Narrative Summary
The 2021 IDEAL DEI Survey
In May 2021, as part of the IDEAL initiative, Stanford administered a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) survey to students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, and staff. Designed by Stanford’s Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support, the survey was based on a year-long process that included extensive community feedback and review of existing survey research. To provide oversight of the design process, the Provost appointed a survey advisory committee composed of individuals with research and/or substantive experience in DEI and survey fields. Committee members representing students and postdocs were chosen by the ASSU Nominations Commission and the SURPAS postdoc association.
Survey committee members
Brian Lowery
Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor in the Graduate School of Business and Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Shelley Correll
Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden Family Professor of Women's Leadership and Professor, by courtesy, of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business
Linda Boxer
Vice Dean of the School of Medicine and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor
Nancy Ware
Chief of Staff, CIO Office - University IT
Emelyn dela Pena
Associate Vice Provost for Inclusion, Community and Integrative Learning - VPSA
Hoda S. Abdel Magid
Postdoctoral Scholar in Health Policy - School of Medicine
Draven Rane
Undergraduate Student - Anthropology, Bioengineering
Shannon Yan
Undergraduate Student - Economics, Graduate Student - Computer Science
Patrick Dunkley
Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community
See more information about the survey design process.
The University’s commitment to launching the IDEAL DEI survey followed the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 [see the President’s statement] and the ensuing conversations and calls for action by the Stanford community. Given this context, the survey was conceived as the first part of a sustained effort to gather information on community members' experiences of campus climate - with this initial effort focusing on race and ethnicity. No single survey can cover all aspects of diversity and identity, and further data collection and engagement with the Stanford community are needed.
Based on priorities established through community feedback and input from an advisory committee, the 2021 IDEAL DEI survey collected detailed information about demographics and identity and explored how race and ethnicity shape the experiences of community members at Stanford. A key aspect of the survey design that resulted from community feedback was the inclusion of detailed questions about individuals’ experiences within the Stanford community and the interpersonal interactions that inform feelings of inclusion across racial, ethnic, and other identities. For example, the survey included questions about an individual’s experiences with harassing and discriminatory behaviors, as well as experiences with specific types of interpersonal interactions called microaggressions (see definitions page).
Survey Response Rate
The overall survey response rate was 36%, with 14,907 survey respondents out of the 41,048 current Stanford affiliates invited to take the survey. Response rates among staff (44%) and faculty (38%) were slightly higher than for students and postdocs (29-31%). The response rate was higher for females (44%) than males (29%). (Note: Currently university records contain only biological sex. Therefore, calculating survey response rates compared to the total university population required using biological sex instead of gender identity. The survey collected data on gender identity, which is used in the survey findings presented on this website.)
See more information about survey methodology and response rates.
Key Survey Findings
Diversity at Stanford
Since publishing the IDEAL Diversity Dashboards, we have consistently heard a strong desire from the university community for more detailed information about demographics and identities of community members. For example, community members have asked Stanford for more complete and disaggregated data for racial and ethnic groups. Racial and ethnic identity questions on the IDEAL survey were designed to capture more information than has historically been available. For example, the survey presented choices for respondents to choose one or more racial or ethnic identities and also allowed respondents to write in further details about their identities, in addition to asking for information about their country of origin, religious identity, and more. The current dashboards include eight broad race and ethnicity groups: American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Asian, White, two or more, and unknown/Decline to State.
These new survey questions produced an unprecedented view of diversity at Stanford. For example, among those who identified as Asian or Asian American on the survey, survey respondents entered over 200 unique sub-categories in follow-up questions to further describe their racial or ethnic identity. The visualization below shows these write-in data and is one of the many dashboards that present detailed demographics of survey respondents. See the survey demographics dashboard.
In addition to more detailed, disaggregated data, another key purpose of the survey was to provide new, more complete, and systematic data for identities historically underrepresented in higher education institutional data. For example, the survey collected data on gender identity, sexual identity, and information about those who identified as having a disability.
You can explore these and many other aspects of identity and diversity collected by the survey in the interactive dashboards available on the survey website.
Inclusion and Belonging
Beyond collecting more complete identity and demographic data as a resource for helping us understand who we are as a community, the survey also asked respondents to reflect on interactions and behaviors that they have experienced at Stanford. The findings from these sections of the survey point strongly to the ways in which identity, particularly racial and ethnic identity, profoundly shape the experiences of Stanford community members.
In the charts and findings that follow, survey respondents are represented in every identity category with which they identify. For example, survey respondents selecting two race or ethnic identity groups are shown in bars for both groups in the charts that follow.
