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Participation in higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion work: a relational intersectionality of organizations analysis

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Participation in higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion work: a relational intersectionality of organizations analysis

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Content PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK

PARTICIPATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
WORK:
A RELATIONAL INTERSECTIONALITY OF ORGANIZATIONS ANALYSIS
by
Theresa Elpidia Hernandez

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(URBAN EDUCATION POLICY)

December 2022

Copyright 2022 Theresa Elpidia Hernandez
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
ii
Dedication
Our ends cannot justify our means if our means do not manifest our ends.
As we practice aligning our actions to our words,
may our actions manifest our intentionality,
may our intentionality manifest our critical reflection, and
may our praxis manifest our freedom dreams.

This dissertation is dedicated to all the Black, Indigenous, Latina/e, and Asian American women and
nonbinary people who have labored to manifest their freedom dreams throughout higher education.

PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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Acknowledgements
Thanks…? Such a small, simple word tasked with so much. How does one begin to show
gratitude for all that has transpired, painful lessons learned and compassionate grace alike, and to all
who have been a part of those experiences with recognition, comfort, support, compassion,
validation, grace, patience, love, reflection, and their very presence (no small thing!)? I don’t believe
words, powerful as they are, can possibly accomplish this lift on their own. As a perfectly imperfect
being, I commit to live in my gratitude towards the individuals and communities that have held me
and toward the those who will present me opportunities to hold them in community and
compassion. Thank you all in advance for your grace with the inadequacy of the words that follow;
please know my gratitude is not limited to these passages.
In the queer community tradition, I have chosen my family out of necessity. I am immensely
grateful for the family I have invited into my life and to all of you for choosing me back. Though
not part of my family, I am also grateful to my team of mental health professionals from the past
couple of years for helping me stay on the journey for a more wholistic well-being.
Diana, we share blood but that is not what binds us. I know you were just a child trying to
survive yourself and not much further along when you became my primary caregiver. By sharing this
I want to acknowledge your amazing capacity for loving and caring—one of your best qualities! I
have looked up to you, admired you, and wanted desperately for your attention since I was a babe in
diapers. I wish you could have known, felt back then how I saw you—magnificent, powerful,
beautiful from inside out, multi-talented, and so loving. I still see you in these ways and you continue
to inspire my imitation (blue hair don’t care, before it became commonplace during the pandemic). I
am grateful for every moment we choose to share getting to know and grow with each other. To the
silly, fun times ahead! I love you too muchy!
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
iv
Jasmin, our friendship survived that first adulting experience of moving, on with
school/work, out of the country, along the journey of life and I am so thankful it did. Your light has
been a presence in my life that I literally can’t imagine living without. You have carried me and loved
me in some of my darkest, heaviest moments. You’ve also shared some of my happiest, beautiful,
and silly memories. I am so proud of you for all that you set out to do and have accomplished. You
are illuminating the path for me in so many ways, concrete and intangible. I’m looking forward to all
the adventures we are going to share as our journeys continue. My chosen sibling, I’m so grateful
you call me friend. Te amo.
Juan, I love you always, my facebook husband. You are always with me as I am always with
you no matter how our paths continue. Your heart is true; you’re a pal and confidant. Thank you for
being a friend.
Lee, I not only chose you to be a mysteriously-younger-older sib but also selected you to be
my boss, thus beginning our beautiful friendship. You expanded my horizons in so many ways and
to so many places, like the emergency room (LoLz!) and Hong Kong. I’m grateful you were there
when I finally left the nest; I have felt you in my corner all these years, through all the twists and
turns life has taken. Your youthful wisdom and serious skills for having a good time are my constant
guides. I love you!
Nell, Rickie, and birthday-twin Jim, thank you all for adopting me! Nell, thank you for being
another awkward first year at that SPEaK meeting with intimidatingly cool scholar activists who all
knew each other! And thank you for sharing your family with me, first by arranging them to store
my (ridiculous amount of stuff) as an undergrad and then through that fateful, cathartically tear-filled
thanksgiving. Rickie, thanks for taking me in, receiving my tears, and showing me another way to
family. Jim, thank you for sharing our birthday since it was yours first, technically (read: in a western,
linear sense of time and not at all the only sense possible). I love you, all.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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Kai, thank you for being a friend! From that night you took a chance on me being someone
worthy of your vulnerability to all our Golden Girls and food-based bonding ever since, I’m so
happy to have you as part of my family. Te amo, hermano.
Robert, thank you for loving my sister. You have never met a person more deserving or
easier to love. Let her abundant compassion rub off on you. You are the luckiest person in the world
to be chosen by her, even though that came with me =P! Thank you, along with her, for being my
safe harbor in the storm. I love ya, big guy!
Gloria, thank you for recognizing and validating me in this journey, not just the
re/traumatization that is the current PhD experience but also life. We only met a couple years ago
but our bond is strong and deep. You deserve special honors for helping me survive this diss (read it
w a lisp, lol). You know I got you when your turn comes! I love you mujer!
Cyn, you were the first person to make me feel like I could have a family at Rossier, and not
that Trojan one, pero real familia. Your hermanidad has meant so much to me over these years, I
don’t think I could possibly tell you enough for you to really know. I’m so proud of the comunidad
that we and others built with the Latina/e/x PhDs. To all the mujera/e/xs y gente in that space, si
se puede live in our truths, our power, and our collectivity as we reclaim knowledge, learning, and
education from academia in the names of our ancestors and descendants. Cyn, mija, I love you!
Román, your friendship and mentorship have been profound, from how to build comunidad
in academia, being un colega con respeto, and a leader with humility and grace. Thank you for being
an elder and shepherd of the Latinx Collective, started by Dra. Diane Nevárez. This space, the
Nevárez Collective, has meant so much to me throughout my time at Rossier, especially co-
facilitating the group with Mabel and Adrián two years ago. The group and the community you each
fostered helped me know the possibility of the Latina/e/x PhDs. Román, much love, hermano.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
vi
Steve, if I didn’t have you to help me repeatedly get my head back on straight, I could not
have made it here! Thank you, fam, love you!
Speaking of family, the #LastObamaCohort (and the best cohort of all times) has been my
family at Rossier since (Thurs)Day One with happy hour at Traddies. We eventually made our way
to the light aka The Lab’s wonderful staff and sun-drenched patio. From the moment we all shared
how lost we were, the walls came down and we had each other’s backs, keeping each other laughing,
sometimes through tears. Adrián, wise beyond your years, I’m looking forward to learning from your
mentorship for years to come. Ash, you made all those long day-nights at WPH better with your
light; thanks for showing me how one can live their best life after PhD. Christina, I cherish your
infectious smile and example of how to not let this academic thing take over one’s life. David, my
work brother (rewriting the work husband script), those first couple of years in the bullpen would
have just been bull without you. Liane, my dearest, thank you for your constant shoulder,
unwavering encouragement, and gratitude-filled disposition—thanks especially for holding space for
my growth in that last area. Martin, thanks for showing me it is possible to care deeply and not take
yourself too seriously, all while being a steadfast friend. Neha, despite our differences I have found a
kindred spirit in you and can’t wait to explore where it takes us. Neil, my verbal sparring partner and
TV crew buddy, I’ve learned much from you through open dialogue and care. Sarah, thanks for
holding it down/being the best wedding date I could have asked for. Tas, you have given me one of
my most cherished memories that day we brunched into late night drinks; it’s always the quiet
studious ones. Shout out to the honorary cohort members: Ashlee, Eric, Eryka, Grace, Justin, and
Monique. The family wouldn’t be complete without any of you!
To the members of my committee, Dr. Posselt, Dr. Bensimon, Dr. Hancock Alfaro, and Dr.
Harper, I would not be at this juncture without each and every one of you. Julie, my advisor,
mentor, and teacher, you have guided me from our first video conference that I didn’t even realize
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
vii
was an interview to my first acceptance for doctoral study to these letters at the end of my name for
always. Your compassion and support have shepherded me through the hardest thing I have ever
accomplished in my life. Estela, I’m so grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to learn from you as
your student, TA, and through the work of CUE. Ange-Marie, I’m full of gratitude for you, your
scholarship, and your stewardship, which have been inspirational for my work. Shaun, thank you for
being one of the first faculty to believe in me and sticking by me as our journey’s crisscrossed paths.
Finally, and most importantly, to my participants, thank you for your generosity with time,
patience, and vulnerability. This work exists because you opened up and shared with me your wealth
of experiences and perspectives, at times painful and fraught. I hope to pay forward my gratitude to
you all through my scholarship and praxis of intersectional equity in education.

PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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Table of Contents

Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. xi
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................. xii
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... xiii
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
The Problem Space ............................................................................................................... 4
The Context ........................................................................................................................... 5
The Study & The Research Questions ................................................................................. 6
The Purpose .......................................................................................................................... 8
Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................................... 8
Chapter 2: Practitioner Participation in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work in
Academia ...................................................................................................................................... 10
Constituting Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work in Higher Education ....................... 10
Diversity: A Matter of Representation .............................................................................. 11
Inclusion: Integrating Diversity ......................................................................................... 14
Intersectional Equity: Transforming Power Relations to Foster Social Justice ............ 18
Diversity and Inclusion: Equity Resources ....................................................................... 21
Higher Education Practitioners’ Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work .......................... 23
Focusing on Domains and Organizational Contexts ........................................................ 23
Theoretical Perspectives in Empirical Research on DEI Work ...................................... 28
Methodological Approaches ............................................................................................... 29
Major Themes from the Literature ................................................................................... 31
Conclusion: Reviewing the Gaps ........................................................................................ 37
Chapter 3: Examining DEI Work with a Relational Intersectionality of Organizational
Lens ............................................................................................................................................... 38
Relational Sociology ............................................................................................................ 38
Bonds Rather Than Essences ............................................................................................. 39
Networks: Configurations of Transactions, Relations, and Positions ............................ 40
Defining a Relational Field ................................................................................................. 40
Relational Sociology in Higher Education ........................................................................ 41
Intersectionality ................................................................................................................... 42
Interrelational Transformations of Power ........................................................................ 43
Transformative Commitments to Women of Color ......................................................... 45
Intersectionality in Higher Education ............................................................................... 46
Racialized Organizations .................................................................................................... 47
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Potential of Scholarship on Racialized Higher Education Organizations ..................... 49
Relational Intersectionality of Organizations: A Conceptual Framework ......................... 50
Interrogating Potential Tensions & Shared Assumptions ............................................... 50
Developing the RIO Conceptual Framework: Contributions from Three Theories .... 51
Conclusion: Studying Participation Processes in DEI Work with RIO ............................. 57
Chapter 4: An Embedded Case Study: Practitioner Participation in DEI Work ................. 58
Embedded Case Study Design ........................................................................................... 59
Case Selection ....................................................................................................................... 60
Defining and Bounding the Embedded Case Study ......................................................... 63
Sampling and Recruitment Strategies ............................................................................... 65
Data Collection ..................................................................................................................... 67
Data Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 72
Trustworthiness, Ethical Considerations, and Limitations ............................................. 76
Researcher Positionality and Equity Concerns ................................................................ 80
Chapter 5: The Case of INCLUDES: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis ........................... 83
Broadening Participation: The NSF Takes on the Diversity Challenge ............................ 83
Introducing the INCLUDES Case: A “Bold, New” Flagship DEI Program for NSF ...... 86
INCLUDES Program Solicitations: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis ........................ 88
INCLUDES Goals: Diversity and Integration, Parity, and Innovation ......................... 88
What’s the Problem with INCLUDES? .............................................................................. 98
Other BP Problem Spaces ................................................................................................. 101
The CPDA Summary: Expected INCLUDES-Funded Project Characteristics ............... 102
Chapter 6: The Development and Implementation of DiSHE, An Embedded Case Study 104
DiSHE: A Typical INCLUDES-Funded Project ............................................................... 104
Blurred Visions: DEI Work through Many Looking Glasses ............................................ 106
Missing Organizational Learning for a Shared Vision ........................................................ 107
DEI Undifferentiated ........................................................................................................... 109
Distinguishing DEI around the “table,” but which table? ................................................... 111
The Goal(s) of DEI Work: When the Whole Is Less Than the Sum of Its Parts .............. 114
Misaligned Goals and Activities: Increasing Diversity or Creating Broader Change? ......... 114
Goal Consensus, Value Discord ........................................................................................... 117
Racialized-Gendered Disempowerment Through Ambiguous Leadership Roles and
Rights ................................................................................................................................. 119
Miss-Representations of Power: Tokenization and Racialized-Gendered Role Ambiguity . 120
“What Is Meant by Leadership”: Limiting Decision-Making and Agenda Setting Authority
............................................................................................................................................. 125
Configurations of Power: Communications, Role Ambiguity and Division of Labor ...... 128
Racialized-Gendered Advising Role Ambiguity and Communication Patterns ................... 128
Racialized-Gendered Division of Labor and Communication Patterns ....................... 132
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Building a Shaky Foundation without Essentials: Trust and Respect “Is Just a Minimum”
............................................................................................................................................ 135
Fomenting Mistrust through Disrespect and Emotional Labor ............................................ 136
A Crumbling Foundation Leads to Painful Renovations .................................................... 139
DiSHE Case Study Summary ............................................................................................. 140
Chapter 7: Working in Higher Education DEI while Black, Latina, Asian and a Woman . 142
Configuring Frustration: Caught between NSF and Organizational Structures .............. 143
Leadership without Full Recognition or Support ................................................................. 144
Configuring Insecurity and Instability Through Undermanagement and Underfunding ..... 151
Value and Expectation Misalignment ............................................................................... 154
When the Little Things Have Not So Little Ramifications .................................................. 154
This Ain’t To-may-to To-mah-to, Just Call the Whole Thing Off? ..................................... 156
Enacting Shared Leadership for Shared Benefits .............................................................. 158
We’ve Got the Power ............................................................................................................ 158
Enacting Shared Leadership by Sponsoring Leaders ............................................................ 160
Accountability for Shared Leadership .................................................................................. 162
Findings Summary ............................................................................................................. 163
Chapter 8: Discussion; Implications for Practice, Policy, and Research ............................... 165
Revisiting RIO ................................................................................................................... 166
Discussion of Findings ...................................................................................................... 168
Bringing Grant-Making Organizations Back into the Work They Fund ........................... 168
Racialized-Gendered Organizations & Intersectional Equity ............................................. 172
Finding Women of Color Practitioners ................................................................................ 179
Synthesis of Key Takeaways Across the Study ............................................................... 182
Implications ........................................................................................................................ 187
Implications for Practice ................................................................................................... 187
Implications for Policy ...................................................................................................... 190
Implications for Research and Theory ............................................................................ 193
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 194
References .................................................................................................................................. 196
Appendix A: Semi-Structured Interview with Women of Color Practitioners ................... 217
Appendix B: Semi-Structured Interview with Additional Project Team Members ........... 220
Appendix C: NSF BP Focused Programs with Solicitation Issued 2016-2020 ..................... 223
Appendix D: INCLUDES-Funded Higher Education Projects Active as of May 2020 ...... 224

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List of Tables
Table 1 Participant Pseudonym, Role, and Demographic Information by Project (RQ 3) p. 69
Table 2 Project 5: DiSHE Interview Participant Pseudonym, Role, Demographic Info, and
Data Collection (RQ 2) p. 71

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List of Figures
Figure 1 RIO Conceptual Model of DEI project p. 53

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Abstract
This study examines how higher education practitioners participate in developing and
implementing grant-funded diversity, inclusion, and equity work, particularly focusing on the
experiences of Black/African American, Latina/Hispanic, and Asian/Asian American women
practitioners. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in higher education is as prevalent and
varied as are the inequities that permeate the institution, from the underrepresentation of students
and faculty of color to myriad forms of structural and cultural marginalization and exploitation along
racialized and intersecting forms of social hierarchies. DEI rhetoric and activity have been
expanding for decades, but institutional change for intersectional equity appears to be stalled.
Important research continues documenting inequities, and scholars are beginning to systematically
examine the efforts to address them and why more progress has not been achieved. Current focus
has centered on documenting the benefits of diversity (in support of race-based affirmative action)
and critiquing the limitations of a diversity framing to affect transformative and lasting change.
Although many areas of DEI work remain to be explored, one important aspect that has not
received sufficient attention is how practitioners participate in developing and implementing these
initiatives. We know that the labor demanded of DEI work in higher education continues to fall on
the shoulders of women of color disproportionately and inversely to the returns it garners for them
in personal well-being and professional reward. I aim for my scholarship and praxis to improve the
lived experiences of women of color at the vanguard of creating liberating ways of being in relation
in academia and, thus, contribute to an intersectionally equitable higher education of the future.
I developed a conceptual framework, Relational Intersectionality of Organizations (RIO), to
combine insights from three theories at the micro, macro, and meso levels of analysis (relational
sociology, intersectionality, and racialized organizations, respectively) to guide the design of this
study and analyze intersectional power-laden processes. With the RIO framework as my guides, I
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
xiv
conducted a case study using critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA) to examine six solicitations
from the National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES program. In addition, I conducted 23
interviews and 41 hours of in-person observations as part of an embedded case study of the
Diversifying Higher Education (DiSHE) project, one 21 focused on higher education funded by
INCLUDES. Finally, as part of a purposeful over sampling strategy, I conducted 12 additional
interviews with women of color practitioners across eight other INCLUDES-funded projects. NSF,
which is one of the largest sources of funding for the STEM enterprise, recently launched the
INCLUDES in response to a call for bold, new action to create meaningful progress on broadening
participation in STEM. The resources that grant-funded work provide as well as the influences they
can wield make this program an important context for investigation.
Findings from my CPDA of INCLUDES indicated that the program did not define its goals
and problem space in alignment with a robust conception of equity. Outside of a consistent theme
of diversity and achieving representation in STEM for underrepresented groups on par with their
populations in the U.S., the primary goal driving INCLUDES was the development of the program
itself through a national network and hubs organized around a collaborative infrastructure.
The case study of DiSHE revealed that conceptual misalignments of diversity, inclusion, and
equity, which were not addressed by the project in any formal way, led to a dissensus of diversity
implicitly guiding the project’s vision and goal development. Disagreement about the projects goals
and understanding of how they were meant to address different aspects of diversity, equity, or
inclusion principles created further tensions in the project. As DiSHE implementation continued,
racialized-gendered disempowerment of impacted primarily women of color practitioners, most of
whom were Black, through ambiguous and tokenized leadership roles. Moreover, racialized-
gendered disempowerment was also perpetuated through project configurations such as
communications, additional role ambiguity, and division of labor—resulting from a nearly all white
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
xv
leadership team and project coordinators who were mostly Black women. Finally, DiSHE faced a
foundational challenge; it was built without respect and trust due to common microaggressions and
emphasis on productivity despite insufficient and imbalanced resource allocations.
From interviews conducted with additional women of color practitioners, a greater variety of
experiences were uncovered from participation in development and implementation of
INCLUDES-funded work. The first two themes echoed racialized-gendered challenges though less
apparently so. First, project configurations that were not well mapped on to organizational
structures led to constraints in the forms of leadership not being fully recognized or supported as
well as job insecurity and instability. The other way that these practitioners experienced racialized-
gendered difficulties were through value and expectation misalignments with other project members
based on participants cultural, political, and educational backgrounds. Lastly, some women of color
practitioners benefited from shared leadership through collaborative decision-making, sponsorship,
and accountability.
The discussion reviewed several implications for practice, policy, and research. The primary
contribution of this study suggests that for higher education DEI work to achieve the highest ideals
of intersectional equity, the practitioners who develop and implement it must enact intersectionally
equitable participation in the work. Based on the findings and synthesis from this study, I built on
Ray’s (2019) racialized organizations theory by rearticulating its four tenets as intersectional. In
addition, I proposed adding a foundational tenet: Organizations are always already imbued with the
intersectional power dynamics of the societies in which they are formed unless they are intentionally and actively
configured to subvert these dynamics. My aim for this study has been to highlight the experiences of
women of color practitioners working for DEI change in academia so that we might begin to change
the intersectional, inequitable relations of power within which they work and live.

