I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2653 
To direct the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to 
carry out programs and activities to ensure that Federal science agencies 
and institutions of higher education receiving Federal research and devel-
opment funding are fully engaging their entire talent pool, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 25, 2017 
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas (for herself, Mr. FOSTER, Mr. 
PETERS, Ms. NORTON, Mr. TAKANO, Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts, Ms. 
BONAMICI, Mr. TONKO, Mr. PRICE of North Carolina, Ms. ESTY of Con-
necticut, Ms. LOFGREN, Ms. ROSEN, Mr. PERLMUTTER, Ms. SLAUGH-
TER, Mr. GRIJALVA, Mr. TED LIEU of California, Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS 
of Illinois, Mr. KILMER, Mr. KENNEDY, Mr. BEYER, and Mr. LIPINSKI) 
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
Science, Space, and Technology 
A BILL 
To direct the Director of the Office of Science and Tech-
nology Policy to carry out programs and activities to 
ensure that Federal science agencies and institutions of 
higher education receiving Federal research and develop-
ment funding are fully engaging their entire talent pool, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘STEM Opportunities Act of 2017’’. 
(b) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) Many reports over the past decade have 
found that it is critical to our Nation’s economic 
leadership and global competitiveness that we edu-
cate and train more scientists and engineers. 
(2) Research shows that women and minorities 
who are interested in STEM careers are dispropor-
tionately lost at nearly every educational transition. 
(3) The National Center for Science and Engi-
neering Statistics at the National Science Founda-
tion collects, compiles, and publishes data on the de-
mographics of STEM degrees and STEM jobs in the 
United States. 
(4) Women now earn nearly 37 percent of all 
STEM bachelor’s degrees, but major variations per-
sist among fields. In 2015, women earned only 19 
percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in engi-
neering and 18 percent in computer sciences. Based 
on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, jobs in com-
puting occupations are expected to account for near-
ly 2⁄3 of the projected annual growth of newly cre-
ated STEM job openings from 2014 to 2024. 
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(5) In 2015, underrepresented minority groups 
comprised 39 percent of the college-age population 
of the United States, but only 17 percent of stu-
dents earning bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields. 
The Higher Education Research Institute at the 
University of California, Los Angeles, found that, 
while freshmen from underrepresented minority 
groups express an interest in pursuing a STEM un-
dergraduate degree at the same rate as all other 
freshmen, only 22.1 percent of Latino students, 18.4 
percent of African-American students, and 18.8 per-
cent of Native American students studying in STEM 
fields complete their degree within 5 years, com-
pared to approximately 33 percent and 42 percent 5- 
year completion rate for White and Asian students, 
respectively. 
(6) In some STEM fields, including the com-
puter sciences, women persist at about the same rate 
through doctorate degrees. In other fields, including 
the physical sciences and mathematics, their num-
bers decrease by as much as 1 in 3. Overall, women 
earned 39 percent of STEM doctorate degrees in 
2014. The number of minority students earning 
STEM doctorate degrees drops by nearly 40 percent. 
Students from underrepresented minority groups ac-
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counted for only 10.5 percent of STEM doctorate 
degrees awarded in 2014. 
(7) The representation of women in STEM 
drops significantly again at the faculty level. Overall, 
women hold only 23 percent of all tenured and ten-
ure-track positions and 24 percent of full professor 
positions in STEM fields in our Nation’s universities 
and 4-year colleges. Black and Hispanic faculty to-
gether hold about 6.4 percent of all tenured and ten-
ure-track positions and 7 percent of full professor 
positions. Many of the numbers in the American In-
dian or Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian or 
Other Pacific Islander categories for different fac-
ulty ranks were too small for the National Science 
Foundation to report publicly without potentially 
compromising confidential information about the in-
dividuals being surveyed. 
(8) The representation of women is especially 
low at our Nation’s top research universities. Even 
in the biological sciences, in which women now earn 
more than 50 percent of the doctorates and passed 
the 25 percent level 37 years ago, women make up 
only 25 percent of the full professors at the 100 or 
so most research-intensive universities. In the phys-
ical sciences and mathematics, they make up only 11 
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percent of these senior positions, in computer 
sciences only 10 percent, and across engineering 
fields only 7 percent. The data suggest that approxi-
mately 6 percent of all tenure-track STEM faculty 
members at the most research intensive universities 
are from underrepresented minority groups, but in 
some fields the numbers are too small to report pub-
licly. 
(9) By 2050 underrepresented minorities will 
comprise 52 percent of the college-age population of 
the United States. If the percentage of female stu-
dents and students from underrepresented minority 
groups earning bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields 
does not significantly increase, the United States 
will face an acute shortfall in the overall number of 
students who earn degrees in STEM fields just as 
United States companies are increasingly seeking 
students with those skills. With this impending 
shortfall, the United States will almost certainly lose 
its competitive edge in the 21st century global econ-
omy. 
(10) According to a recent Association for 
Women in Science survey of over 4,000 scientists 
across the globe, 70 percent of whom were men, 
STEM researchers face significant challenges in 
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work-life integration. Researchers in the United 
States were among the most likely to experience a 
conflict between work and their personal life at least 
weekly. One-third of researchers surveyed said that 
ensuring good work-life integration has negatively 
impacted their careers, and, of researchers intending 
to leave their current job within the next year, 9 
percent indicated it was because they were unable to 
balance work and life demands. 
(11) Female students and students from under-
represented minority groups at institutions of higher 
education who see few others ‘‘like themselves’’ 
among faculty and student populations often do not 
experience the social integration that is necessary for 
success in all disciplines, including STEM. 
(12) A substantial body of evidence establishes 
that most people hold implicit biases. Decades of 
cognitive psychology research reveal that most peo-
ple carry prejudices of which they are unaware but 
that nonetheless play a large role in evaluations of 
people and their work. Unintentional biases and out-
moded institutional structures are hindering the ac-
cess and advancement of women and minorities in 
science and engineering. 
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