Recognizing and Mitigating Racial and Ethnic Interview-Associated Microaggressions Across the Academy.

Microaggressions in pharmacy education interviews can have a significant impact, often reinforcing a message that underrepresented minority (URM) candidates must assimilate for acceptance, rather than being invited to contribute their authentic identities to diversify and strengthen the institution. Interviewers may ask inappropriate questions or make offensive comments without intending to cause harm; however, the impact of the words on the interviewee are valid and cannot be ignored. This text focuses on the challenges faced by URM faculty in the context of academic pharmacy interviews, which potentially contribute to their underrepresentation in academic pharmacy. The authors provide examples of perspectives and experiences from URM pharmacy faculty when interviewing for academic pharmacy positions. This article proposes several recommendations, such as microaggression prevention strategies, bias training, and institutional culture improvement. These solutions can help institutions achieve a sustainable means of recruiting and retaining URM faculty.