Statement of the Directorate of the MPI for Psycholinguistics on discrimination

We recognise that many of our colleagues and students encounter racism and other forms of discrimination on a daily basis. We believe that it is our collective responsibility to work to eradicate racism by confronting it wherever we encounter it. We support and endorse statements issued in recent days by many of our sister organisations in the cognitive sciences. We encourage all members of the MPI to educate themselves further about racism and about inequality, and to engage in actions that help identify and work towards dismantling structures that support discrimination. We promise that we will do the same. 

However, words, though powerful, are not enough. Over the next few months, we also plan to develop, and contribute to, programs of support to examine and help combat inequality, and address issues such as the lack of diversity at postgraduate, postdoctoral and tenured level. 

In the meantime, we encourage you to sign the general statement by scientists in support of people protesting policy brutality against Black communities, produced by the Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics oversight committee, which you can find here.  

Prof dr. Simon Fisher

Prof. dr. Peter Hagoort

Prof. dr. Antje Meyer

Prof. dr. Caroline Rowland

Laura Manko, MSc                                                                                                                                       

June 2020