The phrase "leaky pipeline" describes the diminishing numbers of women and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in STEM fields at every stage of their academic careers. Unfortunately, this term implies a deficit-minded view of students' abilities to persist in such disciplines. It implies that the students leak out and leave when they can't meet institutional standards.

What if women and BIPOC don't passively leak out of the pipeline but instead are forced out of it under pressure behind blockages? Stopping the leaky pipeline requires an introspective look by the gatekeepers who hold the power to make or break academic careers. The leaky pipeline is achieved in part by a playbook of actions and behaviors that are used to reinforce and perpetuate the disenfranchisement of women and people of color in STEM. My goal here is to shine light on those actions and behaviors that represent pipeline blockages so that they can be identified and removed.

As a Latina woman in STEM, I have had first-hand experience with such blockages as a student and as a faculty member on the tenure track in the geosciences. The small number of Latinas in senior geoscience faculty positions is a testament to how difficult it is to overcome such obstacles. When, in 2006, I obtained my Ph.D. in geology from a public research university in the Mountain West region, I was one of only four Mexican-American women to earn a degree in earth sciences in the entire country that year. As a tenured full professor now, I'm part of a tiny cohort; only 1 percent of full professors at colleges and universities are Latinas.