We hope you are staying safe and healthy during this difficult time. COVID-19 has had a dramatic impact on our daily lives, with mandates to practice social distancing, school closings, and many businesses shutting down. At the NCID, we remain dedicated to supporting, elevating, and engaging with scholars and scholarship that inform issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, especially as related to COVID-19.

On the immediate term, we wanted to share two timely and relevant writing opportunities:

  • We have extended the deadline for the Pop-Up Writing Opportunity: Disabled and Chronically Ill, until April 10, and we further invite pitches from diversity scholars whose research and scholarship consider issues related to disabled and/or chronically ill communities and COVID-19. For example, how are the disabled and chronically ill impacted by the rapid shift to online/telework environments? What do family support and accommodations look like? What does it mean that accommodations these communities have been denied for years have suddenly become the new normal for others? What can we learn from these communities in order to adjust to the ever changing circumstances?
  • Along with direct public health impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about increasing racist and xenophobic violence. For instance, President Trump has referred to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus," likely stoking and emboldening the type of anti-Asian discourse and bias that has led to an uptick in anti-Asian violence. Such discourse and acts reflect and reinforce pseudoscience-based thinking and linkages between race, biology, and culture. We are seeking contributors whose scholarship speaks to the racialization of pandemics or other public health phenomena and the social consequences that follow.

We want to acknowledge the shifts/changes that your families and communities have had to make, and as we anticipate the following weeks/months to be disruptive and unsettling, please know that the NCID is here to support you in your work.

We invite you to submit pitches for the opportunities noted above. To submit a pitch, authors must have scholarship directly related to the topic. Priority selection will be given to members of the Diversity Scholars Network.

We also welcome you to utilize the Diversity Scholars Network Facebook Group to share ideas, resources, or to connect with one another.

Best, 

William Lopez & Tabbye Chavous

Submit A Pitch