What Can Allies Do? | Working Together: Practicing the Science of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | Oxford Academic
In the workplace, employees who hold power or status have the opportunity to maximize diversity, inclusion, and equity for their diverse co-workers. Such employees may be allies to LGBTQ co-workers and/or allies to any number of other marginalized co-workers. In this chapter, an evidence-based framework for thinking about allyship is introduced and situated in the context of MBA students’ experiences. The chapter describes the ally initiatives and behaviors shown to be particularly helpful in reducing discrimination and supporting people from minoritized backgrounds at work: educate oneself and become aware, fight conformity, act, assume psychological standing and use it, and stand up in the absence of targets. Most employees in the workforce are straight. Plain and simple. Yet, many of these straight allies choose to play a role in reducing discrimination toward their LGBTQ+ co-workers. The difference that they can make is life-changing. In June 2016, a terrorist killed 49 people at P