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Chapter 1: Introduction
Higher Education in the United States was not created by or for racially minoritized, gender
marginalized, and socioeconomically disadvantaged peoples (Bernal & Villalpando, 2002; Gonzales,
2018; D.-L. Stewart, 2020; Wilder, 2013).
1, 2, 3
Transforming academia to uproot colonialist white
supremacist cisheteropatriarchy built into the institution is no easy undertaking (D.-L. Stewart,
2020). Indeed, stakeholders from throughout the higher education environment—particularly ones
from marginalized backgrounds—have labored for over half a century to increase access to, raise
outcomes from, improve experiences in, and empower the redefining of higher education for groups
who have been historically, systemically marginalized in academia. The growing area of work to
achieve these interrelated goals is most often referred to under the umbrella term diversity, equity,
and inclusion (DEI). Despite a proliferation of attention to systemic inequities, which has helped
expand the field of DEI work throughout academia, progress from these efforts remains limited
(Patton et al., 2019). Much work remains for the emergent body of scholarship that is starting to
investigate not only whether DEI efforts are making progress but also how and for whom.
Scholars have continued documenting a multitude of racialized, gendered, class-based, and
other systemic inequities in higher education. And, rightly so, as these intransigent challenges persist.
For instance, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people; women of all backgrounds; and people from
socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds continue to be underrepresented at the most selective

1
I use the term racially minoritized to highlight the social construction of race and to denote that Black/African
American, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous, and Asian/Asian Americans are not numerical minorities in
all social and institutional contexts (Harper, 2012; Nasir, 2011). The processes of racialization have constructed a
hierarchy in which Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous, and Asian/Asian
Americans are socially, materially, and psychically subordinated based on systemic racial hierarchies.
2
I use the term gender marginalized to draw attention to the social construction of gender, and the processes by which
women, transgender, and gender non-conforming people are subjected to subordination based on a binary cisgender
patriarchy.
3
While it is true that racially minoritized peoples were not allowed the freedom or power to shape the development of
higher education in the United States, their land, labor, and more was extracted and exploited to build the institution and
organizations that comprise it.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
2
colleges and universities (Bielby et al., 2014; Carnevale & Strohl, 2013; Espinosa et al., 2019; Posselt
et al., 2012; Terenzini et al., 2001). Beyond compositional diversity, scholars have documented the
racialized campus climates and STEM cultures that negatively impact the experiences and outcomes
of racially minoritized students and faculty, in particular, women of color (Harper & Hurtado, 2007;
Ong et al., 2011; Smith, 2004). Moreover, higher education researchers have shown that racism,
patriarchy, and other systemic intersectional inequities persist through their entanglements with the
development of higher education as an institution (Gonzales, 2018; Museus et al., 2015; Patton,
2016; D.-L. Stewart, 2020). These studies represent a small fraction of the variety of diversity,
inclusion, and equity challenges that the vast literature on higher education inequity has uncovered.
Higher education DEI work is as varied as are the challenges it is meant to overcome.
Diversity, inclusion, and equity are not synonymous terms, but rather substantively related concepts
that can be strategically linked as I will elaborate in the following chapter.
4
For example, DEI work
has involved efforts to increase racial and gender diversity of faculty, generally, (Liera & Dowd,
2018; Liera & Hernandez, 2021) and students on exclusionary campuses (Glasener et al., 2019) and
within STEM fields (Tsui, 2007). Faculty, staff, and students have also worked to enhance the
inclusivity of educational practices and spaces through co-/curricular revisions (Posselt et al., 2017)
and cultural centers (Harris & Patton, 2017). Meanwhile, some scholars have promoted institutional
responsibility for achieving parity in educational outcomes like retention, transfer and graduation for
racially minoritized students (Ching et al., 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015). Finally, alongside any
number of the previous activities, scholars and practitioners have also worked toward broad and
deep institutional change for the purposes of making academia more equitable (Hurtado et al., 2017;

4
As a concise guide, I use the terms diversity, inclusion, and equity to denote representation, integration, and
transformation of sociohistorical power relations, respectively. I refer to the various work carried out for any of these
aims as “diversity, inclusion, and equity” or the umbrella term “DEI” when not specifically discussing meanings and
aims particular to one concept or the relationships among them.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
3
Sturm, 2006). While some research has been conducted in each of these areas of DEI work, they do
not represent the majority of the literature.
The majority of scholarship on DEI work tends to focus on outcomes and conceptual
debates about terminology, goals, and purposes employed in the work (byrd, 2019; Patton et al.,
2019). The importance of investigating outcomes may be self-evident, but the language that frames
goals and purposes should not be dismissed as “semantics” in the colloquial use of the term. Words,
language, and discourse absolutely influence how we engage in DEI work (Ahmed, 2012; Foucault,
1978). These aspects of DEI work, however, are not the only ones that deserve attention. Scholars
need to not only assess the outcomes of stated deliverables and interrogate the framing of these
efforts, but also examine how practitioners—faculty, administrators, and staff of higher education
organizations—participate in the field of DEI work.
5
Practitioner-led DEI projects are spreading
throughout colleges and universities but remain largely understudied as potential levers for
institutional transformation (byrd, 2019; Patton et al., 2019; Posselt, Porter, & Kamimura, 2018).
This study is predicated on the assertion that developing DEI work that is truly transformational will
require acknowledging and transforming intersectional power dynamics not just for the intended
constituents of specific DEI initiatives but also among the very practitioners carrying out the work.
Critical questions remain about the processes of participation in the development and
implementation of DEI projects and the experiences of practitioners who carry them out.
Understanding how participation processes may or may not model equity, and the unintended
consequences therein, could help practitioners better participate in developing and implementing
DEI projects. Understanding how intersecting social and organizational power dynamics affect DEI

5
In addition to college and university faculty, administrators, and staff, higher education practitioners also come from a
bevy of organizations in the higher education environment, such as disciplinary and professional associations, research
centers, and practice-oriented organizations.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
4
work can help ensure that practitioner and organizational investments of time, energy, knowledge,
and material resources are more efficaciously directed toward transformational change in higher
education. In particular, financial investments from grant making organizations are one such
understudied source of organizational influence on the ways that DEI work is carried out
(McCambly & Colyvas, 2022). Improving our understanding of the processes of participation in
DEI work could help researchers and practitioners alike enhance their enhance efforts to remake
academia into an institution that is of and for people of color, women, gender non-conforming folx,
and others who have been historically and systemically marginalized.
6

The Problem Space
The problem space that DEI work operates in continues to generate literature for a maturing
area of research. DEI work itself, however, is rife with problems of its own that have not received
sufficient scholarly attention. In particular, the relationships among who the practitioners are, how
they come up with DEI initiatives, and how they carry out this work remain a black box.
Development and implementation activity within this black box constitutes what I have been calling
the process of participation in DEI work. My research shines light into this black box with a
relational, intersectionality, and organizational (RIO) conceptual framework, which is developed in
chapter two. Briefly, RIO draws on relational sociology for focusing on the interpersonal dynamics that
instantiate DEI work processes (Emirbayer, 1997; Mische, 2011), intersectionality for tuning into the
interdependencies of racism, patriarchy, and other power dynamics as well as the oft overlooked
experiences of women of color (Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2016; Lorde, 1984), and racialized
organizations for uncovering mechanisms through which systemic social hierarchies are
institutionalized through individual experiences with organizational processes (Ray, 2019; Ray &

6
While the word “folks” is already a non-gendered term, the spelling “folx” is starting to be used as a way to create
visibility and solidarity with gender non-conforming peoples. I use folx in solidarity with this impetus.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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Purifoy, 2019). In short, the RIO framework focuses attention on the social and organizational
positionings of practitioners and the relationships among them while examining how they function
together to develop and implement DEI work.
The Context
DEI work takes place in a wide variety of contexts through a wide variety of resources.
Among them, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has a congressional mandate to support the
“full participation of women, minorities, and other groups currently underrepresented in [science,
engineering, and technology]” (Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act, 1980). This
mandate and guidance from the Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering
(CEOSE) has led NSF to develop a portfolio of Broadening Participation (BP) programs for this
purpose. Collectively, these programs aim to achieve parity of representation with the U.S.
population for racially minoritized, gender marginalized, and differently abled people in STEM (i.e.,
science, technology, engineering, and math) education and industry. In 2021, NSF Broadening
Participation programs focused on these diversity and equity goals received approximately $462.5
million in funding (NSF, n.d.f).
In its 2012 biennial report to Congress, CEOSE put out a singular call for NSF to
“implement a bold new initiative, focused on broadening participation of underrepresented groups
in STEM” unlike any DEI efforts the agency had made to date (CEOSE, 2012, p. v). CEOSE (2012)
asserted that the initiative be on par with NSF centers in scope and scale; focus on institutional
transformation and system change; collect and disseminate longitudinal data; define clear
benchmarks of success; translate, replicate, and expand on successful activity; and significantly fund
individuals “who represent the very broadened participation” sought. Under Director France A.
Córdova, NSF responded to the committee’s call with the 2015 launch of the agency-wide program
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Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in
Engineering and Science (INCLUDES).
The INCLUDES program issued its first funding solicitation in 2016, seeking design and
development launch pilot projects of two to three years. The INCLUDES program requires
preliminary proposals and only accepts full proposal submissions from those invited based on an
initial screening. Eligibility criteria from the first solicitation for pilot projects required the Principal
Investigator (PI) to have “experience in leading distributed teams and organizations,” while only
encouraging submissions from “diverse teams” (NSF, 2016b, p.2). As a cross-cutting initiative, the
INCLUDES program draws funding and support from across the NSF. The initial solicitation lays
out a plan to incubate pilot projects, planning grants, conferences, alliances that build on and scale
up pilots, and a Coordination Hub meant to connect INCLUDES-funded projects and all DEI
activity carried out by NSF into a national network. Given the bold, equity focused call from
CEOSE (2012), the NSF INCLUDES program provides a well-defined, high stakes context for
studying how practitioners take part in developing and implementing DEI work.
The Study & The Research Questions
Accordingly, my dissertation examined developing and implementing higher education DEI
work funded by the NSF INCLUDES program as a relational process manifesting in organizational
contexts and through intersectional power dynamics.
7
I chose to study DEI work in higher
education that is federally grant funded for three primary reasons. First, I wanted to explore formal
DEI work carried out by a team of practitioners with varying organizational positions and power as
opposed to amorphous service work carried out by individual faculty. Second, I wanted to study
DEI work with dedicated material resources, the allotment of which could demonstrate the effects

7
The INCLUDES acronym stands for Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented
Discoverers in Engineering and Science.
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of intersectional power dynamics at work in project decisions. (Or, as has become a telling refrain
among DEI practitioners, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.) Finally, I
specifically selected the INCLUDES program as the most recent and prominent addition to NSF’s
BP portfolio of Focused Programs dedicated to DEI improvements as an indicator of where the
agency and, to some extent, federal DEI policy in higher education is heading. This study was
guided by the following three research questions:
1. How does the NSF INCLUDES program, as a form of federal policy, shape the
development of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) work in higher education?
2. How do social (e.g., race and gender) and organizational (e.g., role) power dynamics operate
through the implementation of an NSF INCLUDES-funded project in ways that manifest or
undermine principles of diversity, inclusion, and equity among colleagues?
3. How do women of color practitioners participate in and experience NSF INCLUDES-
funded DEI work?
The research questions are all oriented toward uncovering the processes and relationships that
connect people, their positionings, and their practice of higher education DEI work in and through
various levels of analysis. In plain terms, these questions seek to understand what is happening in
DEI work, how this differentially and systemically impacts variously positioned practitioners, and
what the broader implications are for DEI work moving forward.
In order to explore these intricacies, I conducted an embedded case study of the NSF
INCLUDES program and the higher education projects it funds. I created a database of 40 grant
solicitations from across 17 NSF BP focused programs issued between 2016, when the INCLUDES
program launched, and 2020 in order to understand the influence of this program’s policy on the
development of DEI work carried out by funded projects. I conducted 36 interviews with project
members holding positions of all levels from across nine different INCLUDES-funded projects out
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of the 21 projects funded to do DEI work in higher education that were active as of May 2020. I
purposefully oversampled self-identified women of color (N=22) to ensure a broader, more nuanced
understanding of their experiences with DEI work funded by INCLUDES. I also sampled one of
the funded higher education projects to serve as an embedded case study. I collected additional
documents from NSF, the INCLUDES program, and the case study project. Moreover, I conducted
41 hours of in-person observations of the embedded case study project’s meetings and activities.
The Purpose
The purpose of this study is twofold. Scholars need to study the ways that practitioners carry
out development and implementation of higher education DEI work so we all can do better, more
transformative work. We also need to ensure that the women of color practitioners doing the work
benefit from their own labor through generative rather than injurious experiences. With so many
demands on our time, energy, and material resources, this study can provide insights to help us
design and work in smarter ways to support just, equitable processes and outcomes in higher
education. Given the systemic, intersectional nature of the DEI problems in academia, the work we
do to address them is at its best when it develops new relations that create intersectionally equitable
ways of being in academia. This study underscores the need to measure the success of DEI work
not by its intended outcomes alone but also for how sustaining rather than extractive it is for the
women of color practitioners and others involved. I hope this study creates a paradigm shift in DEI
work that compels powerful, resource-rich agencies and institutional actors to work alongside
women of color practitioners and more who have been marginalized in academia while using their
influence in the service of these communities.
Organization of the Dissertation
This dissertation is organized into seven chapters. In chapter two, I review literature on the
concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity before turning to synthesize lessons from the literature
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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and identify gaps in research on DEI work. In chapter three, I develop the RIO conceptual
framework by first reviewing the contributing theories of relational sociology, intersectionality, and
racialized organizations. For each theory, I describe the tenets and relevance to higher education,
and more specifically DEI work in academia where possible. I then extrapolate how the fundamental
assumptions of these theories are compatible while showing how they provide unique contributions
through the preview of micro, macro, and meso-analytics. In chapter four, I describe the
dissertation’s embedded case study design in further detail, justifying my choices regarding case
definition, sampling, data collection, and analysis in connection to my research questions, the RIO
framework, and methodology. I also orient the reader by providing a statement on my positionality
as a researcher and the instrument of this study as well as steps I have taken to ensure
trustworthiness. In chapter five, I present findings from a critical policy discourse analysis of the
NSF INCLUDES case in response to RQ 1. In chapter six, I present findings from an embedded
project case study in response to RQ 2 and RQ 3. In chapter seven, I present findings that describe
in detail the experiences of women of color practitioners and provide further nuance to racialized
and gendered DEI work in higher education projects funded by the INCLUDES program in direct
response to RQ 3. Finally, in chapter eight, I review and synthesize the study’s findings and discuss
implications for practice, policy, and future research.

