certain point, I got, you know, ambitious about it. And I said, the African Americans around the table, persons of color around the table don't want to always be the trainers. And it's, it puts them, you know, it puts an unusually heavy burden on them.
So why don't I assign some books? you know, to the entire group? Why don't we all, you know, it kind of morphed into somewhat of a book club.
And so Richard Rothstein, Steve, and I think I might have already sent you this suggestion in my global emails that I send out periodically, did an excellent book called The Color of Law. And so effectively, I assigned three books. And so if anybody's on this call, and looks like we still have about 195 people, and you've just...
want without having to go to a session and without having to be trained or facilitated or whatever, but in your own private time to read up on what we're talking about. I have three books that I always recommend. One is Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility.
Two is Richard Rothstein's Color of Law. And the third is Michelle Alexander's, you know, the... the new Jim Crow. So if you can get your policymakers, Steve, to actually engage in some self-help.
Because it shouldn't always be the burden of someone else who's already aware to train and teach. There is some self-study that can be done here. And those are the books that I think really kind of get at the core of what I think all Americans need to know about the history that's not taught in high school. Thank you, Ted. We do have one very specific question I think is perfect for Sarah to answer.
We had someone ask, what is the IAT? So for people who don't know, can you explain what that is and how people can access that? It's short for implicit association test. And I think Mark told you, and I'll put it, I'll try to put it up in the chat as well. You can get to it by Googling Harvard.
and IAT, the site for the test just hosted by Harvard University. And it tests your response time. So it shows you either a combination of words or a combination of images and asks you to respond.
You do it on the computer by hitting one of two keys as you see the pictures. And your response time measures how comfortable you are, how quickly your brain connect certain ideas. So how quickly does my brain connect the word good with the word flower compared to the word insect? So most of our brains, in case you're wondering, in the United States, we mostly connect good with flower.
But there are, I think now, well over a dozen tests, insect and flower being just one. There's black and white, there are women and careers, there's that and then there are lots of tests. And what it's measuring is how comfortable, how quick your brain.
connects those ideas. That's all it's measuring. And the idea is that the speed with which you connect those ideas indicates your implicit bias. So you go take the test.
Most folks sort of think it's a little bit fun. They take one, they take more than one. At the end, you get a result. Your test shows that you are.
slightly biased in favor of people who are abled compared to people who are not abled. And that's it. That's all the test tells you.
And then you have to decide what that means to you. And I think I would say before ending that answer, it is not, again, labeling you something. It's just giving you some information about how comfortable your brain is connecting certain concepts.
So when I take the test, I'm not score with bias in favor of women and careers. That's what I want to score, right? That's been my life. And that's what I want to score, but it is not my score.
But can I learn something from that? Yes, I can. I think we can all be more aware of how we might implicitly be responding.
And, you know, some of the, I guess I would also add this, what you can hope to get from that is a meaningful insight. get a meaningful insight, and then decide how you can implement it in some form of accountability or rethinking of your own life. So I urge everyone to take it for just that purpose, get some self-insight, and then decide from many of the suggestions that other panelists have made here about how to proceed to expand your knowledge from there. And sorry, to add on what you said, I've seen some trainings.
The question is, okay, So you respond more quickly to one concept than the other. How does that necessarily relate to bias? And there's been a lot of studies that show that association as well, right? So I think that that's kind of one of the dots.
There's a lot of that. And I'll just give you one example now that I've told you how I scored on the test. After I read how I scored on the test, I had my research assistant count who I called on first in class. Right.
This is a pretty simple thing. And who was I calling on? I was calling on the group of young men, mostly young, who were sitting right in front of me. And so how did I feel about that?
I felt like, well, I think that I should perhaps be calling on people a little more evenly. And I certainly should be calling on some women. And so I changed how I called on people. That's just a tiny example of a pretty simple change that changed the atmosphere in my class.
classroom, the inclusion level in my classroom, the rejection or not in my classroom. And I don't hold that up for everyone, but I think the awareness can help us all make some changes in the world around us, which then of course ripple out and change some norms. Thank you, Sarah.
A perfect way to end today. We are at our time limit. So I will just conclude by thanking you all for joining us on this free webinar.
We'd also like to express our gratitude to this esteemed group of panelists. You are all doing such critical work, and we thank you for taking the time out of your schedules to share your experiences and wisdom with us today. The Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice provides free webinars and resources for legal professionals and advocates nationwide, and we hope this helps you in your work. If you are not an ABA or CRSJ member, please consider joining and becoming active in the ABA. You may do so at ambar.org backslash CRSJ, and you can find information on other free programs from the CRSJ on our website as well.
Best of luck in your work everyone and please stay safe. Happy holidays. Thank you everyone.