According to a recent study, a research grant application from an African-American scientist to the National Institutes of Health is significantly less likely to win approval than one from a white scientist.  The study, led by Donna K. Ginther, a professor of economics at the University of Kansas, found that an African-American scientist was one-third less likely than a white scientist to get a research project financed.  The study also found that members of other races and ethnic groups generally do not face the same predicament.

A New York Times article discussing the findings notes that the cause of this disparity is probably implicit bias, as opposed to overt racism, as the grant reviewers are “ likely to give the benefit of the doubt to someone they are familiar with, and with black researchers tending to keep a low profile in the scientific world.”   The study, which was recently published in the journal Science, is a telling example of how implicit bias hurts African-Americans trying to enter a potentially lucrative field from which they have been historically shut out.