Prior work finds a diversity paradox: diversity breeds innovation, and yet,
underrepresented groups that diversify organizations have less successful
careers within them. Does the diversity paradox hold for scientists as well? We
study this by utilizing a near-population of ~1.2 million US doctoral
recipients from 1977-2015 and following their careers into publishing and
faculty positions. We use text analysis and machine learning to answer a series
of questions: How do we detect scientific innovations? Are underrepresented
groups more likely to generate scientific innovations? And are the innovations
of underrepresented groups adopted and rewarded? Our analyses show that
underrepresented groups produce higher rates of scientific novelty. However,
their novel contributions are devalued and discounted: e.g., novel
contributions by gender and racial minorities are taken up by other scholars at
lower rates than novel contributions by gender and racial majorities, and
equally impactful contributions of gender and racial minorities are less likely
to result in successful scientific careers than for majority groups. These
results suggest there may be unwarranted reproduction of stratification in
academic careers that discounts diversity's role in innovation and partly
explains the underrepresentation of some groups in academia.

研究发现在科学界中，虽然少数群体具有更高的科学创新率，但是他们却面临晋升困难的局面，导致在学术界中的代表性不足。这一现象被称为多样性悖论，它折射了在科研领域的社会结构中存在的不公平。