Approximately 80% of respondents - across university affiliation and across race/ethnicities - reported that they found at least one community, group, or space at Stanford where they felt welcome. This proportion did not vary much by race, indicating that many community members across racial and ethnic groups have found a welcoming space at Stanford. Write-in data from survey respondents highlight how critical the efforts of community centers, student and staff groups, and many other organizations and groups that support communities around shared identities have been in establishing these welcoming and inclusive spaces at Stanford.
However, 20% of all survey respondents indicated that they had not found a community, group, or space where they felt welcome. If we look at the follow-up question that asked about whether or not survey respondents encountered places at Stanford where they felt marginalized or excluded, we begin to see significant differences by race, ethnicity, and gender identity.
For example, 50% of those who identify as Black or African American, agreed they had found a community, group, or space at Stanford where they felt marginalized or excluded. The corresponding percentage for survey respondents who identified as White or European was 28%.
Much higher percentages of survey respondents that identified with a gender identity other than the binary of man or woman reported experiences with marginalization or exclusion at Stanford (see chart below). In addition, 70% of survey respondents that identified as trans indicated they had experienced some place at Stanford where they felt marginalized or excluded. (Note: survey respondents could select multiple gender and trans identities, e.g. survey respondents could choose both trans and another - or multiple - gender identities.) In the chart below (and charts elsewhere on this website) survey respondents are included in every identity category with which they identified on the survey.
Microaggression and experiences with harassing and discriminatory behaviors
The above data points clearly show that, while there are spaces at Stanford that can be welcoming and inclusive for many, we have a long way to go as a university to achieve broad-based inclusivity and belonging for all members of the Stanford community. However, as was made clear throughout the survey design process, this conclusion is not new, nor did we need to do a survey to find out that many people at Stanford feel marginalized. Our ability to understand and take action on feelings of marginalization and exclusion is enhanced when we have more concrete data about the specific events, experiences, and interactions that underpin them. The survey was designed to better understand and document the prevalence and characteristics of harmful interactions that many have said are common at Stanford. Specifically, the survey asked respondents about their experiences with microaggressions, verbal harassing behaviors, physical harassing behaviors, and discriminatory behaviors. (Note: the survey asked about experiences that occurred during the past two years by someone associated with Stanford.)
The survey data reveal just how pervasive these types of experiences are at Stanford, and that students, faculty, staff, and postdocs have experienced these behaviors across every Stanford school and in nearly every department and work unit represented in the data. For example, across each of Stanford’s seven schools, 30-40% of faculty survey respondents, 40-50% of undergraduates, 40-60% of graduate students (including students in professional programs), and 25-35% of postdocs experienced microaggression, discriminatory behaviors, or verbal or physical harassing behaviors. Among staff, a quarter or more of respondents in every work unit represented in the survey data reported experiencing these behaviors.
In addition to highlighting the broad prevalence of these experiences at Stanford, it is critical to emphasize that the impact of these negative experiences is not uniformly distributed across the Stanford community. For example, the chart below shows that over 60% of all survey respondents who identified as Black or African American indicated that they experienced microaggressions - a rate that is much higher than any other racial/ethnic population. Over one-third of American Indian or Alaska Native and of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander survey respondents reported experiencing discriminatory behaviors. You can find out more about these findings in the summary slide deck and in the other information provided in the Explore Findings section of this website.
Impact
The survey data also made it clear the impact these types of interactions have on those that have experienced them at Stanford. Overall, approximately one-third of the nearly 15,000 people that took the survey, regardless of race, gender, or role, indicated having faced significant impacts associated with personal experiences with microaggression, discriminatory, or harassing behaviors. For the subset of survey respondents (on average, approximately 40%) who reported experiencing at least one harmful behavior, 70% (on average) reported being significantly impacted by them.
The chart below shows some of the types of impacts that respondents who experienced these behaviors reported on the survey. Subsequent to their experiences, 29% felt uncomfortable voicing their opinion, 26% felt ostracized, and over 20% had difficulty concentrating or focusing on professional or academic work. In addition, nearly a quarter of these survey respondents seriously considered leaving the university.
This overview presents just some of the findings from this survey project. We invite you to learn more about the findings by exploring this website and the resources that are available here. We would also like to hear from you if you have questions, comments, reactions, or suggestions.
Click here to access the anonymous feedback form or send an email to ideal_deisurvey@stanford.edu.
Read summaries of survey findings