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Chapter 2: Practitioner Participation in Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work in Academia
In this chapter, I review literature on formal DEI work in higher education. I start by
examining the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity, suggesting an integrated and nuanced
approach to framing this broad area of work. Then, I review the emergent scholarship on DEI
work, noting common domains of work and organizational contexts that have been studied as well
as conceptual frames and methodological approaches that have been employed. Next, I synthesize
major themes from the literature before identifying gaps in our knowledge of DEI work. Finally, I
conclude by suggesting that research focused on (1) how DEI work in higher education is carried
out within organizational contexts and (2) an intersectional perspective can help practitioners
develop future efforts in the service of transforming academia for racial, gender, socioeconomic, and
other intersectional forms of equity.
Constituting Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work in Higher Education
In higher education, diversity, inclusion, and equity are often used interchangeably or
mentioned uncritically as an umbrella term to indicate a variety of issues related to race, gender,
class, and a bevy of other forms of difference by which people are categorized (Dowd & Bensimon,
2015). These terms signify distinct, though related, concepts. Only by attending to the substance and
boundaries of each concept can the relationships among them and their respective contributions be
clarified. In brief, diversity is about representation across difference, inclusion refers to how
difference is incorporated, and equity combines these elements while going further to signify a
whole grounded in social justice that is greater than the sum of those parts. A simplified notion of
equity starts and stops with parity. Whereas a robust conception of equity includes the notion of
representational parity in access and outcomes as well as the transformation of social structures,
cultures, and systems through the empowerment of historically, systemically marginalized groups
and institutionalization of their perspectives, lived experiences, and knowledge claims.
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Acknowledging distinctions among the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity lays a
critical foundation for arguing that diversity and inclusion can and should be productively employed
as resources for a broader equity project. In order to examine research on diversity, inclusion, and
equity work in higher education, I first explore how each concept has been employed in existing
scholarship, including their utility, limitations, and, importantly, connections.
Diversity: A Matter of Representation
Value in Critique. Diversity is the most basic of the DEI concepts and the most flagrantly
overused in relation to educational inequity. The overuse of diversity is twofold, as in pervasive and
used over and beyond its definition. Diversity in higher education refers to the presence or
representation of difference in various forms, and as a euphemism for race in particular. (Bensimon,
2005; Berrey, 2015; Glasener et al., 2019; Posselt, 2014). When convenient, the notion of race that
diversity conjures is benign and devoid of the social, historical consequences in which the construct
has come into existence and continues to be reified (Berrey, 2015; Chang, 2002). The obfuscation of
racialization in education along with the amorphous referents of diversity is what Berrey (2011)
terms higher education’s “modern day racial orthodoxy,” of which diversity is the hallmark (p. 574).
As a euphemism for race or people of color, diversity transforms from a term defined by plurality
into an attribute of racially minoritized peoples and individuals (Ahmed, 2012; Berrey, 2015).
Through the alchemy of this racial orthodoxy, groups and individuals who are marked non-white,
which is normatively raceless, come to embody diversity, such that diversity may be used to describe
or refer to a singular Black person. Given the problematic nature of a racial orthodoxy, particularly
one that is devoid of historical and systemic analysis, the utility of diversity seems dubious (Mayorga-
Gallo, 2019). Yet, the critiques of diversity are essential to excavating it as a resource, necessary but
insufficient, in the fuller, robust project of intersectional equity.
The Legal Launchpad to Ubiquity. The value of diversity as an educational benefit was
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popularized by Supreme Court Justice Powell in his 1978 Bakke opinion and later enshrined in
federal law by the 2003 Grutter and Gratz Supreme Court rulings. These rulings on race-based
affirmative action allowed that, following strict guidelines, race could be used as a factor in achieving
a diverse student body because it provides educational benefits. This legal justification for race-based
affirmative action set off an array of research findings supporting the benefits of racially diverse
student bodies and curricula (Milem, 2003; Tienda, 2013). Yet, the “benefits of diversity” frame
often focuses narrowly on the benefits provided by the presence of racially minoritized students on
predominantly white college campuses to white students, with less attention to whether and what
benefits accrue to the students marked “diverse” in these organizations (Chang, 2002; Hurtado et al.,
1998). Research has shown that the benefits of diversity rationale for affirmative action creates a
perverse racial debt such that white students may feel entitled to interactions with peers of color
(Warikoo, 2016).
A Matter of Limitations. Scholars have long challenged an approach to rectifying
educational inequalities that relies solely on the benefits of diversity as being superficial at best and
complicit in maintaining inequity at worst (Bell, Jr., 2003; Bensimon, 2005; Chang, 2002; Renner &
Moore, 2004). Indeed, the benefits of diversity rationale lacks a critical reflection on power that
entails questioning who benefits and how (Ahmed, 2012; Anderson, 2005; Berrey, 2015; byrd, 2019).
Efforts that seek only to change the composition of the student body through admissions or
recruitment may experience tensions around culture and inclusion (Berrey, 2015; Harper & antonio,
2008; Slay et al., 2019). The literature on microaggressions, racial battle fatigue, and hostile racial
climates suggests that attention to diversity alone, without tackling broader issues of inclusion and
equity, creates environments that take a toll on racially minoritized students and faculty (Harper &
Hurtado, 2007; McGee, 2016; Smith, 2004; Sue & Constantine, 2007). For example, Slay, Reyes, and
Posselt (2019) found that narrowly conceived diversity efforts that only aim to change STEM
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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graduate program enrollments without addressing the basis for institutionalized exclusion in
everyday experiences and interactions are bound to fall short. In their study, racially minoritized and
gender marginalized students left unwelcoming departments or refused to endorse them with
prospective students (Slay et al., 2019).
In the most damning interpretation, when diversity becomes the end goal it may produce
tokenized representation as a policy distraction that diverts attention from the fundamental racial
hierarchy of white supremacy/anti-Blackness and intersecting systemic inequities which remain
unchallenged (Ahmed, 2012; Bell, Jr., 2003; byrd, 2019; Castro, 2015; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015;
Posselt et al., 2017; Tichavakunda, 2021). The diversity discourse and subsequently framed diversity
work in academia have undeniably been tied up in neoliberal, interest convergence politics (Bell, Jr.,
1980, 2003; Berrey, 2015; Chang, 2002).
Foundation and Strategy. Yet, not everyone is ready to completely throw out the concept
of diversity, which still holds strategic currency both as a legal haven and steadfast part of the higher
education environment, including funding agency portfolios (Anderson, 2005, 2012; Chang, 2002;
Garces, 2014; Jayakumar et al., 2018; Pursley, 2003). Instead of supporting a meager form of
diversity, Chang (2002) argues for making it part of a larger discourse that involves “thinking beyond
admissions, recognizing transformative aims, and viewing learning more broadly” (p. 136).
Increasing diversity of representation as an end goal is insufficient at redressing the exclusionary and
inequitable conditions of higher education. Representation, however, still matters as we are
reminded on a regular basis by the lack of racial and gender diversity in highly selective universities’
student bodies, tenure-track and tenured professor ranks, executive administrations, STEM fields,
citations, editorial boards, and the list goes on. Representation, particularly at the decision-making
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tables throughout the institution of higher education and its environment, matters.
8
The integrative
and relational challenges of the diversity concept, including campus racial climate, are further
discussed in the next sections on inclusion and equity.
Inclusion: Integrating Diversity
Melting Pots, Salads Bowls, and Other Forms of Integration. Scholars and practitioners
sometimes have difficulty disentangling inclusion from the nebulous ways that diversity gets
deployed, but often agree that inclusion conceptually and practically involves diversity while going
further (Blessinger & Stefani, 2018; Harper & antonio, 2008; Tienda, 2013). In contrast to how
diversity has been defined and redefined beyond coherence, inclusion suffers from a ubiquitous
association with diversity that is seldom articulated explicitly. Similar to other scholars who situate
inclusion work as the onus of higher education practitioners (Harper & antonio, 2008; Museus,
2008; Williams et al., 2005), Tienda (2013) defines inclusion as “organizational strategies and
practices that promote meaningful social and academic interactions among persons and groups who
differ in their experiences, their views, and their traits” (p. 467). Through the association with
diversity, as in academic work framed under “diversity and inclusion” or “the inclusion of diversity,”
nominally inclusion may relate to the integration of many forms of difference, yet implicitly remains
“stuck” to race (Ahmed, 2012). Some scholars have drawn a more explicit relationship than mere
association, suggesting that inclusion is the enactment of diversity through interaction across
difference, particularly racial difference (Ahmed, 2012; Harper & antonio, 2008). Importantly,

8
The point here is not to tether a broader project for social justice unquestionably or perpetually to a rightfully critiqued
discourse of diversity but rather to recognize the unfinished groundwork and strategic maneuvering back and forth
between more basic and advanced goals that unfolds concomitantly with the evolution and purposeful redirection of
discourse. Just as discourse can create social relations, changing and wielding discourse are both strategies for changing
social relations (Foucault, 1978). Unlike scholars who insist a diversity framework can do more, be more transformative
(Chang, 2002; Garces & Jayakumar, 2014; Pursley, 2003) or others who argue there is nothing of value in the diversity
discourse (byrd, 2019; Renner & Moore, 2004), I argue acknowledging diversity’s conceptual limitations permits
discerning its usefulness as a necessary but insufficient component—representation of difference—for achieving equity.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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inclusion, often understood as the opposite of mandated segregation or even voluntary race-based
association, can be enacted in a multitude of ways and levels within or across academic contexts
while leaving other exclusionary or affinity spaces in those same organizations intact.
9
Some scholars
are more explicit in asserting that higher education inclusion efforts must go further, calling for
intentional design of cross racial interactions with attention to how these experiences impact racially
minoritized students (Harper & antonio, 2008; Museus, 2008). Forms of inclusion work on college
campuses, then, span from assimilationist to integrative, invoking the myriad metaphors associated
with integration in the larger United States context.
Organizational Manifestations and Environmental Extensions. The inclusion of
minoritized and marginalized individuals and groups interactions in higher education manifests
through a variety of interdependent organizational dynamics. An understanding of colleges and
universities as racialized organizations, which are generally serving and dominated by whiteness (Ray,
2019), is a useful framework for considering the organizational repercussions of inclusion work. This
perspective stands in direct contradiction to the way inclusion is carried out through the benefits
that diversity is understood to hold for white students (Warikoo, 2016). When viewing a college or
university as a racialized organization supporting whiteness, inclusion takes on sociohistorical
dimensions that beg questions of how and for whom this work is carried out. These considerations
extend inclusion work to dimensions of higher education organizations beyond managing of race
relations as part of campus climate, such as creating programming to broaden campus culture,
updating curriculum and pedagogy, and altering physical spaces (Harper & antonio, 2008; Kinzie &

9
In no way do I mean to imply that the de jure or de facto segregation experiences of racially minoritized people,
particularly Black Americans, constitute the same sociohistorical power relations as racial/ethnic affinity associations or
that managing interracial relations across such contexts would generate analogous significations. I only highlight that in
higher education, both contexts may be targeted by inclusion efforts due to this frame’s lack of power consciousness.
Indeed, spaces such as cultural centers and historically Black Colleges and Universities, neither of which are exclusionary
(Harper et al., 2009), have been attacked for lack of inclusion under neoconservative and neoliberal guises deficient of
sociohistorical context.
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Mulholland, 2008; Milem & Umbach, 2008; Museus, 2008). Many of these areas of inclusion praxis
may be relevant even on campuses designated as minority serving institutions, where students from
groups racially minoritized in the United States are not underrepresented.
The management of racialized relationships among individuals, groups, and higher education
organizations marks an important development of institutional responsibility in academia and differs
fundamentally from the assimilation of racially minoritized peoples into the fabric of white
dominated colleges and universities (Ahmed, 2012; Museus et al., 2017; Ray, 2019). To better
understand the complexities of racialized relationships at the center of inclusion praxis within higher
education organizations, scholars have conceptualized and empirically examined the multifaceted
aspects that constitute campus racial climates, cultures, and environments (Harper & Hurtado, 2007;
Hurtado et al., 1998, 2008, 2012; Museus et al., 2016). For instance, the campus racial climate
literature stresses that the racial composition of the student body (as well as tenure track faculty and
upper level administrators) is only one component that shapes racial climates (Hurtado et al., 1998).
Although frameworks vary somewhat, many scholars concur about the importance of a college or
university’s historical legacy of racial inclusion/exclusion, campus members’ psychological views of
race relations and perceptions of discrimination, behavioral experiences of interracial relations, and
organizational/structural elements such as policies and practices that guide day-to-day operations as
contributing to the racial climates on campuses (Hurtado et al., 1998, 2008; Milem et al., 2005).
Research has also shown that the campus racial climate at a given school is often perceived and/or
experienced differently by members of different racial groups with Black students generally having
less positive views/experiences than whites and others (Harper & Hurtado, 2007).
More recently, scholars are calling for new conceptions of the educational environment that
attend to micro, meso, exo (external networks and communities) and macro systems, influenced, in
part, by ecological perspectives and, in part, by a focus on supporting students of color (Hurtado et
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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al., 2012; Museus et al., 2016). For instance, the model for diverse learning environments (DLE
model), places the onus for managing inclusion at the organizational level on institutional actors as a
way to improve campus climates for diversity in contexts where racially minoritized students may be
over or under represented (Hurtado et al., 2012). As part of a more integrative and holistic approach,
the DLE model embraces notions of diversity and inclusion that purposefully encompass multiple
forms of social difference while maintaining a sensitivity to the enduring importance of race
(Hurtado et al., 2012). Still, other scholars are stressing a number of culturally relevant and
responsive institutional attributes and practices, such as a collectivist orientation and cultural
community service, that help create culturally engaging campus environments supportive of racially
minoritized students (Museus et al., 2016). While diversity remains an integral component of these
comprehensive environmental frameworks for improving and transforming higher education in
socially just ways, the embrace of relational and organizational framings extends towards a critical
conception of inclusion and equity.
Limitations. The work of inclusion in academia challenges practitioners to do something
with diversity, but still earns harsh criticisms from scholars who are invested in a vision of higher
education serving social justice. The fundamental limitation of inclusion as a frame for addressing
inequity in higher education is that inclusion is necessarily additive—even assimilative—as opposed
to transformative (Ahmed, 2012; Bell, Jr., 1980). Bell Jr. (1980) helped set off the intellectual
movement of critical race theory with his critiques of integration as a project of interest convergence
that leaves unchallenged institutional racism and the racist social hierarchy perpetuated by schooling.
Ahmed (2012), though focusing on the United Kingdom and Australia in her ethnography of
diversity and what it does in higher education, noted that inclusion is a “technology of governance”
for managing how diversity gets included in institutional life (p. 163). As such, being included draws
one in under the terms of inclusion that still signal others’ exclusion, thus perpetuating exclusionary
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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politics of an unchanged system (Ahmed, 2012). These critiques point to the ways in which work
and projects that are framed around inclusion, particularly when focused on the individual level of
relations, often lack an explicit acknowledgement or analysis of power relations. Projects funded by
NSF’s INCLUDES program, whose very name hearkens to inclusion, might well be expected to
manifest this oversight of power relations. Next, I discuss how equity work moves beyond this
constraint.
Intersectional Equity: Transforming Power Relations to Foster Social Justice
Recovering Complexity. Equity is a multifaceted concept oriented toward transforming
interdependent systems of power hierarchies which are driven by racialization, gendering, and other
historical social categorizations used for systemic exploitation through the self-determination and
empowerment of oppressed peoples (Bauman et al., 2005; Bensimon, 2005, 2007, 2018; byrd, 2019;
Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Garces & Gordon Da Cruz, 2017; Hancock, 2016; Liera & Dowd, 2018;
Museus et al., 2015; Posselt, Hernandez, Villarreal, et al., 2019). This version of equity that I offer,
drawing on the invaluable contributions of many critical scholars, might more precisely be
acknowledged as intersectional equity. The goal of intersectional equity work is to transform societal
and organizational practices, policies, and culture by institutionalizing perspectives, ways of living
and being, and knowledge claims from oppressed groups. Like representation in decision-making
authority, parity of educational outcomes, in particular by race, gender, and socioeconomic status, is
an important indicator of this transformation. These indicators, however, do not in and of themselves
define the transformaation of societal or institutional forms of social relations and the intersectional
power dynamics that drive them (Hancock, 2015, 2016). The ultimate vision is nothing short of
transforming the very institution of higher education and the power relations that operate through
and are sustained by academia (Chang, 2002).
Resisting Reductions. As equity work begins to gain traction in higher education, its
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19
ontological and epistemological complexity comes under threat; and equity is often reduced to a
notion of parity, confounded with less critical notions of diversity and inclusion, or merely used to
signal socially desirable values without deep engagement (Bensimon, 2018; McNair et al., 2020). As
they have been defined above, diversity and inclusion can play a role in achieving intersectional
equity. Yet, the simple addition of one plus the other does not beget the latter (Bensimon et al.,
2004; Bensimon, 2005; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008). Tokenized representation and ill-managed
integration make for structurally unsound building blocks. Even a critical mass of representation and
thoughtful inclusion, however, still do not necessarily disrupt intersectional sociohistorical power
asymmetries that maintain systemic privileges and oppressions. Furthermore, pursuing intersectional
equity through academia requires altering higher education opportunity structures, operating
systems, and resource allocations in ways that address the institution’s material and intangible debt
owed to racially minoritized communities, Black and Native American/Indigenous peoples, in
particular (Garces & Gordon Da Cruz, 2017). The relationships among higher education, wage
labor, and employment structures have also contributed to disproportionate and ongoing material
disadvantages for women, especially women of color, that an intersectional equity agenda could not
ignore. The interdependence of academia and other social institutions of society makes working to
achieve intersectional equity in academia that much more complex and imperative.
Implications for Means and Ends. The power dynamics at the heart of this transformative
project are historically grounded and relational. Consequently, intersectional equity work in higher
education should be historically grounded and relational as well. We know that racialized identities
impact perceptions and experiences of race relations on campus (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Harper
& Hurtado, 2007). The same is true for how people with marginalized and dominant identities
experience and know higher education as well as the DEI work carried out in this institution.
Mohanty (1993), arguing for an epistemic privilege for minoritized and marginalized peoples’
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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expertise in making sense of their own oppression, states: “Identities are theoretical constructions
that enable us to read the world in specific ways. It is in this sense that they are valuable and suggest
why we need to take their epistemic status very seriously” (p. 55). Mohanty writes of privileging the
epistemologies of minoritized people as valuable ways of knowing based not on essentialist and
static notions of identity but rather the lived experiences that influence subjectivity. This call to
privilege the epistemologies of racially minoritized peoples, in particular, attempts a sociohistorical
corrective to the balance of power embedded in knowledge claims and knowledge production.
Hancock (2015) might suggest a different rationale for ensuring the inclusion of the intellectual
contributions of women of color based on a notion of literacy stewardship, which enshrines a
communal responsibility to care for and do right by something valuable without owning it. In this
sense, DEI work and intersectional equity work, especially, owe a great deal to the women of color
scholars and activists who have labored for generations for their liberation and all of ours, which
must be acknowledged (Hancock, 2015, 2016; Lorde, 1984).
Scholars have increasingly acknowledged that implementing policy changes, big and small,
involves complex interpretive efforts (Spillane et al., 2002). DEI work is no different in this regard.
Higher education practitioners’ mindsets about educational inequity—whether framed through a
deficit perspective or equity-mindedness—orient how they carry out their work with significant
implications for the outcomes of racially minoritized students (Bensimon, 2007, 2012). Moreover,
implicit conceptions of organizational change as well as equity shape policy design and
implementation (Kezar et al., 2015; Spillane et al., 2002). For instance, Kezar and colleagues (2015)
found that practitioners involved in efforts to improve diversity and inclusion in STEM held implicit
assumptions about how change efforts in their disciplines work that led them to develop and
implement overly simplistic interventions. Therefore, the positionalities, mindsets, and conceptual
understandings of higher education practitioners who may work toward intersectional equity goals
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
21
matters for how they participate in developing and implementing this work and to what end.
Administrators disproportionately turn to racially minoritized and gender marginalized
practitioners to support DEI work, and these individuals are often in the avant-garde of pushing for
institutional change out of personal and political impetus (Ahmed, 2012; Jimenez et al., 2019; Lerma
et al., 2019; Zambrana, 2018). Yet, rarely is this work formally recognized and rewarded within the
dominant metrics of evaluation within academia, especially in STEM fields (Jimenez et al., 2019;
Uriarte et al., 2007; Zambrana, 2018). Contributions from women/folx of color to DEI work often
come with professional and personal sacrifice (Aguirre, 2000; Baez, 2000; Hirshfield & Joseph, 2011;
Lerma et al., 2019; Padilla, 1994). Instead of being taken for granted, the contributions of
women/folx of color should be understood as resources deserving recognition and reward as an
intersectionally equitable praxis. While practitioners of higher education should all be striving to do
intersectional equity work, progress is often uneven and non-linear, occurring within an institutional
environment oriented toward a diversity framework. As such, next I discuss reclaiming diversity and
inclusion as resources for intersectional equity.
Diversity and Inclusion: Equity Resources
Scholars have produced integral work that critically discerns how aiming for diversity and
inclusion falls short of equity. The ways in which fostering equity through institutional change may
rely on achievements in these areas, however, has received less attention. Acknowledging the
critiques of diversity and inclusion creates space to consider how these concepts may be used as
either foundational or strategic resources for equity work. Diversity and inclusion are interrelated,
foundational building blocks, I argue. They are necessary but not sufficient, for realizing the
transformative, social justice aims of equity in higher education (Ching, 2018). Effective diversity
and inclusion work, that is increasing women/folx of color representation in still exclusionary levels
and disciplines of higher education, may build capacity to address systemic equity issues (Posselt et
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
22
al., 2017, 2018). The challenge for practitioners doing DEI work is to redirect improvements in
diversity and inclusion towards transforming organizational structures and cultures that validate
racial and gendered experiences while supporting parity in outcomes. For instance, increasing the
representation of women of color in higher education leadership allows for them to have a greater
share of decision-making power over the evolution of academia while also reducing the potential
burden of tokenization. The presence and inclusion of women/folx of color throughout the
institution of higher education and its environment creates possibilities for transforming academia.
Intersectional equity work in academia, at its most rigorous, brings together notions of
diversity and inclusion while also creating a program of transformation that exceeds the sum of
those components. Yet, the material resources, political will, and legal justification
10
to address
inequity in higher education remains largely tied to diversity-framed work—though these conditions
may be changing for better or worse. Still, the need to marshal resources of time, money, and
political power presents a strategy for pursing intersectional equity through work responding to
appeals for diversity and inclusion. Whether accepting diversity and inclusion as a necessary
component or possible strategic framing to achieve intersectional equity goals, mistaking either
diversity or inclusion as goals for their own sake undermines social justice transformations of higher
education (Ahmed, 2006, 2012; Castro, 2015; Chang, 2002; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Posselt et al.,
2017). With this final caution in mind, diversity and inclusion work are still part of the broader
efforts in higher education that foundationally or strategically constitute DEI work. Next, I review
scholarship on practitioner participation in DEI work in higher education, drawing out strengths,

