'No one is immune from inheriting racial, gender and sexual orientation biases,' says Derald Wing Sue, PhD, a professor of psychology and education at Teachers College of Columbia University, who studies multicultural counseling and racism. In a study published in Educational Researcher in 2015, for example, psychologist Carola Suárez-Orozco, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, observed microaggressions in almost a third of the 60 community college classrooms she and her team studied, most committed by instructors. Microaggressions-the brief statements or behaviors that, intentionally or not, communicate a negative message about a non-dominant group-are everyday occurrences for many people. 'You'd be pretty if you lost some weight.'
