One thing that got my attention in the first paper was the following text (emphasis mine):
While most university computing departments offer courses on computing ethics[1][2], the overwhelming majority of these courses focus primarily on the societal and legal impacts of topics such as the Internet, privacy, intellectual property, and cybercrime. To the best of the author’s knowledge, only one focused on the biases in academic and work environments that directly impact not only who pursues computing degrees and careers, but also the technologies they create.
A natural question on reading the above was does our department offer a course on computing ethics? Or my previous school, Brown? The answer is no for both as I checked on the links they cited. I am told there is discussion on creating such a course for the Data Science concentration, but if we are not teaching the best of undergraduates about ethical issues in computing, it is no surprise when they are in the industry as either software engineers or people with decision making power, a lot of such issues get sidelined as we learned from the racial bias debacle with a lot of AI research over the past decade (a problem that may only get worse with wider use).
\S5.2 in the same paper suggests a Race, Gender, and Computing course that maps to some of the 2019-2020 ABET Computing Accreditation Commission (Criterion 3) requirements[1:1] which seems like a great suggestion. Currently, our CS program does not conform to this accreditation.
In my understanding, if not a full-blown course on race and gender as suggested in the paper, our curriculum for a computing ethics course could include some instruction and discussion on topics related to these issues. Even that would be a huge step forward.
If not even that, the recently updated (2018) ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct should be included as discussion or required reading in some class within an undergraduate’s CS journey. Isn’t it the least we could ask for and do?
See also (July 6):
Another concrete action, I believe we all can take is not portray the parts of the city south or west of campus in negative light when newcomers to the community ask for advice on safe places to live near campus (something I have often overheard during orientation / visit day events). I have lived in the Woodlawn neighborhood on 64th St for a whole year and now on 67th St (west of Cottage Grove) and often times when I mention where I live to someone from the UChicago community, their remarks reek of inherent (often unknown) biases.
I see little children playing outside of my current apartment almost every day including right now. How could a neighborhood like that be considered unsafe for people to live in?