10
Garces (2014) provides a nuanced analysis of the legal discourses surrounding the US Supreme Courts
deliberations and opinions on affirmative action as well as the limitations and implications for racial equity. She
notes that in addition to race-based affirmative action justified by the benefits of diversity, possibilities remain for
defining merit in such a way as to build on rather than compete with diversity. This argument is taken up and
extended in the Association of American Colleges and University’s (2005) three-part paper series, Making
Excellence Inclusive (Bauman et al., 2005; Milem et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2005).
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
23
limitations, and major themes.
Higher Education Practitioners’ Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Work
Despite more than half a century of higher education work focused on goals of diversity,
inclusion, and equity, the study of how practitioners participate in these efforts is still a nascent area
of scholarship. This section reviews the domains and organizational contexts of DEI work,
prominent theoretical and methodological approaches used to study these efforts, and a discussion
of major themes that have emerged from this literature.
Focusing on Domains and Organizational Contexts
Higher education practitioners’ work to increase, improve, and foster diversity, inclusion,
and equity occurs throughout the institution of higher education and touches most domains of
academia (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008), defying easy classification. The
purpose of theoretically disentangling the aims of these three conceptual drivers is to reveal and
highlight the connections between them, and not to create a typology for the various practical forms
of DEI work that occurs in the field of higher education and its environs. In fact, the
interconnectedness of diversity, inclusion, and equity is partly what compels studying this work as a
complex whole, leaving to empirical study questions of whether and how any given initiative
responds to some or all of these aims regardless of terminology employed. Moreover, even
initiatives that set out explicitly to foster equity-mindedness and parity in educational outcomes do
not necessarily achieve these ideals to the fullest extent but may still hit some diversity or inclusion
targets (Ching, 2018; Ching et al., 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Felix & Fernandez Castro, 2018).
Below, I review domains and organizational contexts of DEI work that have been empirically
studied.
Domains. Researchers have studied diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives concerned
with a broad array of functional areas and myriad outcomes. Scholars have examined DEI work
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
24
focused on recruitment and admissions (Horn & Flores, 2003; Posselt et al., 2017, 2018; Posselt,
Hernandez, Cochran, et al., 2019; Slay et al., 2019), curriculum & pedagogy (Ching, 2018; LePeau,
2015; Lewis, 1990; Osei-Kofi et al., 2010; St. Clair & Kishimoto, 2010; Thompson et al., 2011), co-
curricular activities (Bowman et al., 2016; Harris & Patton, 2017; LePeau, 2015; LePeau et al., 2018),
faculty recruitment and hiring (Fraser & Hunt, 2011; Hutchins & Kovach, 2019; Liera, 2018; A. J.
Stewart et al., 2004), community college transfer and completion (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Ching
et al., 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Felix & Fernandez Castro, 2018), and broad institutional
policy changes (Ching et al., 2018; Dirks, 2016; Iverson, 2007, 2008, 2012; LePeau et al., 2018; Timar
et al., 2007). In reality many of these efforts are, by design, entangled across multiple domains. For
instance, a prominent thread of this research begins with facilitated, internal organizational
assessments and develops a related suite of activities to address racial equity gaps in student
outcomes from retention to graduation or faculty recruitment and hiring (Bensimon & Malcom,
2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Dowd & Liera, 2018; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008). Relatedly, the
research on this work focuses on the development of equity-mindedness and equity-based
organizational change in general as much as, if not more than, any particular functional area or
outcome.
An important domain to highlight within DEI work in higher education is that of culture
centers and multicultural student services. Although this work has been around for more than half a
century, largely prompted by protest from Black and other racially minoritized students in the late
1960s, scant scholarship has been published on this topic (Patton, 2010b; D. L. Stewart, 2011).
Much of the literature, which focuses on Black culture centers, provides advice to practitioners who
are mostly positioned within student affairs, recounts the historical beginnings of these spaces in
higher education organizations, or argues the ongoing necessity of work on college campuses
dedicated to critical, inclusive community development in academia (Sanders, 2014; D. L. Stewart &
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
25
Bridges, 2011). The limited empirical studies that have been conducted find evidence that these
culture centers provide critical support for racially minoritized students in historically and
predominantly white campuses (Harris & Patton, 2017; Patton, 2006a, 2006b, 2010a). Although the
work of culture centers and multicultural services is mostly housed organizationally within the
domain of student affairs, the professionals who operate in these spaces contribute to the university
in other important ways as well, including providing advice to senior administrators and supporting
academics (Patton, 2006a; D. L. Stewart & Bridges, 2011). Recently, monographs have been
published that tackle centers and services attending to issues faced by Latinx, Asian, Indigenous,
LGBTQ, and other groups minoritized on college campuses today (Patton, 2010b; D. L. Stewart,
2011). These works provide additional theoretical framing, adding intersectional perspectives on
race, gender, sexuality, and religion, in particular. Collectively, the literature on cultural centers builds
an empirical foundation justifying the ongoing need for Black student-centered support as well as
the need for more socially just communities in higher education overall (Almandrez & Lee, 2011;
Harris & Patton, 2017; Patton, 2010a; D. L. Stewart, 2011).
One limitation of this body of literature, as a whole, is that researchers rarely discuss the
assessment of outcomes in DEI work along with empirical study of how the initiatives operate.
Scholarship tends to focus either on outcomes or processes as opposed to the connections among
how work in this area is framed, carried out, and ultimately what it accomplishes. The few notable
exceptions use reflective or longitudinal design decisions to facilitate the connection of DEI work
outcomes with examinations of the work conducted (Ching, 2018; LePeau, 2015; Lerma et al., 2019;
Slay et al., 2019). For example, LePeau (2015) conducted a grounded theory study of academic
affairs and student affairs partnerships focused on DEI initiatives, uncovering integrative
partnerships engaged in more transformative practices with greater potential for equitable outcomes.
Future research could greatly enhance this burgeoning area of scholarship by more meaningfully
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
26
connecting lessons learned about participation in DEI work to the outcomes of the initiatives under
study.
Organizational Contexts. Scholars researching DEI work have followed it across
institutional types, levels within an organization, and into predominantly STEM disciplines.
Researchers have looked at efforts of practitioners in community colleges (Bensimon & Malcom,
2012; Ching, 2017; Ching et al., 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Felix et al., 2015; Felix &
Fernandez Castro, 2018), public and private universities (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd &
Bensimon, 2015; Dowd & Liera, 2018; Garces & Cogburn, 2015; Kezar, 2007b, 2008; Kezar, Glenn,
et al., 2008; Liera & Dowd, 2018), entire state systems (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015), and STEM
disciplines, in particular at the graduate level (Gámez et al., 2022; Porter et al., 2018; Posselt et al.,
2017, 2018; Slay et al., 2019). Several organizational contexts have been found relevant to
conducting DEI work, including leadership (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008),
organizational culture and normative practices (Kezar & Eckel, 2002b; Posselt et al., 2017; Witham
& Bensimon, 2012), technical knowledge (Dowd & Liera, 2018; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008), racially
disaggregated data (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Kezar, Glenn, et al.,
2008), multi-level partnerships (Dowd & Liera, 2018; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008), mechanisms for
onboarding new project members (Dowd & Liera, 2018), campus racial climate (Kezar, 2008; Kezar,
Glenn, et al., 2008), communication competencies (Dowd & Liera, 2018; Kezar, 2008), and the
positionalities of practitioners (Ching, 2018; Liera & Dowd, 2018). At least one larger study that
looked at equity-minded initiatives across multiple campuses within the state of California did not
find differences in which organizational feature were meaningful across sectors (Kezar, Glenn, et al.,
2008). While the literature clearly points to a number of important organizational contexts for DEI
work, we do not know enough about how these operate in concert through practitioners’
participation in a given initiative.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
27
The role of the chief diversity officer (CDO), or similar senior/executive level position with
broad purview for university-wide diversity, inclusion and equity issues is an important
organizational context of DEI work that has emerged in the last couple of decades but with minimal
accompanying literature (Leon, 2014; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2007). The limited scholarship that
has been published primarily covers (1) the professionalization of executive diversity management in
higher education in the 2000s following its development in the business sector in the 1990s and (2)
models of position structures and functions (Arnold & Kowalski-Braun, 2012; Banerji, 2005; Leon,
2014; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2007). In a study for the American Council on Education, Williams
and Wade-Golden (2007) identified three models of chief diversity officers with increasing support,
authority, and resources from the collaborative officer to the unit-based, and finally the portfolio
divisional. Scholars agree that no matter the specific configuration or model these positions require
highly relational and collaborative approaches to meet the vast and often ambiguous charges of
“infusing diversity into all aspects of the University’s operations” (Arnold & Kowalski-Braun, 2012,
p. 32; Leon, 2014; Nixon, 2017; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2007). Some scholars have considered
the experience and influence of CDOs with dominant versus minoritized social identities, agreeing
on the importance of nuanced symbolic and practical considerations (Nixon, 2017; Owen, 2008;
Wingfield et al., 2018). While women of color provide valuable insider-outside perspectives in
diversity related service, including in the CDO role, they are also susceptible to higher work stress, in
part, due to racial identity taxation (Nixon, 2017; Zambrana, 2018). This work stress is exacerbated
by inhospitable work environments riddled with racial and gender discrimination and may be offset
by supportive institutional leadership (Wingfield et al., 2018; Zambrana, 2018).
Additional scholarship focuses on leadership for diversity, inclusion, and equity work on
campus, which may come from institutional agents in a variety of roles. This work notes that a
variety of leadership styles are often needed for successful implementation of DEI work and deep
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
28
transformation (Adserias et al., 2017; Montgomery, 2020; Stanley et al., 2019; Whittaker &
Montgomery, 2022). Others point to the additional need for alignment of intentionality,
accountability, and validation of equity work with institutional policies in order to develop academic
leadership that supports sustainable institutional transformations (Whittaker & Montgomery, 2022).
Most recently, scholarship has noted that subject matter specific DEI knowledge is necessary to lead
and facilitate DEI work that reaches for broader aims than diversity alone (Gonzales et al., 2021). At
the same time, other scholars examining the implementation of work carried out by diversity
professionals, note the political complexity and positioning of the work in the university structure
that create more nuanced outcomes than stories of pure success or failure (Griffin et al., 2019;
Stanley et al., 2019).
Theoretical Perspectives in Empirical Research on DEI Work
Studies of diversity, inclusion, and equity work have relied heavily on organizational and
critical theories. These theoretical and conceptual frameworks include cultural-historical activity
theory (CHAT) (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Chase et al., 2014; Ching, 2018; Dowd & Liera, 2018;
Felix et al., 2015; Felix & Fernandez Castro, 2018; Liera, 2018; Liera & Dowd, 2018), boundary
management (Liera & Dowd, 2018; Posselt et al., 2017), organizational and institutional theory
(Harris & Patton, 2017; Kezar, 1998, 2008; Kezar, Eckel, et al., 2008; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008;
Posselt et al., 2018), conceptual change and sensemaking (Ching, 2017, 2018), relational sociology
(Berrey, 2015), and critical race theory and other critical frames (Chase et al., 2014; Ching, 2017,
2018; Ching et al., 2018; Dirks, 2016; Felix & Fernandez Castro, 2018; Fraser & Hunt, 2011;
Hutchins & Kovach, 2019; Iverson, 2012, 2007, 2008; Lerma et al., 2019). That the most prominent
among these perspectives include CHAT, organizational theories, and critical frameworks is fitting
given the penchant of DEI work to challenge historically rooted and systemically sustained power
asymmetries in the organizational structures and institutional cultures of higher education. Still, this
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
29
area of scholarship could benefit from conceptual frameworks that focus attention on the
interdependence of power dynamics and relationships at the heart of DEI work, such as
intersectionality and relational sociology could provide.
Methodological Approaches
Scholars have predominantly studied DEI work using a variety of qualitative methodologies.
These approaches include participatory action research (PAR) (Bennett, 2007; Bensimon & Malcom,
2012; Ching, 2017, 2018; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Dowd & Liera, 2018; Felix et al., 2015; Felix &
Fernandez Castro, 2018), case study (Berrey, 2015; Hutchins & Kovach, 2019; Kezar, 1998, 2007b,
2008; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008; Lerma et al., 2019; Porter et al., 2018; Posselt et al., 2017, 2018; Slay
et al., 2019; A. J. Stewart et al., 2004), ethnographic observations (Berrey, 2015; Ching, 2017; Dowd
& Bensimon, 2015; Dowd & Liera, 2018; Felix et al., 2015; Kezar, 1998; Lerma et al., 2019; Liera,
2018; Liera & Dowd, 2018; Porter et al., 2018; Posselt et al., 2017, 2018; Slay et al., 2019; A. J.
Stewart et al., 2004), policy analysis (Chase et al., 2014; Ching et al., 2018; Felix & Fernandez Castro,
2018; Garces & Cogburn, 2015; Hutchins & Kovach, 2019; Iverson, 2007, 2008, 2012), and
narrative inquiry (Liera, 2018). Among these approaches, participatory action research has featured
prominently through the work of the Center for Urban Education (CUE) and its Director, Estela
Bensimon, who pioneered a practitioner-as-researcher model through work with the Equity
Scorecard at higher education organizations across the country (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd
& Bensimon, 2015). While the publication record from CUE’s work reports on qualitative
examinations of teams of scholar researchers and practitioner researchers, the work of the Equity
Scorecard involves mixed methods approaches that draw on both quantitative racially disaggregated,
local data and qualitative data from interviews, observations, and document analysis. Numerous
journal articles, books, and chapters drawing on qualitative data generated in connection to these
facilitated mixed method self-studies have been dedicated to exploring how practitioners develop
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
30
and practice equity-mindedness through collaborative double-loop learning and inquiry mediated by
cultural artifacts.
Researchers have also examined DEI work to a lesser extent through quantitative analysis,
largely focused on the outcomes of initiatives that range from a single diversity course requirement
or cultural awareness workshop to statewide admissions policies aimed at diversity. Much of this
work has been motivated by the legal status of race based affirmative action. First, scholars have
been eager to empirically demonstrate with pre and post surveys the myriad benefits of diversity as
implemented through co-/curricular initiatives (Bowman, 2009; Bowman et al., 2016; Chang, 2001;
Dessel et al., 2016). Second, researchers have empirically disavowed race-neutral admissions policies
as ineffective replacements for race-conscious affirmative action in terms of maintaining levels Black
and Latinx college student enrollments (Cortes, 2010; Horn & Flores, 2003).
11
In addition,
quantitative analysis is important for demonstrating large and historical trends. For example, survey
research can help shed light on the contours of diversity, inclusion, and equity work, by
complimenting qualitative data with numerical evidence that shows folx of color and women
disproportionately labor in these efforts (Jimenez et al., 2019; Nixon, 2017). Scholars might consider
designing phased DEI interventions or other procedures that can allow experimental or quasi-
experimental measures of causal impact produced by specific initiatives (see O’Meara et al., 2018).
The comparative dearth of quantitative data and analysis used to investigate DEI work is not
necessarily surprising when considering the contexts and goals of these initiatives (Kezar & Eckel,
2002a). First, the majority of DEI work has been conducted in natural settings, on a small scale, or

