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Workplace/Employment: Overcoming Systemic Biases 229

the creation of a superordinate or oversight team/group that is empow-
ered to assess, develop, and monitor the organization’s development with
respect to the goals of multiculturalism. Such groups have the power to
operate rather independently and/or share an equal status relationship
with other units in the organization. It must have the ability to infl uence,
formulate, and implement multicultural initiatives, and report directly to
the president or CEO.
5. If multicultural change is to occur in the organization, accountability
must be built into the system. Certain divisions, departments, and
individuals must be held responsible for achieving the goals of diversity
and multiculturalism, for developing an inclusive and welcoming work
environment, and for outcomes. For example, upper management in
business or deans and chairs of institutions of higher education might
be held responsible for recruiting, retaining, and promoting minorities
and women within their own units. Professors might be held account-
able for incorporating diversity into their curriculum; recognize the need
for alternative teaching styles; and be unafraid to address topics likely
to begin diffi cult dialogues in the classroom (race, gender, sexual
orientation, etc.).
6. To successfully address systemic and individual microaggressions,
organizations must develop a systematic and long-term commitment
to educate the entire workforce concerning diversity issues, to address
barriers that block multiculturalism, and to increase the sensitivity of
employees at all levels to the manifestation and power of microaggres-
sions. In-service multicultural training should be an intimate part of the
organization’s activities. In institutions of higher education, for example,
training must include not only students, faculty, and staff, but should
include the entire workforce up through administrators, to deans, the
president of the university, and even the board of trustees. In business
and industry, training is also important at all levels to the very top.
These suggestions are certainly not exhaustive. What is clearly evident,
however, is how great the challenge is for our institutions and society. Racial,
gender, and sexual-orientation microaggressions at present are played out
in the many demeaning interpersonal interactions that occur in the work-
place. Suggestion number 6 in the area of cultural diversity training will
not be successful unless organizations view it as a long-term process and
begin to realize that systemic change and individual change is needed. At
the systems level, major resistance lies in the existing power structures of
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