Kairos Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee (v. 2025)

Updated February 2025

Background

We make the following statement on the journal’s ‘about’ page:Kairos recognizes that scholarly publishing traditionally functions within white supremacy and works to actively reject those systems of oppression by creating anti-racist publishing practices that are inclusive and equitable for authors, staff, and peer reviewers. For Kairos, anti-racism interrupts systematic racial injustice that dismisses the capacious view of who can be a scholar–expert, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender identity, ability, sexual identity, and other identity markers. That is, anti-racism is intersectional in its approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion.Authors are encouraged to consider expanding the repertoire of works they cite to ensure a broader representation of voices, ideas, approaches, methods, and scholarship. Three exceptional resources in this area include Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq's MMU Scholar Bibliography, Andrew Hollinger's Alternative Texts and Critical Citations for Anti-Racist Pedagogies, and Cruz Medina's NCTE CCCC Latinx Caucus Bibliography.
Kairos is committed to following the inclusive editing and reviewing practices detailed in "Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors." Annually, the senior editorial team will review Kairos’s Inclusivity Action Plan to gauge the success or failure of our efforts and revise our plans, as needed.

The goals of the committee are to ensure the journal makes good on our commitments, to help the journal as a whole actively raise our consciousness about race and racism, and to take concrete and specific actions to reduce or eliminate racial power inequities in the process of publishing the journal. The work of the committee is not limited to anti-racism, but also includes all of the social justice oriented frameworks we want to address as part of the broader work of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The work of the committee will support the journal’s goal of modeling inclusive and anti-racist practices and policies for other journals and organizations.To do so, the DEI committee is grounded on the following definitions of anti-racism:“An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all of their apparent difference and that there is nothing wrong with any racial group. Antiracists argue that racist policies are the cause of racial injustices” (Kendi, 2019).

• Racist ideas or racism are systemic problems embedded in our institutions, policies, practices, etc.
• Antiracism has to be consciousness-raising and action-oriented.
• Antiracist work against racist structures and systems is an ongoing and reflexive process.
• “Inclusive practices need to be informed by worldviews relevant to and reflective of marginalized stakeholders” (Itchuaqiyaq). 

Committee Charge

The DEI Committee is charged with creating policy and regular assessment strategies for DEI efforts within the journal, liaising with other groups within the journal to ensure DEI efforts are carried out, and reporting on DEI activities to internal and external audiences. 

Committee Actions

Create Policy and Assessment 

• Every Five Years: 
  • Develop and conduct assessments of our production and development processes to assess for anti-racist action, using the "Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices: A Heuristic for Editors, Reviewers, and Authors" as a guide.
  • Review optional demographic data collected as part of the submission and acceptance process and determine what (or whether) to do with it. 
• Annually: 
  • Review our list of existing action items and update as needed (e.g. reviewing the inclusivity plan).
• On-going: 
  • Make recommendations for inclusive language and practices for our stylesheets, workflows, and policies.

Liaise and Report 

• Report on DEI committee and journal progress and activities annually to staff, to the editorial board, and to external audiences.
• Assist recruitment of underrepresented scholars to authoring, staff and editorial board.