11
The particular studies cited here are framed around public university admissions policies that automatically admit a top
percentage of in state graduates from every high school as a race-neutral initiative implemented instead of or in addition
to race-conscious affirmative action with the intension of increasing or maintaining student body diversity. As
examinations of diversity policies, these studies fall under the purview of DEI work covered in this chapter. Many more
studies of race-conscious affirmative action bans have been conducted as part of scholarship that documents inequities
in higher education, which is beyond the scope of this chapter.
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31
gradually over time: each of these conditions make causal quantitative analysis difficult (Bowman et
al., 2016). The goals of equity work, in particular, encompass more than statistically measurable
outcomes, including conceptual change or double loop learning at the individual level; organizational
and institutional change that affects policies and practices; and transformations of societal power
dynamics. These complex processes are best studied though comprehensive qualitative approaches,
such as case study (Kezar & Eckel, 2002a), and possibly mixed methods. For instance, the National
Institutes of Health has recently devoted resources to a comprehensive, mixed methods set of
studies for the entire Diversity Program Consortium in order to understand and improve its design,
participation, and outcomes (Hurtado et al., 2017).
Major Themes from the Literature
The strengths from the emerging body of literature on higher education practitioners’ DEI
work come through in a handful of major themes that develop the contours of this research. Below,
I discuss themes of DEI work as a distinct form of organizational change; intentionality; and project
team composition, positionality, and participation.
Distinct Forms of Organizational Change. Research on DEI work has found that it has
unique features that mark it as a distinct form of organizational and institutional change (Kezar,
2007b, 2007a, 2008; Kezar, Eckel, et al., 2008; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008; Kezar & Eckel, 2002b)
supporting the need to develop expertise specific to this area of research. Organizational culture
(Kezar & Eckel, 2002b), organizational contexts (Kezar, 2007a, 2008; Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008),
and strategies for institutionalizing diversity, inclusion, or equity based initiatives (Kezar, 2007b;
Kezar, Eckel, et al., 2008) were all found to depart from conventional wisdom in the broader
organizational change literature. In particular, practitioners understand DEI work to be inherently
political in nature, creating resistance to these initiatives from obvious opponents and potential
advocates alike that were best addressed with the use of data, public relations campaigns, and
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
32
capitalizing on controversies for organizational learning (Kezar, 2008).
Additionally, the ways that practitioners employed strategies to address these and other
challenges of DEI work have surfaced new but contradictory insights (Kezar, 2007b; Kezar, Eckel,
et al., 2008). The literature on organizational change has traditionally identified three phases of the
process—mobilization, implementation, and institutionalization—but emphasizes that strategies
common to particular phases are interrelated and not necessarily linear (Kezar, 2007b; Kezar &
Eckel, 2002a). According to some research, however, DEI transformational work in particular is
penalized when strategies considered to be part of more advanced phases are deployed while earlier
phases are still running their course on campus (Kezar, 2007b). For instance, in general
transformation efforts the need to show visible action toward change was necessary early on even as
strategies to implement more basic elements of the reform had not run their course. Whereas in this
particular area of work hiring faculty of color as a demonstration of progress emblematic of phase
two, taken on during phase one was noted as threatening the entire initiative. Yet, other research
contends that successful diversity, inclusion, and equity work requires a non-linear web of strategies
(Kezar, Eckel, et al., 2008). Reading across these studies of transformational change in light of
Ahmed’s notion of the non-performative (where speaking about the work becomes a stand in for
doing the work without the work ever getting done), one wonders if there is ever a strategically or
politically amenable way to do transformational equity work.
Intentionality. Scholars are generally in agreement that achieving institutional
transformation for equity requires intentionality from practitioners (Bauman et al., 2005; Bensimon,
2012; Chang, 2002; Harper, 2011; Harper & antonio, 2008; Kezar & Eckel, 2002a; Posselt et al.,
2018). Harper (2011) defines intentionality as “reflectively and deliberately employing a set of
strategies to produce desired educational outcomes” (p. 288). That reflective action would be a
fundamental component of transforming intersectional sociohistorical power relations in academia
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
33
to dismantle oppressive systems of privilege seems straightforward. Yet, even well thought out
strategies may have unintended consequences that in part lead to the uneven, non-linear path of
institutional transformation (Kezar & Eckel, 2002a). Posselt and colleagues (2018) distinguish
between adaptive structural change that gives "the appearance of progress toward equity" and "more
agentic processes of organizational learning that can institutionalize equity as a value" (p. 389). Still,
this research shows that capacity for equity work may be built on prior successes in improving
access and representation when they are part of organizational responses that are attentive to
diversity and inclusion as opposed to improvements in these DEI areas that are entirely incidental
(Posselt et al., 2018). However, achieving sustainable progress toward gender equity at some point
requires mindful organizational learning. This and other research on equity-oriented changes that
practitioners have made in practice while only partially adopting an equity-mindset (Ching, 2018)
raises further empirical questions about the possibility of fostering progress toward equity with
behavioral changes as well as intentional equity-mindedness. Related to these concerns, I next
discuss composition, positionality, and participation within the teams that do DEI work.
Project Team Composition: Roles and Demographics. Scholarship on institutional
change in higher education has largely come to understand leadership as interactive, shared, and
culturally framed practices enacted in groups rather than as individual characteristics or actions
(Bensimon & Neumann, 1993; Ishimaru & Galloway, 2014; Kezar & Carducci, 2007). Research on
team leadership has found that "team composition is so critical, campuses need to think carefully
about key individuals to put on teams and what type of knowledge and expertise they will bring to
the team" (Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008, p. 154). In particular, several roles have been identified as
important for teams engaged in equity work, such as boundary spanners who connect the team to
additional parts of the campus to support broader institutionalization of equity efforts (Dowd &
Bensimon, 2015). Other research highlights that web-like network dynamics are important for
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
34
understanding DEI work in academia: “We could not discuss individuals, teams, groups, the overall
institution, or its environment separately because they were all interconnected” (Kezar, Glenn, et al.,
2008, p. 145). Yet, rather than delving into the complexity of this participation, to date researchers
have only skimmed the surface. Social and organizational positionality of practitioners participating
in DEI work are only beginning to be examined.
Research on the roles and expertise beneficial to DEI work has not adequately considered
the possible impact of the racial and gender composition of project teams. This inattention persists
despite literature that documents DEI work disproportionately relies on the labor of women/folx of
color practitioners, as noted above (Ahmed, 2012; Jimenez et al., 2019; Lerma et al., 2019; Posselt et
al., 2017). The focus of research on DEI work in higher education is often on racially minoritized
students as the primary target population for many of these efforts (Bensimon, 2007). Accordingly,
much has been written from both perspectives of deficit and equity mindsets that contributes to
competing social constructions of this target population, which influences how policy is crafted
toward these groups (Schneider & Ingram, 1993). However, more recently some scholars are also
beginning to consider the identities of policymakers and practitioners as it relates to their work.
Employing a lens of relational identity, Hunter (2003) states: “Deconstructing problematic identity
constructions attributed to those in positions of relative disempowerment is vital, but an equally
important goal is to examine the identifications of those in positions of relative power in relation to
policy making” (p. 324). Woman/folx of color practitioners participating in DEI work, therefore,
likely hold complex positionalities of privilege and oppression within such projects.
Project Team Member Positionalities. Some recent empirical scholarship attests to the
significance of practitioners’ social identities (particularly race, gender, and SES) as well as
organizational positions for how they understand and conduct their work in higher education
(Bowman & Bastedo, 2018; Bridwell-Mitchell & Sherer, 2017; Ching, 2018; Fraser & Hunt, 2011;
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
35
Liera & Dowd, 2018; Sturm, 2006). In one project, for instance, a couple of team members of color
withdrew their participation based on their perception of white colleagues’ inadequate understanding
about and commitment to equity issues (Liera & Dowd, 2018). In addition, LePeau’s (2015) study
documented practitioners collaborating across academic and student affairs, “noticed the irony that
if they were working toward implementing diversity and inclusion efforts on campus, then
addressing inequities between [their domains] was a part of diversity and inclusion work” (p. 118).
She noted that practitioners practicing a social justice orientation may support more equitable
working relationships. These recent findings speak to the ongoing importance of practitioner
identities and positionalities, yet many of them were uncovered via happenstance rather than
through purposeful and theorized investigation into the relevance of identity and positionality to
participation in DEI work. While LePeau’s (2015) work was intentional about studying participation
across organizational positions, she noted that inadequate focus on social identity was a limitation of
her study.
Participation Dynamics. Participation in institutional change work with equity implications
is necessarily a relational enterprise that must be historically and politically contextualized (Croft &
Beresford, 1992). Additional research on inclusive leadership notes that practices differentially
impact members of the higher education community differently positioned with regard to power and
privilege (Anchan, 2018). Lerma and colleagues (2019) specify that efforts to address systemic racism
and racial marginalization in higher education, including on campuses with student of color
majorities, are racialized both in aims and by the racially minoritized identities of those who bear the
brunt of the effort. In addition, they use the term “labor” to draw attention to the largely
uncompensated nature of these efforts (Lerma et al., 2019). This unpaid, often unrecognized, labor
includes managing related emotional burdens associated with both racialized equity labor and
experiences of racial marginalization that amounts to “identity taxation,” or burdens faced by
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practitioners and others based on their minoritized or marginalized identities (Dowd & Bensimon,
2015; Hirshfield & Joseph, 2011; Padilla, 1994; Porter et al., 2018; Zambrana, 2018). Racialized and
gendered equity labor is an important component of formal DEI work.
Fresh perspectives that elevate the relational nature of participation and intersecting systems
of power in DEI work may be able to advance this scholarship and improve the praxis. Focusing on
participation reminds us that, "[t]ypically participatory schemes have mirrored rather than challenged
broader oppressions and discriminations" (Croft & Beresford, 1992, p. 33). Scholars have theorized
and studied the processes of participation in social movements (Croft & Beresford, 1992; Snow et
al., 1986), whereas in contexts of DEI work in academia focus has been more on discourses, as
reviewed above (Marichal, 2009). Still, scholarship on the processes of participation is theoretically
useful for considering gaps in the higher education literature. For instance, scholars argue that
participation processes, such as the frame alignment necessary to engender participation, vary along
with variation in group goals and organizational structures, and that more research is needed to
understand how and why this occurs (Snow et al., 1986).
Scholars have also theorized four primary threats of uncritical participation: 1) delaying
tactics in the name of including more voices, 2) incorporation/co-optation that limits policy reach,
3) legitimation based on superficial representation without power, and 4) tokenism that does not
recognize the breadth of intersectional positions of racially minoritized practitioners (Croft &
Beresford, 1992). Participation is a valuable resource for movement work (Benford & Snow, 2000;
Snow et al., 1986) and should be studied as such in DEI efforts in higher education as well.
Aside from these limited examples, the literature has largely neglected the lived expertise that
folx with marginalized positionalities might provide as resources to DEI work and the equity
implications of relying on practitioners historically and systematically marginalized without
implementing structures for recognition, reward, or remuneration. These elements of participation
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warrant further investigation to improve our understanding of how DEI work is carried out. As one
example, the trend in DEI labor/work of disproportionate reliance on racially minoritized and
gender marginalized practitioners should be further examined to determine whether these tendencies
hold true for differently organized and valued efforts, such as formal grant funded projects versus
teaching and uncompensated service.
Conclusion: Reviewing the Gaps
Participation in DEI work in academia can be understood as a product of one’s relationship
to the work and relationships to one’s colleagues in the work, which are all situated in intersecting
hierarchies of social and organizational power dynamics. The web metaphor mentioned above
represents the importance of relationships, networked activity, and the interconnectedness of
practitioners with specific positionalities, their professional connections, and the DEI work in which
they participate. The processes that bring these elements together and constitute the inner workings
of diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives in higher education are currently understudied. In
particular, the literature does not thoroughly address how interdependent power dynamics
meaningfully influence practitioners’ participation with colleagues to develop DEI goals, activities,
and outcomes. Nor does it extend notions about intentionality to the development of equitable
working relationships. Improving our understanding of these processes could lead to new strategic
or political insights for implementing successful equity transformations, including the extent to
which (and what types of) change can be fostered with diversity or inclusion framed behavioral
interventions versus intentionally equity-minded ones. The next chapters show how insights from
the relational sociology, intersectionality, and racialized organization theories are combined into a
comprehensive conceptual framework to guide this investigation, research questions, and study
design.
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Chapter 3: Examining DEI Work with a Relational Intersectionality of Organizational Lens
Relational sociology, intersectionality, and a theory of racialized organizations provide
powerful theoretical insights to inform the study of practitioner participation in higher education
diversity, inclusion, and equity work. As the previous review of the literature in this area illuminated,
DEI work in higher education forms a unique organizational and institutional change space,
characterized by networks operating within a highly politized environment. Each of the theoretical
perspectives mentioned above brings emphasis on certain insights to this research area based on
differing micro, macro, and meso vantages. Relational sociology emphasizes meaning making
through the transactions of positionally and relationally networked actors within particular field
influences (Mische, 2011). Intersectionality provides a transformative paradigmatic lens of power as
multifaceted and interdependent formations that become salient in ways that are contingent on
situational and temporal circumstances, highlighting implications for women of color (Crenshaw,
1989). Racialized organizations theory further specifies organizational mechanisms through which
these power dynamics become institutionalized through the routinization of individuals’ interactions
(Ray, 2019).
In order to build a conceptual framework based on these theories, I first discuss the central
elements of relational sociology, intersectionality, and racialized organizations, with applications of
the first two in the study of higher education. Next, I address potential tensions and shared
assumptions revealed by putting these theories in conversation. Finally, I conclude with a
synthesized relational intersectionality of organizations (RIO) conceptual framework and discuss
how it informs the study of practitioner participation in DEI work.
Relational Sociology
Scholars of relational sociology promote a turn from analytic frames focused on essentialist
substances and their impacts on social conditions to relational transactions by actors positioned
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within networks imbued with meaning based on the fields these networks constitute in time and
place (Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer, 1997; Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008;
Kolluri & Tierney, 2018a; Mische, 2011). From this perspective, actors—be they individual people,
groups, or organizations—have no essentialist characteristics; rather they exist in continuously
renegotiated positions based on their relative power among other actors in a given field. These
scholars argue that examination of processes instead of the processed (people, places, things), thus,
reveal deeper understanding of how and why our social reality comes to exist the way it does. As
such, they also suggest researchers empirically study a field to determine how differently positioned
actors engage in transactions that generate cultural and social meaning (Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer,
1997; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008; Kolluri & Tierney, 2018b). In order to explore the relevance of
relational sociology for the study of DEI work, I review three core concepts: bonds, networks, and
field. I conclude this section with a discussion of this theory’s application in academia.
Bonds Rather Than Essences
Relational sociology ardently rejects essentialism, defined as unchanging qualities or
categories inherent to entities from people, to organizations, institutions, or systems through which
these entities interact and act upon the social world (Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer, 1997; Kolluri &
Tierney, 2018b; Tilly, 1998). Instead, this perspective proposes that dynamic bonds, or relationships,
generate social meaning, including the qualities and categories of any given entity. Categories or
identities, far from insignificant, are meaningful “functions of relationships and transactions”
continuously unfolding throughout time (Kolluri & Tierney, 2017, p. 4). Because the relationships
and transactions are ongoing, the categories they generate are not static even though their general
meanings may be durable across situations and generations. For instance, Tilly argues, "[d]urable
inequality among categories arises because people who control access to value-producing resources
solve pressing organizational problems by means of categorical distinctions" (p. 7-8). The
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institutionalization of paired bonds or diametrically positioned categories, such as man/woman,
become significant components of entrenched social and material inequity rather than as the cause
of such inequality. These and other patterns of relations and transactions among differently
positioned actors constitute meaningful networks, described further in the next section.
Networks: Configurations of Transactions, Relations, and Positions
Scholars following in the path of relational sociology turn to networked relations and
transactions to uncover the mechanisms that might explain ‘durable inequality’ as well as other
forms of conflict and cooperation in social life. Transactions, relations, and positions have no
discrete meaning apart from their connections to one another (Emirbayer, 1997). A common
example used to make this concurrent signification process concrete is that of hunting, the hunter,
and the hunted (Emirbayer, 1997; Kolluri & Tierney, 2018b). Outside of the transaction of hunting,
the conflictual relation between the hunter and the hunted has no meaning. Similarly, their positions
of hunter and hunted have no meaning outside of this transaction and their relationship in it. Finally,
without a hunter or the hunted there would likewise be no transaction of hunting. The
interconnectedness of the actors transacting with one another from their positions in relationships
constitutes and gives meaning to the network.
This meaning making in relation is at the core of relational sociology, a process-driven
theoretical frame. Empirically examining a network involves identifying the positions, relations, and
transactions that occur within a particular configuration and exploring their relational entanglements
to explain how and why social life unfolds as it does. Moreover, in our social world, networks are
interconnected and overlapping, but they are organized around fields like a gravitational pull. These
fields are the final central tenet, discussed below.
Defining a Relational Field
In relational sociology a field is understood as an objectively observable sphere of influence
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embedded in history and place (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer, 1997;
Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008; Kolluri & Tierney, 2018b; Mische, 2011). Although time and location
create meaningful contexts, this notion of a field differs from the more traditional sense of field as a
physical or geographical space where a researcher goes to conduct fieldwork over an extended
period of time common to anthropological and some sociological study. Instead a field is defined by
observation of the extent of its influence; and, in this sense, is said to be objective (Bourdieu, 1992;
Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer, 1997; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008;
Kolluri & Tierney, 2018b).
The notion of the field comes from Bourdieu’s theory of social reproduction and signifies
the conglomeration of networked actors, their transactions, set of relations, and field-specific values
of various forms of capital (Bourdieu, 1992; Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Emirbayer & Johnson,
2008). Networked actors exercise power through their transactions, which determine the value of
specific forms of capital and create an observable sphere of influence for the field (Bourdieu, 1992;
Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer, 1997; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008). The
influence of a field is the continuous result of an ongoing contestation through transactions of
networked actors, which occur in particular time and space that contribute contextual meaning to
the field. Because the constitution of a field is an ongoing process, nothing about the field—not the
actors, relations, nor their transactions—is predetermined though it is all heavily influenced by the
history of this process and, to a lesser extent, concurrent transactions, relations, and actors across
other fields. Next, I explore how the theory has been used in higher education scholarship.
Relational Sociology in Higher Education
Scholars have only very recently begun to explicitly use relational sociology to study
processes in the field of higher education (Berrey, 2015; Kolluri & Tierney, 2018a, 2018b; Posselt,
2018). Of these works, Berrey’s (2015) historical and comparative ethnography of diversity
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discourses, in part, at the University of Michigan is especially relevant. Berrey intentionally set out to
observe the relational transactions among differently positioned actors on campus who invoked
some form of diversity discourse. These discourses were promulgated by administrators who came
to champion the benefits of diversity rationale for affirmative action (helping enshrine it as a legal
precedent and cultural standard), broad coalitions of student activists who supported affirmative
action as part of racial justice in higher education, and mostly white men student organizers who
opposed race-conscious admissions while promoting a racially sanitized form of ideological diversity.
Berrey (2015) contextualized these divergent discourses within the historical development of
Michigan’s formal support for affirmative action from a justification based on remedying past racial
injustices to one of diversity. She also conducted comparative ethnographic and historical case
analysis of diversity in a gentrifying Chicago neighborhood and a Fortune 500 company’s diversity
management office. Berrey analyzed the discursive “double move” of diversity from a racial
indicator to a cultural signifier that may imply or elide race as a matter of politically symbolic
convenience. The relational sociology framework employed by Berrey facilitated her ability to
demonstrate how interconnected networks of power relations advanced an amenable diversity
discourse at the expense of a deeper commitment to racial justice. The next section explores how
relational sociology might illuminate related processes that occur within diversity, inclusion, or equity
work in higher education. In the next section, I discuss key theoretical elements of intersectionality
and its deployment in the higher education literature.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that has roots in more than a century of activist
and academic work of women of color. The development of this framework benefits from several
mutually constituted and reinforcing traditions (Collins, 2015; Hancock, 2016), including the
activism of Black women dating back at least to the mid 19
th
century (Hancock, 2016; Hine &
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Thompson, 1998), Black feminist thought (Collins, 1990; Combahee River Collective, 1995), the
scholarship of queer women of color (Lorde, 1984; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1983), and critical race
theory (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991). This activist heritage of intersectionality undergirds the critical and
political purposes of this theory. Intersectional reflection and action was borne out of women of
color’s pragmatic necessity to recognize and rectify the ways that different forms of oppression, such
as racism, classism, and sexism operate as interconnected forces of power in their subjugation
(Hancock, 2016).
Like many other critical paradigms, inersectionality starts out with the supposition that social
relations are constituted by systems of oppression/privilege, including racism, sexism, and ableism
among others, but does so through two revolutionary tenets (Carbado et al., 2013; Collins, 2015;
Hancock, 2016). First, intersectionality rearticulates these hierarchical power relations as
interdependent such that categorical positions within them are de-essentialized (Carbado et al., 2013;
Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2016). Second, intersectionality commits to troubling both
the issues of hypervisibility and invisibility faced by women of color through examinations of the
social, political, material, and psychic ways that they have been entangled by the many facets of
power (Carbado et al., 2013; Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2016). Together these tenets
present a transformative lens for examining the action and reflection that make up the institutional
change oriented praxis of DEI work in academia. Below I elaborate on each tenet and discuss
interesectionality in higher education scholarship.
Interrelational Transformations of Power
Intersectionality scholars assert that an understanding of power relations as interdependent
constitutes a qualitatively and fundamentally new way of knowing and interrogating systemic
oppressed/privileged relations (Carbado et al., 2013; Collins, 2015; Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2007,
2016). The complexity of this claim is often missed with oversimplistic and inaccurate applications
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of intersectionality to a plurality of identities. Far from examining power hierarchies through a
simple additive approach to oppressed or privileged identities in a perniciously divisive manner
(Hames-Garcia, 2011), intersectionality engages oppressive systems as expansively interconnected
(Collins, 1990; Hancock, 2016). For example, Crenshaw’s (1989) work on antidescrimination law
showed how examining the interaction of race and gender as simultaneously constituted forces in
hiring patterns, opens up analytical space to observe how these systems together circumscribe
opportunities for Black women specifically. An intersectional perspective does not suggest that these
Black women experienced racism on top of gender discrimination or the other way around.
Intersectionality asserts that the interrelated nature of power relations does not increase or decrease
the affects of systemic social hierarchies; instead, it illuminates the ways in which each of these
forms of power relations influence recognition and exclusion within the others.
The theory of intersectionality is a versatile tool for analyzing the dynamics of power as they
interact through various formations, focusing on the overlooked processes that shape and explain
nuanced social realities (Carbado et al., 2013; Collins, 2015). Intersectionality operates by
destabilizing the normative dynamics of power that suggest limited categorical definitions of, for
example, what it is to be, or more acurately live as, a woman. For instance, this framework troubles
the essentialist notion of woman as cisgender, white, middle class or any other identity derived from
social categories of distinction. Rather, Hancock (2016) notes that the interconnected, non-binary
power relations that manifest through these forms of difference operate through lived experiences
and reflexive meaning making of them in temporally and situationally contingent ways. Instead of
policing the boundaries of womanhood or who may make claim to such a categorical identity,
intersectionality exposes as spurious and oppressive the very claims of fixed, ordinal stratification
systems. An analysis using intersectionality, then, is more interested in exploring the processes by
which salient relations of power exert influence in order "to bring the often hidden dynamics
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forward in order to transform them" (Carbado et al., 2013, p. 312). This perspective not only
permits acknowledgement of durable, multifaceted expressions of power, it is also sensitive to the
mutations that occur in their replication over time and in different contexts. Intersectionality’s
commitment to the privilege and oppression of women of color, elaborated in the next section, is an
example of this.
Transformative Commitments to Women of Color
Intersectionality’s development owes a debt to the experiences and reflections of women of
color, in particular Black women, in the form of an ongoing commitment to transforming the
oppressive and privileging power relations in which they are implicated. Women of color activists
and discipline-spanning academics, concerned with the invisibility of women of color, began
charging that their experiences were not properly acknowledged nor understood through narrow
examinations of power that singled out only race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, or any other
particular hierarchy. This body of work challenged traditional notions of privilege and oppression as
mutually exclusive significations with zero/sum implications (Collins, 1990; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991;
Hancock, 2016). The contributions from various feminist traditions led by women of color noted
above were not only theoretical deliberations. Instead, these ontological and epistemological
developments were rooted in the radical recognition and valuation of the various lived experiences
of women of color (Hancock, 2016). For Hancock (2016), intersectionality’s sustained attention to
the women of color activits and scholars who are its progenitors is a commitment of literacy
stewardship. To obfuscate or devalue the role women of color have played and continue to play in
advancing intersectionality would seriously undermine the politically intellectual project and
associated socio-political transformations that the theory sets forth. Similarly, limiting intersectional
analysis of power relations to interconnections among even racialized, gendered, sexual, and
socioeconomic manifestations would deny the full complexity, and thus humanity, that
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heterogeneously constitutes women of color (Carbado, 2013). Hancock (2016) suggests a non-
essentialist focus on the complex power relations impacting women of color in ways that render
them hyper/invisible in ways that are situationally contingenet, which makes various formations of
power more or less salient depending on the cicumstances at a given moment in time. Building on
these insights, the next sections examine intersectionality in higher education literature and then
delves further into its relevance for studying diversity, inclusion, and equity work as possibly
transformative in academia.
Intersectionality in Higher Education
Although issues around diversity, inclusion, and (to some extent) equity have become
perennial concerns in higher education, research has predominantly relied on one-dimensional
analyses of students, faculty, administrators, and staff (Museus & Griffin, 2011; Museus & Saelua,
2014). About a decade ago, however, intersectionality began to take off in higher education
scholarship, though a majority of this has been superficial or misapplied without engagement of the
theory’s analytic depth (Harris & Patton, 2018). A large portion of the research applying
intersectionality to study design or analysis in higher education has used qualitative methods (Harris
& Patton, 2018). A growing number of scholars, however, are embracing quantiative analysis alone
or as part of mixed methods research while also calling into question the categorizations used in
widely available instruments (Dorimé-Williams, 2014; Garvey, 2014; Griffin & Museus, 2011;
Zambrana, 2018).
Much of the work that has taken up intersectionality as a serious analytic framework has
focused on racially minoritized individuals and their experiences and outcomes in higher education,
particularly students (Harris & Patton, 2018). Despite intersectionality’s systemic focus on power
relations, scholars of higher education have largely neglected the theory’s potential for organizational
research in academia. One exception is Zambrana’s (2018) recent mixed methods study combining a
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nationally distributed survey and interviews about the work stress of racially minoritized faculty at
elite colleges and universities. Her study shows how racialized and gendered work stress exacerbates
high pressure organizational dynamics of academia, including role strain, isolation, and performance
evaluation ambiguity. In addition, Zambrana’s work contributes a nuanced examination of how
work stress interacts with intersecting minoritized identities in contributing to the paradoxical
relationship between advanced educational attainment and negative physical and mental well-being
outcomes for racially minoritized faculty (Zambrana, 2018). Still, scholars also note the need for
more intersectional research on the institutional interventions that attempt to address conditions of
systemic inequities (Museus, 2011; Zambrana, 2018). An exception here uses intersectionality to
examine a TRIO program, exploring the ways in which it creates a “borderland” space for largely
first-generation students of color to be and grow as they transition to college life (Hardee, 2014).
Intersectionality motivates and provides the theoretical tools for identifying and analyzing the
oppressive power dynamics that pervade higher education organizations, and as an institution, in
order to transform them. In the next section, I explore the recently established theory of racialized
organizations.
Racialized Organizations
Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations underscores the relational processes that
connect micro-level interactions to macro-level racist ideologies and racialized structures through
ostensibly “colorblind” activity at the meso-level of organizations. He argues that studying
organizational activity (i.e., those involving resources, processes, and structure/culture) can shed
light on the ways that racialized schema institutionalizes or challenges racialized power relations.
12

