Hidden Figures and the Systemic Barriers Nobody Wants to Talk About
The Scene That Should Make Every Leader Uncomfortable
There is a scene in Hidden Figures that I think about constantly. Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson, has to run half a mile across the NASA campus just to use a bathroom. Every single day. In heels. Carrying a stack of papers. Losing forty minutes of productive time because nobody thought to question whether the building she worked in should have a restroom she was allowed to use.
Nobody put up that barrier to be cruel. It was just the way things were. And that is exactly what made it so hard to fix.
"The Way Things Are" Is Doing a Lot of Heavy Lifting
I coach faculty in academic medicine. Smart, driven people who chose one of the hardest career paths imaginable. And I hear versions of Katherine's bathroom problem all the time.
Not the same barrier, obviously. But the same structure. Systems that quietly cost people time, energy, and opportunity — and that everyone has just accepted as normal.
The meeting that is always scheduled during school pickup. The promotion criteria that reward a type of research productivity only possible if you have no clinical load. The mentorship network that runs on golf outings and after-hours drinks. None of it was designed to exclude anyone. But it does.
That is the thing about systemic barriers. They do not announce themselves. They just sit there, invisible to the people they do not affect, exhausting to the people they do.
Al Harrison Had a Crowbar. Do You?
One of the most satisfying moments in the film is when Al Harrison, Kevin Costner's character, takes a crowbar to the "Colored Restroom" sign. He does not form a committee. He does not commission a study. He sees the problem and removes it.
Now, I am not saying leadership is always that simple. It is not. But I am saying that too many leaders in academic medicine see the metaphorical sign on the wall and decide it is someone else's job to take it down.
You do not need a crowbar. You need the willingness to look at your department and ask an honest question: who is this system actually built for?
Three Things Leaders Can Do Today
Look at who is not in the room. Not just in terms of demographics, though that matters. Look at who is missing from decisions, from collaborations, from the informal conversations where real influence happens. Then ask why.
Audit the unwritten rules. Every department runs on them. Who gets the protected research time. Who gets the teaching load that makes publishing impossible. Who gets tapped for the visible committee and who gets stuck with the invisible service work. Write those rules down and see if they still seem fair.
Stop waiting for someone to complain. Katherine Johnson did not complain about the bathroom. She just ran. Every day. Until she could not hide it anymore. The people most affected by systemic barriers are often the least likely to raise them, because raising them carries its own cost.
It Was Never About the Bathroom
The bathroom was never the real problem. The real problem was a system that had not bothered to consider whether it worked for everyone in it. Katherine Johnson did the math that helped put a man in orbit. Imagine what she could have done with those forty minutes back every day.
I work with faculty who are doing extraordinary things under systems that were not designed with them in mind. They are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the barrier to be seen.
If you are a leader in academic medicine, that is your job. See the barrier. Name it. Remove it.
And if you are the one running half a mile every day just to do your work, I want you to know — it is not your fault that the system was built this way. But you deserve someone in your corner who helps you navigate it while pushing to change it.
That is what coaching is for. If you want to talk about what that looks like, I am here.