12
The term “colorblind” is quoted from Ray’s (2019), which he borrows from Bonilla-Silva (2003), to name facially
nonracial or race-neutral organizational activity that is nonetheless imbued with racialized meanings. However, in recent
years, critical scholars have been placing greater analytical emphasis on “not seeing” race as an active rather than passive
undertaking and bringing equity concerns over ableism to the fore.
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Moreover, “seeing racialized relations as constitutive of organizations helps us better understand the
formation and everyday function of organizations” (Ray, 2019, p. 30). Ray develops four tenets that
explain the ways in which organizations are racialized and racializing entities, which are: 1) shaping
racialized groups’ agency, 2) legitimizing racially disparate resource distributions, 3) upholding
whiteness as a positive credential, and 4) decoupling organizational rules from practice. Nex, I
briefly discuss each tenet to elaborate the mechanism they name. Following this, I review some
recent higher education scholarship that has already applied this theory despite its recent
development.
First, organizations shape members’ agency in racialized ways due to historical accumulation
and retention of organizational power in white dominated leadership, which exerts control over
“time, money, emotional labor, and space in ways that disadvantage racially minoritized people
concentrated in lower organizational tiers” (Ray, 2019, p. 36). This management operates both to
constrain the agency of racially minoritized organizational members and to expand that of racially
privileged ones. Second, the evolution of segregation patterns that create racialized organizational
tracks where people of color, particularly Black and Latinx, predominantly occupy lower positions
legitimate racially inequitable distribution of resources (Ray, 2019). These patterns hold throughout
most of the institution of higher education with fewer tenured professors and high-level
administrators of color than their white colleagues (Aguirre, 2000; Espinosa et al., 2019). Third,
organizations treat whiteness as a credential by valuing the white employees and their equivalent
work by awarding them greater organizational resources than racially minoritized peoples and their
work (Ray, 2019). Moreover, Blackness becomes a negative credential through relational processes,
which can be understood by the caution often delivered to Black children that they must work twice
as hard to get half as far. Finally, a racialized organizations perspective highlights how technically
race neutral organizational structures, policies, and practices institutionalize racism by failing to
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redress baked in racial inequity (Ray, 2019).
Potential of Scholarship on Racialized Higher Education Organizations
A theory of racialized organizations holds great potential for studying how DEI work might
challenge or uphold organizational structures and policies in academia that perpetuate racial inequity.
Few academic texts become instant classics as this one has, with hundreds of citations in the short
few years since it was published attesting to the value of excavating racialization in organizational life
that it holds for many academic communities. Within the field of higher education research,
racialized organizations has already been applied in empirical studies of faculty hiring, governance,
racialized equity labor, policymaking, predominantly white institutions vis-à-vis minority serving
institutions (MSIs), and federal funding to name a few (Jones & Kunkle, 123 C.E.; Lerma et al.,
2019; Liera & Hernandez, 2021; Morgan et al., 2022; Nicholas Vargas & Julio Villa-Palomino, 2019;
Rodriguez et al., 2022; White-Lewis, 2020).
Within the rapidly growing body of work applying racialized organizations to empirical study
of higher education, scholars have also already tied it to the burgeoning field of higher education
DEI study. For example, scholars have employed it to explore how racialized late-stage hiring
practices can undermine the efforts of implementing equity-minded training and policy reform
(Liera & Hernandez, 2021). In addition, others have applied it to the study of governing boards
engagement with DEI work to show the limitations of their currently dominant “plug in” and
“unplug” approach (Morgan et al., 2022). At least one study drew on this theory specifically in the
examination of the problem space that examines DEI work in order to parse out “racialized equity
labor,” which names the uncompensated efforts of racially minoritized peoples to address systemic
racism in higher education (Lerma et al., 2019). Research applications of the theory of racialized
organizations over the next few years will likely lead to further theoretical developments as well as
broader empirical utility. In the next section, I show how the three theories discussed above can be
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combined in a cohesive relational intersectionality of organizations conceptual framework to inform
the study of practitioner participation in DEI work.
Relational Intersectionality of Organizations: A Conceptual Framework
Combining insights from relational sociology, intersectionality, and racialized organizations
into a cohesive conceptual framework guides research into the black box of participating in diversity,
inclusion, and equity work, with special attention to the relational power dynamics affecting and
influenced by women of color. Each theory provides a different micro, macro, meso vantage for
studying DEI work that, when combined, create a holistic analysis of the processes that connect
these levels. Next, I briefly address potential tensions as complementarity among the theories.
Following this, I outline contributions from each theory to a comprehensive conceptual framework
of relational intersectionality of organizations (RIO) and conclude with a discussion of how the
components of RIO inform a study of practitioner participation in DEI work.
Interrogating Potential Tensions & Shared Assumptions
In order to justify synthesizing a conceptual framework with the three theories discussed
above, I start by interrogating tensions that seem to arise from putting these theories in conversation
with one another. Then, through further examination, I demonstrate their compatibility and
complementarity. First, the most obvious discrepancy among these theories is how they specify (or
not) forms of power. Similar to relational sociology, intersectionality is concerned with power as a
relational force while also explicitly naming certain forms of power (such as race, gender, class, and
sexuality) that have been salient in the lived experiences of the women of color who developed it.
Even though relational sociology does not take on these forms of power centrally, they are recurrent
aspects of relational sociology scholarship (Desmond, 2014; Mische, 2011). In addition, racialized
organizations might seem to be at odds with intersectionality’s more expansive insistence on the co-
construction of race with other facets of power. However, Ray (2019) acknowledges other forms of
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power relations and their intersecting influence on organizations. He chooses to hone in on race in
order to specify how it influences organizational processes that in turn are involved in the creation,
reification, and evolution of racialized power systems (Ray, 2019). Aside from the ways that these
theories specify formations of power as central concerns, they all subscribe to or extend the notion
that power is a relational force that operates in complex, interconnected ways.
Second, the theories seem to operate at different levels of analysis, with relational as micro,
intersectionality as macro, and organizations as meso. In fact, each of these theories is concerned
with how relations and processes apparent at one level enable, constrain, and constitute activity in
others. For instance, intersectionality notes that interconnected macro power relations are actually
contingently relevant in (micro) lived experiences, dependent on situational and temporal factors
(Hancock, 2016). Similarly, relational sociology’s focus on transactions as meaningful only within
contextual networks belie an easy micro-level classification (Emirbayer, 1997; Emirbayer & Johnson,
2008). In addition, highlighting organizational mechanisms serves to connect individual actions to
macro level power dynamics in a reciprocal fashion (Ray, 2019). These theories, thus, share analytic
attention from complementary vantages to the interdependence among the micro, macro, and meso
levels as these spaces co-constitute one another. I build on these themes to develop the RIO
conceptual framework in the next section.
Developing the RIO Conceptual Framework: Contributions from Three Theories
The RIO conceptual framework builds on these theories’ shared understanding of power as
a relational force that operates across the conventional social science micro-meso-macro divisions of
social reality. The theory of racialized organizations elaborates mechanisms important for
understanding how power operates through participation in DEI projects as organizations.
Relational sociology further untangles the network configurations of these organizations as fields.
Finally, the DEI project is set against the transformative standards of an intersectionality conception
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of power relations that highlights women of color’s participation. In this way, the RIO conceptual
framework forms a comprehensive and complementary analysis that facilitates moving back and
forth through the micro, meso, and macro dynamics of participation in DEI work in order to
explore how practitioners may or may not enact equity.
Figure 1 demonstrates a visual representation of a DEI project mapped out through the RIO
conceptual framework at both high-level and close-up perspectives. These multiple project vantages
reflect the RIO framework’s attention to the interstitial spaces where power operates among and
through multiple levels. The figure shows that multiple layers of context, including other types of
DEI work, the institution of higher education, the specific higher education organization(s)
involved, the project domains (e.g., STEM, undergraduate curriculum, faculty recruitment, and
admissions), bear upon the development of any given DEI project. All of these contexts are also
embedded within United States history, law, and interdependent power relations, including racial,
gendered, and class-based systems. These contexts overlap with the project and one another in
various ways that must be empirically investigated for relevance to participation in a specific project.
The area of detail shows a configuration of practitioners’ positions, relationships, and transactions.
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
53

equity-related work
functional &
disciplinary
project domains
institution of higher education
higher education
organization(s)
equity-related project
overarching contexts:
interdependent power relations of race, gender, class, etc.
U. S. history & law
goals
strategies
activities
practitioner
practitioner
practitioner
practitioner
field of influence
outcomes
area of detail: equity-related project
relationships
&
transactions
the network
configuration
creates
organizational
mechanisms
Figure 1. RIO conceptual model of an equity-related project embedded in micro, meso, and macro contexts.
social &
organizational
positionalities
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
54
DEI Projects as Racialized Organizations. The theory of racialized organizations can be
applied to the organizations created by formal DEI projects. The decision-making authority
scrutinized at the level of college and university administration also shapes agency through how
diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives get constituted and structured. For instance, campus
initiatives that disproportionately rely on the labor of women practitioners of color impact the
agency they have over their academic careers depending on how their participation is recognized and
rewarded. Relatedly, Ray (2019) notes that “even diversity programs can reinforce and legitimate
racial hierarchies they are purportedly designed to undermine” (p. 39). The legitimation of resource
disparity highlights the importance of how a DEI initiative allocates resources among project
members of privileged versus racially minoritized and otherwise marginalized identities.
Moreover, racialized credentialing mechanisms help to explain how white higher education
practitioners may receive accolades for their participation in the same DEI project in which Black
practitioners might be taken for granted or scrutinized. Finally, this theory calls attention to the ways
that organizations decouple formal commitments to diversity, inclusion, and equity from rules and
practices that actively or passively reinforce racialized power asymmetries. The study of a DEI
project as a racialized organization examines the ways in which it succumbs to and challenges these
mechanisms, which also operate through other intersecting formations of power. Next, relational
sociology builds on this analysis by delving into the complexity within the DEI project’s
organizational configuration.
Defining the Organization-As-Field: Participation in DEI Work. Scholars have defined
fields at various levels in order to examine the relational networks of transactions that they
meaningfully organize (Desmond, 2014; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008; Mische, 2011). For instance,
one might usefully study the networked relations of higher education organizations as actors within
the field of academia. Moreover, Emirbayer and Johnson (2008) contend that relational sociology is
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
55
adept at studying the processes occurring within more fluid organizational entities as fields of
networked actors. They propose that by studying an “organization-as-field” researchers can get
inside the “black box” of its inner workings to “reveal the larger framework of power relations that
expresses itself within such interactions – and that helps to frame them in the first place”
(Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008, p. 22). Relational sociology naturally picks up where previous studies
of DEI work conclude by describing DEI work as a web of interconnected “individuals, teams,
groups, the overall institution, [and] its environment” (Kezar, Glenn, et al., 2008, p. 145), by
subjecting these actors and contexts as well as their relations and transactions to empirical
interrogation with a unified and comprehensive analytic framework (Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008).
A relational study of a DEI project examines the project member’s relations of conflict and
cooperation to uncover and explain how organizational processes lead to seemingly unified
organizational action. This approach challenges an over simplistic notion of organizations as rational
actors taking predictable, strategic actions that follow from predetermined goals (W. R. Scott &
Davis, 2006). In addition, a relational study of an organization-as-field crucially distinguishes
between formal structures and positions of authority and the more or less durable network relations
and positionings that are the outcomes of struggles over what counts as legitimate resources
(Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008). For instance, a project might formally be organized around the
leadership of a grant’s principal investigator (PI) while informally following the authority of another
project member based on valued previous experience or environmental ties. The stakes of such
potential conflict involve “which actors are to exercise the most influence in organizational decision-
making” (Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008, p. 24-25). In this way, practitioners’ relationships among one
another and to a particular project shape what diversity, inclusion, and equity work looks like in
academia.
As the previous example suggests, studying a DEI project through the relational lens of
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
56
organization-as-field involves special attention to the larger societal contexts within which it is
embedded. For instance, a DEI project may be housed on a particular campus, as well as part of a
larger network of projects or an agency’s grant portfolio. In particular, a DEI project is embedded in
the larger discourses of diversity, inclusion, and equity work reviewed in the previous chapter. A
relational perspective, therefore, focuses on the constraining and enabling dimensions of historical,
networked relationships through which practitioners exercise power in order to shed light on the
process of participation in diversity, inclusion, and equity work. Whether and how this participation
enacts equity cannot be explained through the practitioners, their project relations, or the outcomes
of (a series of transactions that constitute) the work in isolation. Rather, the ways in which equity
manifests (or not) are relationally interdependent with all of these elements. Next, I discuss
intersectionality’s contributions to the study of participation in DEI work.
“Preservation or transformation”: Where’s intersectionality in DEI work? In the article
inspiring this heading, Change (2002) argues that acquiescence to a limited, legally defined diversity
discourse would preserve the very systems that critical educators sought to transform. Similarly,
equity work that addresses only race or gender, for instance, without a larger perspective informing
the interdependence of various systems of power is likely to preserve inequitable power dynamics.
Intersectionality is a normative transformational framework useful in studying the transformative
potential of higher education practitioners’ DEI work. The power of this theory lies in
"interrogating the inter-locking ways in which social structures produce and entrench power and
marginalization, and by drawing attention to the ways that existing paradigms that produce
knowledge and politics often function to normalize these dynamics" (Carbado et al., 2013, p. 310).
Intersectionality, therefore, provides a compass for how participation in these initiatives might work
toward transformative organizational change. This perspective sheds light on the study’s
investigation of whether and how DEI work operates within the routine power dynamics of
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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academia or challenges them in ways that acknowledge the complexity of these relations. Moreover,
intersectionality reinforces a temporal and situational understanding of practitioners’ participation in
this work (Hancock, 2016).
In addition, intersectionality encourages the consideration of how women of color are
implicated in privileging and oppressive power relations. The previously reviewed literature noted
that racially minoritized and gender marginalized folx disproportionately labor in the DEI field of
organizational change in higher education. Intersectionality, therefore, demands that a study of
participation in this work interrogate the ways that women of color practitioners are dis/regarded in
the projects, their campuses, and broader academic communities through this participation.
Conclusion: Studying Participation Processes in DEI Work with RIO
The RIO conceptual framework presented in this chapter informs the study of participation
in higher education DEI work as dynamic processes of interdependent power relations, operating
simultaneously at micro, meso, and macro levels. This framework highlights the relationships and
relational transactions among practitioners and their DEI projects through which intersectional
power dynamics unfold. The RIO framework also foregrounds the privileges and disadvantages of
participation in this work for women of color practitioners. In the next chapter, I present the
research questions guiding the investigation and discuss the comparative case study design.

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Chapter 4: An Embedded Case Study: Practitioner Participation in DEI Work
This study’s purpose was to explore the processes of participating in higher education DEI
work and how intersectional social and organizational power dynamics affect them in ways that may
or may not enact equity. Through the RIO conceptual framework, participation in the development
and implementation of DEI work can be understood as relational processes constituted by
practitioners’ relationships, transactions, and positionalities, particularly as these are mediated
through intersectional social and organizational power dynamics. The literature review and RIO
conceptual framework from previous chapters informed the following research questions:
1. How does the NSF INCLUDES program, as a form of federal policy, shape the
development of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) work in higher education?
2. How do social (e.g., race and gender) and organizational (e.g., role) power dynamics operate
through the implementation of an NSF INCLUDES-funded project in ways that manifest or
undermine principles of diversity, inclusion, and equity among colleagues?
3. How do women of color practitioners participate in and experience NSF INCLUDES-
funded DEI work?
With these questions as a guide, this study showed how in/equitable processes of participation in
DEI work might foster intersectional equity and/or reinscribe existing inequitable power relations in
higher education.
The research questions posed in this study explore processes by which equity is produced—
or not—through the networked transactions of higher education practitioners embedded in
INCLUDES-funded DEI projects. Process questions such as these are best addressed by qualitative
research (Kezar & Eckel, 2002a; Maxwell, 2013), such as the qualitative case study employed here.
Below, I describe and justify the embedded case study design in which I define NSF INCLUDES as
the overall bounded case and INCLUDES funded projects as embedded cases of DEI work. Then, I
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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discuss research design regarding sampling, data collection, and analysis. Next, I review the
trustworthiness, ethical considerations, and limitations of the study. Finally, I close with a statement
of my researcher positionality, highlighting connections to DEI work in higher education.
Embedded Case Study Design
The case study approach of studying a bounded segment of social life within lived
experiences is congruent with the sociological tenet and RIO framework’s contention that
networked, situated, and historical contexts make processes of participation in DEI work
meaningful (Creswell, 2014; Ragin, 1992; Yin, 2014). This study focuses on higher education
practitioners’ participation in DEI work as ongoing processes that constitute what this work is in
real time. My approach is similar to Berrey’s (2015) relational comparative case study of ‘diversity’ in
three different contexts: higher education admissions, residential housing, and corporate
employment. She notes that, “the attention to process differs from a positivist focus on a static
group, place, or program,” (Berrey, 2015, p. 20). The participation processes of designing and
implementing DEI work serve as the common focal point of analysis across projects for this study.
As part of the INCLUDES program, all the projects also tackle elements of STEM higher education
though with different target populations (e.g., undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty from a
variety of marginalized backgrounds) and functional areas (e.g., STEM curriculum, pathways
through higher education, and faculty development). Each project has a discrete team of higher
education practitioners working together in a bounded and embedded case of DEI work.
In this study, the INCLUDES program is an overarching case within which embedded cases
are defined as the individual projects funded by the program. From 2016 to 2020, the INCLUDES
program funded 22 projects with a focus on higher education, including 13 pilots and eight alliances
(NSF, n.d.b). I gained access to one of these projects for in-depth analysis as an embedded case.
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Throughout this study, I have sought to uplift the relational experiences of women of color
practitioners with varying racial and organizational positionalities. Because their numbers in any
given INCLUDES-funded project may be small and/or concentrated in supporting rather than
leadership roles, I also recruited participants who self-identified as women of color from all
INCLUDES-funded projects. Embedded case study is strengthened by the ability to compare across
cases that vary in particular ways while still having commonalities due to their embedded nature
within a broader case context (Yin, 2014). While not a full comparative case study, sampling
additional women of color practitioners from projects embedded in the INCLUDES case lends an
element of comparison based on differences in the roles and experiences of women of color across
and within embedded cases. Next, I describe in fuller detail how I define and bound the
INCLUDES program as a case and the projects funded by it as embedded cases.
Case Selection
I elected to study DEI work in higher education that is federally grant funded for three
primary reasons. First, I wanted to explore formal DEI work carried out by a team of practitioners
with varying organizational positions as opposed to amorphous service work carried out by
individual faculty or the staff of a dedicated DEI office. The centrality of interactions among
practitioners with differing organizational positionality has allowed me insight into organizational
power dynamics that are less often the focus of study than those within ranks of a single profession.
Also, I wanted to study DEI work with dedicated material resources, the allocation of which could
demonstrate the effects of intersectional power dynamics at work in project decisions. Whereas ad
hoc faculty activity is often unfunded and DEI offices with any resources are beholden to a
university’s central administration as to how to manage its budget, grant funding is determined by
the practitioners who write and carry out successful proposals. Finally, the selection of the NSF
INCLUDES program—a large, varied network of federally funded diversity, equity, and/or
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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inclusion projects in STEM—as the overarching case provides the research a focal context.
I selected the INCLUDES program as the overarching case study, in part, because of its
national significance as NSF’s newest flagship DEI initiative. Grant funding is an important resource
for practitioners to leverage in the struggle for shifting higher education toward a more equitable
future (McCambly & Colyvas, 2022; Whittaker & Montgomery, 2014). NSF has a Broadening
Participation portfolio of programs focused on increasing participation of “people of all racial,
ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and to
persons with disabilities” in STEM (NSF, n.d.d). From the time of the INCLUDES launch in 2016
to 2020, 17 BP Focused Programs issued funding solicitations (see Appendix C). The INCLUDES
program is meant to revitalize the NSF’s efforts to broaden participation in STEM education and
the workforce. The INCLUDES program stands out from other NSF BP Focused Programs
primarily for its focus on approach, which is further elaborated in the findings of chapter five of this
study. Briefly, INCLUDES is predicated on the assumption that working as a connected, national
network of nodes and hubs will be more effective for DEI goals than isolated, local efforts. The
INCLUDES program issued six solicitations that funded 90 DEI projects through pilots, alliances,
planning grants, and a hub with total funds about $85.88 million for from its start to 2020 (NSF,
n.d.b). These projects have connected over 900 organizations, including colleges/universities,
community organizations, businesses, schools, districts, professional organizations, and research
organizations (NSF, 2018b, 2020c). The case of the INCLUDES program is best understood
through its grant solicitations, as these documents provide policy guidance for the design and
development of the DEI work it funds. As of May of 2020, there were 21 active higher education
DEI projects with approximately $38.57 million in total funds awarded by INCLUDES (NSF Award
Search). The INCLUDES program may represent the future direction of federal DEI policy in
higher education.
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Despite the relatively small financial investment in academia to date, the INCLUDES
program has a strong possibility for influencing DEI work due to the ways NSF is positioning it. In
the short time since initiating INCLUDES, NSF has promoted the program as its flagship DEI
initiative. NSF declared this intention at the outset by stating one of the program goals would be to
bring all the agency’s BP portfolio programs into alignment with the INCLUDES framework of
developing a collaborative infrastructure (CEOSE, 2016). The program’s collaborative infrastructure
framework is comprised of five elements: a shared vision, collaborative networks, shared goals and
metrics, leadership in communication, and sustainable expansion and scale. In addition, Director
Cordova installed INLUDES within another major agency development, NSF’s 10 Big Ideas, which
are meant to guide the agency’s long-term priorities and cutting-edge work (NSF, n.d.a).
Accordingly, recent INCLUDES solicitations contain additional award criteria for branding all
published and verbally referenced work as part of “NSF INCLUDES Big Idea” along with the usual
acknowledgement for support and grant number (NSF, 2020b). Beyond promotional endeavors,
NSF incentivized several other BP focused programs to collaborate with INLUDES directly
through their program solicitations and encourages INCLUDES-funded projects to collaborate with
broadly. Finally, NSF also invited and received partnership with nine other federal agencies.
13
As
NSF continues to grow the INCLUDES program not only within its own BP portfolio but also as a
framework for federal collaboration around DEI work, attention is warranted to how the program
defines DEI policy.
In addition, scholars suggest that studying typical cases may help reveal theoretically
generalizable concepts (Lichtman, 2010). The INCLUDES program made a good case because it is

13
A list of federal agencies partnering with the NSF INCLUDES program: Department of Defense, Department of
Education, National Aeronautical and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of
Standards and Technology, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, United States Geological Survey, and
the United States Patent and Trademark Office
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typical of DEI work, as discussed in chapter two of this dissertation. For example, DEI work tends
to be organized more around a given domain or functional area. INCLUDES is organized around
DEI work in STEM. In addition, DEI work tends to focus on goals or outcomes with a specific
population rather than how the initiative might support systemic change. The INCLUDES program
is similarly focused on the specific goal of increasing participation of underrepresented groups in
STEM to the levels of their national population. Funded projects are required to adopt the
INCLUDES framework for developing collaborative infrastructure with partnerships and
centralized coordination. Yet, importantly, this does not preclude individual grant proposals or the
project members who enact them from developing and implementing work grounded in
intersectional equity. Projects can focus on any underrepresented population in any STEM
discipline(s) at any level of education or industry and, thus, vary vastly in terms of focal area, target
population, and specific goals. The INCLUDES program and funded projects, therefore, make the
program a good case study for examining participation processes in the development and
implementation of DEI work.
Defining and Bounding the Embedded Case Study
In this section, I define and bound an embedded case study of participation in DEI work
funded by the NSF INCLUDES program. The INCLUDES program provides policy guidelines in
the form of grant solicitations that inform the way DEI work takes shape within a given funded
project and thus the boundaries around embedded cases. The program was developed based on
notions of scalable collaborations, especially collective impact, which grant proposals were
encouraged to adopt, some required (NSF, 2016b). The collective impact model is an approach to
addressing a large scale, complex issue with, “a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a
structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous
communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants” (Kania & Kramer, 2011).
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Due to the collective impact model, partnerships and networks of education and STEM
organizations are typical features of the projects funded through any phase of INCLUDES and
explicitly required of the alliance phase grants, which are intended to leverage resources for scaling
efforts broadly. Alliance phase proposals are evaluated, and funded projects assessed, based partly
on their adherence to the program’s collaborative infrastructure described above. The grants
awarded under INCLUDES, therefore, fund organizationally complex projects with members
housed across multiple organizations throughout a region or nationwide and decentralized activity.
This complexity required attention to potentially conflicting influences from competing
organizational contexts and cultures within a single project. The differences in project configurations
as well as how practitioners interpreted and implemented their DEI work provided rich comparative
case environments in which to study practitioners enacting equity—or not—through participation
processes with their colleagues.
The funded projects can be understood as embedded cases of INCLUDES-funded DEI
work, which are bound by networks of higher education organizations and practitioners. Through
funded projects, practitioners’ work represents the development and implementation of the
program’s policy, which ample research has shown necessarily involves interpretation that can lead
to expansion, specification, or other departures from policy (Hupe et al., 2015; Spillane et al., 2002).
As the findings and their synthesis across Chapters 6, 7, and 8 will show, many ways of developing
and implementing INCLUDES-funded projects exist. These networks are assembled in various
configurations intent on impacting diversity, inclusion, and/or equity in a chosen area of academia.
For instance, some projects focus on particular populations by demographics (e.g., Latinx, persons
with disabilities, or all underrepresented racially minoritized groups) and/or stakeholder roles in
academia (e.g., undergraduates, graduate students, or faculty) situated in specified elements of higher
education (e.g., particular STEM discipline, pipelines/pathways, or STEM fields comprehensively).
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Although some elements of project configuration are mandated by NSF INCLUDES at the alliance
level, such as partnerships across organizations, a “backbone” group that supports coordination
within the project, and adherence to the collaborative infrastructure framework, variation can exist
within these elements as well. For example, some projects have adopted more of a top-down
approach to leadership while at least a few have embraced more of a shared leadership style. In
addition, practitioners have brought a wide variety of comprehension about equity to their projects,
which has implications for how they manage the influences of intersectional social and
organizational power dynamics as the findings will show. The practitioners named on a proposal as
well as those hired to carry out particular work for the project, by the nature of the program, come
together from affiliations and employments with a variety of organizations. The number of
partnered organizations varies across projects, and the nature of these partnerships varies within and
across projects. Each project, therefore, represents the bounding of a complex organization of
practitioners focused on specific goals.
Under the lens of the RIO framework, each of these projects can be thought of as an
organization that occupies a field with dynamic spaces of emergent socio-cultural production. I
conceive of each INCLUDES-funded project as an organization in the sense that they function as
“social structures created by individuals to support the collaborative pursuit of specified goals” (W.
R. Scott & Davis, 2006, p. 11). In addition, each project operates as an organization, with members,
structures, cultures, and the pursuit of specific forms of work in strategic ways in the higher
education and DEI environments (W. R. Scott & Davis, 2006). These organizational elements and
activities have been examined to understand how each project is infused with racialized, gendered,
and other intersecting power dynamics. Next, I discuss sampling and recruitment strategies for the
embedded case study and participants.
Sampling and Recruitment Strategies
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In this study, relational experiences of participation in DEI work in higher education are
highlighted through the NSF INCLUDES funded projects. I used publicly available information to
identify projects and practitioners for recruiting potentially eligible participants and cases. All
INCLUDES-funded project synopses, PI names and contact information, and a wealth of other
information is available through the NSF searchable database of funded grants. I used the NSF
Award Search to compile a list of higher education focused projects and their PIs/Co-PIs.
Interviews with project PIs helped determine case selection feasibility, including willingness to
participate in the study through interviews, observations of project activity (e.g., meetings and
events), and the sharing of project documentation (e.g., full grant proposal). The participation of
women of color in a project, though not necessarily as a PI/Co-PI, was also an eligibility
requirement for selecting the project studied as the embedded case. Out of 22 funded projects
focused on higher education, I sampled one, which I call Diversifying STEM Higher Education
(DiSHE), as an embedded case study to conduct a deeper investigation of participation in DEI
work.
A central concern of this study is whether and how the funded projects’ efforts to promote
diversity, inclusion, and/or equity have been developed and implemented in ways that are equitable
in the working relationships of the project team members, particularly for women of color (RQ 2 &
3). Therefore, this embedded case study employed purposive sampling strategies for participant and
case selection. Purposive sampling allows the researcher to focus on selecting units for analysis that
allow for observation of the phenomenon of interest (Yin, 2014). I conducted outreach via email to
all INCLUDES-funded project PIs/Co-PIs to recruit women of color project members serving on
their projects in any role. In addition, I used the list of PIs to identify possible women of color
practitioners based on names and then gathered additional information from internet searches,
particularly photographs and biographies, that I used to refine a list of likely women of color
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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practitioners.
14
I used this secondary list to conduct additional targeted email outreach.

To help
build rapport with potential participants through recruitment emails, I identified myself as a Latina
scholar with several years of experience working in higher education DEI projects in various
capacities (Glesne, 2011). In addition, the study utilized snowball sampling to recruit additional
project member participants who identify as women of color working in project roles other than
PI/Co-PI. To gain rich qualitative data from practitioners with a variety of intersectional
positionalities that included identifying as a woman of color, the study over sampled practitioners
who self-identified as Black/African American, Latina, and Asian/Asian American women. In total,
the sample included 35 people, 22 of whom were Women of Color working in nine different
INCLUDES-funded projects.
Data Collection
Another key feature of case study design is the use of data from multiple sources and
collection methods to contextualize and develop a holistic analysis about the bounded phenomenon
of study (Creswell, 2006; Yin, 2014). The choice of methods used in case study research are driven
by the research questions and framework guiding the study (Yin, 2014). The RIO framework
motivated focus on the interrelated power dynamics occurring as a function of participating in DEI
work. In this way, participation is understood as relationally connecting practitioners to one another
and the project in particular ways that I have empirically investigated through interview, observation,
and documentation. Interviews, and to some extent observations, constitute the study’s primary data

14
Using only this approach for recruiting could have led to the elimination of potential participants, which is why it
was used only as a secondary strategy. Because names provide inadequate proxies for individuals’ social identities,
the list generated from this approach was merely used as a starting off point for assessing the possibility of women
of color in any PI/Co-PI grant position. Based on information combined from this list and gathered through web
searches, women of color appeared to be listed as PIs/Co-PIs on a few grants for NSF INCLUDES projects.
However, this information was not considered verified until, and unless, participants self-identified as such through
formal data collection.
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given the RIO framework and study focus on processes and relationships (RQ 2 & 3). In addition, I
have collected a variety of documentation about the INCLUDES program, grant solicitations in
particular, and the embedded case study (RQ1 & 2).
Interviews. I conducted 36 one-on-one interviews of about 60-minutes each, through a
combination of phone and Zoom calls with practitioners from nine different projects. Table 1
shows participant roles–which have been generalized for the purposes of protecting confidentiality,
demographics–which have been standardized for the purposes of protecting confidentiality, and data
collection participation organized by project. With participants’ permission, calls were audio
recorded. The interviews focused on networked and situationally embedded aspects of participation
that make it meaningful, as guided by the RIO framework. Interviews covered several topics related
to practitioners’ roles in their projects, including how they became involved, whether–and in what
ways–they contributed to project development, and with whom from the project they worked most
closely and the nature of those relationships (RQ 2 & 3). For instance, when a practitioner indicated
that they had been with a project from the beginning, clarifying follow up questions would ascertain
their input on the grant proposal. Also, interviews addressed project configuration, leadership,
decision-making, strategies, and goals. Interviews probed deeper into the nature of practitioners’
interactions with various colleagues and different arms of their projects (RQ 2 & 3). For example,
the interview protocols explored how team members of different social identities and project roles
contributed to the project’s goals, strategies, and activities. Interviews helped to interrogate less
readily observable phenomenon such as emotional labor and practitioners’ reflections on the
experiences involved contributed to situational meaning making.

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Table 1

Participant Pseudonym, Role, and Demographic Information by Project (RQ 3 Data)

Pseudonym Project Role Race/Ethnicity Gender
Project 1
Britney Leadership Black/African American woman
Shirley Leadership Black/African American woman
Jessica Leadership Latina / Hispanic woman
Project 2
Grace Leadership Latina / Hispanic woman
Project 3
Jennifer Leadership Latina / Hispanic woman
Project 4
Jasmine Staff Black/African American woman
Project 5*
Project 6
Jane Leadership
Asian/Asian American
woman
Project 7
Gabriela Leadership Latina / Hispanic woman
Project 8
Vanessa Staff
Black/African American,
white woman
Ruby Staff Latina / Hispanic woman
Sofia Staff Latina / Hispanic woman
Project 9
Georgina Leadership Black/African American woman
Note. Project roles have been generalized for the purposes of protecting participant
confidentiality. Similarly, demographic information has been standardized. *Women of color
participants from Project 5 appear in Table 2 with all participants from the embedded case
study of DiSHE.
Of the interviews, 24 were with practitioners working on DiSHE, the embedded case study.
Table 2 shows these participants’ project roles, demographics, and data collection participation
(details have been generalized and standardized to protect participant confidentiality). For the
embedded case study, I conducted interviews with a subset of DiSHE members early in the study
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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and another subset two years later, with one member being interviewed twice as part of member
checking. These later interviews also involved critical reflections of transactions I witnessed during
study observations, project development and implementation over time, and longer-term impacts of
participating in the project on emotional and professional well-being. Interviewing mostly different
participants at different time periods reduced the research participation burden on practitioners, an
important factor given the pandemic backdrop. Conducting interviews with a variety of project
members aligned to the RIO framework’s attention to how lived experiences unfold contextually
and become meaningful through a person’s positionalities and situated reflections on them.

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Table 2

Project 5: DiSHE Interview Participant Pseudonym, Role, Demographic Info, and Data Collection (RQ 2 Data)
Pseudonym Race/Ethnicity Gender Also Observed
Leadership
Salma Asian/Asian American
woman Y
Ashley
Black/African American woman Y
Taylor
Black/African American woman Y
Emily white
woman Y
Sarah white
woman Y
Ken white man
Y
Walter white man
Y
Angela
Black/African American woman N
Regina
Black/African American woman N
Coordinator
Cynthia
Black/African American woman N
Gina
Latina / Hispanic woman N
Eva
Black/African American woman N
Meagan
Black/African American woman N
Advisor
Maya Latina / Hispanic
woman Y
Adrian Latino / Hispanic man
Y
Claire white
woman Y
Lauren white
woman Y
Michael white man
Y
Affiliate
Martin
Black/African American*
man*
Y
Alex white* man*
Y
Jack white* man*
Y
Jake white* man*
Y
Nick white* man*
Y
Note. Project roles have been generalized for the purpose of protecting participant confidentiality.
Demographic information has been standardized for similar purpose. *Denotes data was not self-
reported.
Observations. I conducted 41 hours of in-person observations of DiSHE project meetings
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and events spanning two years to complement practitioner reports from interviews (RQ1 & RQ2).
Although working relationships are routinely enacted through one-on-one and small group emails
and other unplanned communications that are largely unobservable, observing planned activities still
provided insights into how project members communicated, interacted, and made decisions (RQ1 &
2). In addition, observations enabled first-hand experience of project implementation and, to some
extent, decision making (RQ1 & RQ2). I conducted observations of DiSHE’s regular and annual
project meetings as well as external presentations and project interventions. Due to the collaborative
nature of the INCLUDES program, DiSHE (like many others) is decentralized and held a fair
amount of activity virtually even prior to the pandemic. I attended annual project meetings, events,
and presentations in person when possible. Collecting observational data serves an important source
of triangulation and crystallization with data collected primarily through interviews.
Documents. I collected publicly available documentation about the INCLUDES program,
including grant solicitations, dear colleague letters, program reports, and websites. I also collected
public grant-funded project abstracts. In addition, I collected information from project websites and
online news sources about projects, if available. I acquired DiSHE’s full grant proposal narrative,
which provided foundational understanding of the project’s goals, activities, and strategies. I also
gained access to some of DiSHE’s grey literature (i.e., materials not regulated by the publishing
industry) including meeting minutes, programming or activity handouts, presentations, and
newsletters (Lawrence, Houghton, Thomas, & Weldon, 2014). Documents that have been created
for external review such as a project’s publicly available grant abstract, handouts, presentations, and
even the full grant proposal have provided insight into DiSHE’s ideal positioning and espoused
goals. Whereas, documents created for internal utility, such as meeting notes, provided artifacts
about how DiSHE was constituted through relational transactions.
Data Analysis
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I used several strategies to analyze data from interviews, observations, and documents to
uncover how intersecting social and organizational power dynamics flow through practitioners’
relationships with each other and their work. First, I employed a constant comparative, or iterative,
approach to data analysis that weaves through data collection and informs it moving forward
(Charmaz, 2011). For instance, I began analysis by composing analytic memos on documents as I
reviewed them, immediately following each interview, and interspersed in offset text with fieldnotes
following each observation (Emerson et al., 2011; Maxwell, 2013). The analytic memos following the
first few interviews helped me reflect critically on my protocols for remaining interviews. Early
analysis of some data, therefore, began before all data was collected.
Another analytic technique from Charmaz (2011) involves the use of sensitizing concepts,
which she defines as general ideas “to frame” the study and are revised or dropped “when the
concepts do not fit what we find in the empirical world” (p. 166). After interviews were
professionally transcribed verbatim, I conducted interview transcription checks where I reviewed
and edited for accuracy while listening to the audio files, deleted personally identifiable information,
and noted possible sensitizing concepts for use in coding. Sensitizing concepts drawn from the
transcript review included “trust,” “collaboration,” and “conflict.”
Precoding Data Preparation. I uploaded all primary (interview transcripts and
INCLUDES solicitations) and secondary data (field notes and other BP program solicitations) to
NVivo12 for Mac for a three-phased coding process. I wrote analytic memos throughout each phase
to continue the constant comparative strategy (Charmaz, 2011). Within NVivo, I created a “case”
for every participant, whether part of the embedded case study or not, with “attributes,” that
included project, project role, race/ethnicity, and gender to facilitate examining trends across various
positionalities.
I also created NVivo “cases” for each of the 17 BP programs from which I had solicitations.
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The program solicitation cases did not have attributes. Every solicitation contains a considerable
amount of text with uniform language regarding NSF instructions and policies. I strategized the
program-specific portions of the solicitations to focus my coding: the front matter, the first four
sections, and the first part of the fifth section.
15
In addition to coding program specific elements, I
also searched for deviations, special program-specific criteria, among the final five sections with
boiler plate text.
Coding Phase I. For the data used to answer RQ 2 and RQ 3 (all but the solicitations), I
conducted open coding alongside the use of sensitizing concepts described above. Throughout this
phase I also used a strategy of connecting analysis (Maxwell, 2013). Maxwell (2013) notes that
studies interested in phenomenon across settings and people must focus on connecting analysis—
search for “relationships that connect statements and events within a context into a coherent whole—
as much as, if not more than, categorizing analysis—organizational, substantive, or theoretical
coding” (p. 113). I operationalized this strategy, in part, by coding larger segments of text that
included situationally relevant context. The connecting strategy was well suited to a comparative
understanding of DEI work by participants from different embedded cases (Charmaz, 2011;
Maxwell, 2013). The connecting coding also supported the RIO framework’s holistic attention to
networked relationships in particular situations.
In place of the strategy from Maxwell (2013), I employed the method of critical policy
discourse analysis (Felix & Fernandez Castro, 2018; Iverson, 2005) for coding the relevant portions
of the solicitations. Iverson (2005) notes this method is “a unique model for analyzing policy
documents, focuses on written texts, distinguishes the ways in which policy constructs social

15
The front matter contains Important Information and Revision Notes (if applicable) and General Information; and
the first sections are I. Introduction, II. Program Description, III. Award Information, IV. Eligibility Information, and
V. Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions A. Proposal Preparation Instructions.
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relations, and relies on an understanding of discourse as productive, shaping particular realities” (p.
44). Coding focused on examining the discursive framing of DEI work for how solicitations might
influence the construction of social relations among practitioners and their participation in
developing and implementing the work (RQ1). Alongside open coding, this CPD guidance filtered
through the DEI literature informed the initial codes of “problem definition,” “goals,” and “target
population.”
Phase II. The second coding phase involved axial coding in which the researcher begins to
make meaning of the coded data and relationships among codes (Maxwell, 2013). After reviewing
the codebook, analytic memos, and RIO conceptual framework, I began categorizing some codes as
“personal,” “structural,” or “transactional.” For instance, “background,” “motivation,” and
“knowledge resources” were made personal subcodes; “roles,” “decision-making,” and
“configuration” were made structural subcodes; and “communication,” “trust,” and “sponsorship”
were made transactional subcodes. In some instances, I created subcodes within codes that I came
to understand as categories. For example, within the category of “conflict,” I created subcodes for
“emotional labor,” “invalidation,” and “cultural dissonance.”
Similarly for the solicitations, within the category of “goals,” I cross-coded “diversity,”
“inclusion,” and “equity,” as opposed to setting them as subcodes since these conceptual codes were
also used outside of the category of goals for the interview data. In solicitations from the secondary
data, I developed codes for “intersectionality” and “INCLUDES collaboration.” As I zeroed in on
the influence of goals and “problem definition” as relevant codes
Phase III. During the third phase of coding, I focused on uncovering the broader themes
from the data that directly responded to the study’s research questions (Maxwell, 2013). I started by
narrowing in on the coded data most relevant to the study. Then, I examined the patterns of this
coded data across participants grouped by different attributes to reveal the most salient themes for
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women of color. Not all salient themes were prevalent across the data as a whole, particularly
organizational elements that tended to cluster by project. For example, a theme of shared leadership
would have been lost amongst more prominent themes across a set of the 22 women of color
interviews. Meanwhile, discussion of synthesis across data in the final chapter still captures
important threads therein. At this point, I determined to treat the interview data from women of
color participants of the embedded case study and the additional women of color participants who
were not part of that project separately in order to preserve sets of themes that resonated within and
across projects.
At this stage in the solicitation analysis, I also focused on the coded data most responsive to
the study’s aim (RQ 1) relevant to influencing the development of INCLUDES-funded projects. To
understand themes within the program, I looked at coded data of the goals and problem definition
across solicitations for patterns and their possible development over time. Finally, I looked at the
patterns of the INCLUDES program coded data in comparison to the patterns of the other BP
program solicitations in order to understand the INCLUDES program’s unique or, in many cases,
unremarkable contributions to the discursive construction of DEI work.
The analytic strategies discussed above allowed me to answer the research questions
presented at the beginning of this chapter about how power dynamics influence the processes of
participation in the development and implementation of DEI work, especially for women of color
practitioners. Before turning to the findings, I discuss critical issues of trustworthiness, ethical
considerations, limitations, and my positionality as the researcher and primary instrument of this
study.
Trustworthiness, Ethical Considerations, and Limitations
Qualitative research requires consideration of how to address trustworthiness and ethical
issues that may arise from the specific methods deployed by a given study. Next, I discuss how the
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design choices described above facilitated trustworthiness, engaged with ethical considerations, and
attempted to mitigate limitations.
Strategies to Uphold Trustworthiness. Collecting data from a variety of sources helps to
triangulate as well as crystallize findings (Creswell, 2006; Hurtado, 2015; Maxwell, 2013). The
conventional approach to data analysis in case study research involves triangulation for three
purposes (Maxwell, 2013). First, data collected from one method may offset the limitations of data
collected from other methods and confirm a set of findings across the data. For example,
observations allowed me to witness networked transactions as they occurred in real time offsetting
the limitations of recall involved in interviews. Conversely, interviews provided a window into
participants’ insights and reflections on transactions that are not readily observable. Second, analysis
of data from multiple sources, particularly sources from different cases, strengthened the findings.
Third, dialectically analyzing data from different sources and methods enhanced my ability to gain
and convey deeper understanding of nuances in the findings.
Crystallization builds on the latter aspects of triangulation with an explicit consciousness to
power in data analysis, which aligns with the RIO framework guiding this study in three ways
(Hurtado, 2015). First, crystallizing data acknowledges and seeks to uncover power dynamics among
differently positioned participants. For the present study, I gathered data about social identities of
participants as well as their organizational roles in their project and its organizational structures.
Second, analyzing data through multiple levels of “sociohistorical context, social structure, culture,
group-based identities, and their impact on individuals” helped the study be responsive to the RIO
framework’s focus on power relations that flow across micro, meso, and macro levels (Hurtado,
2015, p. 293). Third, and contrary to the primary purpose of triangulation, data crystallization
supports the presentation of findings with heterogeneous perspectives and differential meanings or
impacts that arose in relation to the specific positionalities, situations, experiences, and perspectives
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of participants. This last point resonates with the assumption underlying the RIO conceptual
framework that manifestations of project power dynamics are relationally and situationally
contingent rather than predetermined by essentialist notions of identity.
These triangulation and crystallization approaches to data collection and analysis support the
trustworthiness of this study (Hurtado, 2015; Maxwell, 2013; Yin, 2014). Finally, the RIO framework
highlights the participation of women of color practitioners throughout the interrelated processes
discussed above. This focus is raised by a theoretical indebtedness to women of color but ultimately
compelled by their situated position within the empirical scholarship as disproportionately impacted
by participation in DEI work.
A variety of other strategies were used to uphold the trustworthiness of this study. I
conducted member checking, the sharing of preliminary findings with study participants, to validate
or revise the study’s findings through a presentation of preliminary findings to DiSHE leadership
and staff as well as in one-on-one follow up discussions with a subset of interview participants.
(Creswell, 2006; Maxwell, 2013). I also used four member checks to support critical reflexivity for
practitioners about their work, which along with sharing findings from the study serves the principle
of reciprocity toward research participants (Warren et al., 2016). Finally, I engaged in peer debriefing
throughout the research study to check my assumptions and avoid superficial analysis of data
(Maxwell, 2013).
Ethical Considerations. This study posed minimal risks to participants because the
possibility of emotional discomfort arising from discussions of diversity, inclusion, and equity issues
was likely not greater than the participants typically experience during their routine work in these
DEI projects. Several participants, in fact, shared that they found the opportunity to share and
reflect on their experiences beneficial and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be heard. I
have taken additional steps to mitigate this minimal risk posed to participants by the study. Finally,
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even though participants may not have experience greater risk of emotional discomfort than in the
ordinary course of their work, as an extra precaution I reviewed literature on trauma-informed
research methods to inform discussions of racial and gender inequities (Day, 2018).
I encouraged candid interview conversations by informing participants that I would maintain
participant and project confidentiality. Details about the specific INCLUDES project in which
participants are working have been omitted or abstracted to prevent identification of persons and
projects. Pseudonyms have been used in writing up preliminary findings, presentations, and this
dissertation. Participation in the study was completely voluntary and participants were informed that
they could end their participation at any time for any reason or decline to answer specific questions.
Also, I informed participants who consented to audio recorded interviews that they could request
the recording be paused or stopped at any moment for any reason.
The findings from this study and future research in this area may benefit the participants and
their projects as well as future practitioners developing and implementing DEI work in higher
education. For instance, presenting preliminary findings to the embedded case study project served
as an opening for reflection on equitable practices and how to mitigate inequitable practices that
were identified. Participants seeking continued or future funding for their DEI work may find that
the critical reflexivity of participating in and learning about preliminary findings from the study
strengthens their projects so that they become more competitive in obtaining resources and
efficacious in achieving their desired outcomes.
Limitations. The COVID pandemic likely hampered data collection by reducing capacity
for participation in this study, which was originally designed as a comparative case analysis. The
sampling of women of color practitioners across projects partially offset this by providing data from
several embedded cases even as this admittedly does not achieve the same standard of in-depth
comparative case study. Apart from the pandemic, the decentralized nature of the embedded case
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study project allowed for online observations of routine meetings. One limitation of the study
design, regardless of the pandemic, is the difficulty of observing decentralized working relationships
where activity occurs not only in official meetings, but also through ad hoc one-on-one and small
group communications such as emails and phone calls. Interviews, therefore, provided the most
important source of data collection relevant for understanding the processes of participating in DEI
work. Secondarily, documentation allowed insights into policy influences on the design of DEI
work. Case study does not necessarily privilege any method over another, rather it focuses on the
purposeful integration of data across useful methods, allowing for flexible data collection responsive
to the study’s questions and purpose.
Researcher Positionality and Equity Concerns
In qualitative research, the researcher is the instrument of the study and, as with all research
regardless of the type of inquiry, instrumental in deciding what to study and how to design the study.
For this reason and others, researcher positionality statements are important for situating a scholar
in relation to their work. I am a Latina scholar with experience participating in several higher
education projects aimed at improving diversity, inclusion, and equity through different areas of
practice. My presence in advanced and elite spaces of academia as a woman of color from a lower
socioeconomic background goes against the odds, attesting to my struggles and privileges. While I
know that higher education was not created by or for racially minoritized persons like myself, I also
know that the institution and organizations that comprise it were built from theft of our ancestors’
humanity, re/productive labor, and land.
16
Rather than disavowing the institution, I refuse to

16
In addition to Wilder’s (2013) work on higher education organizations dependence on slavery, Harper, Patton, and
Wooden (2009) note that even HBCUs were founded by white elites who maintained nearly exclusive governance until
around the 1930s. Moreover, the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 that established many HBCUs also legalized segregation
of Black and white public institutions while annexing “wide neglected areas” premised on the U.S. settler colonial
tradition of appropriating land from Native American/Indigenous groups (Stein, 2017). Indeed, the development of the
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relinquish our claims to these spaces built from us if not for us, choosing to work for equitable
transformations from within. My passion for contributing, in whatever small way, to a more
equitable institution of higher education sustains me in the face of ongoing struggle with and in
academia.
As far as my positionality affects the research, my experience with DEI projects lends me
some modicum of credibility. Also, these experiences provided connections to networks of
practitioners engaged in similar work that facilitated my negotiating access to research participants
and sites. In addition, my experiences stimulate an empathy for the unending challenges that
practitioners face in trying to create the liberating, equitable institution of higher learning we all
deserve. This nuanced sense of urgency and empathy has facilitated rapport building with
practitioners. Through my positionality, I was able to offer an open ear, recognition, and validation
to my participants who identify as women of color, in particular, that their experiences, perspectives,
and feelings matter deeply. As mentioned above, the interview may have served a cathartic
experience for some participants. Through a reciprocal relationship, not only does my positionality
necessarily impact the study (e.g., chosen topic, RQs, participants sampled, etc.), conducting this
study also deeply impacts me.
Still, as a Latina (read: still, as an outsider) doctoral candidate struggling with imposter
syndrome and severe anxiety and episodic depression (even prior to the onset of the COVID
pandemic that has caused mental health distress to so many), I am never quite sure of my reception
in academic spaces or by those with positions of authority. In addition to the academic work
required to conduct this study, I have expended considerable additional labor to manage the psychic,
emotional, and physical tolls of completing a dissertation and required to survive in academia in this

institution of higher education, both through public and private organizations, is intricately tied up with slavery and
settler colonialism.
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society in this pandemic in this moment.

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Chapter 5: The Case of INCLUDES: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis
Grant making organizations often require their support be noted on published materials
based on work they fund while also distancing the organization from the actual work with caveats
like, “this work does not necessarily reflect the opinions of” such and such organization. This
longstanding business practice may, in part, explain the limited scholarly attention to the influence of
grant making organizations on how the work they fund is developed. This chapter addresses
potential policy influences of the NSF INCLUDES program on the design and development of
higher education DEI work carried out under projects it funds. First, I provide background on the
NSF’s BP portfolio of initiatives. Next, I describe the development of the INCLUDES program.
With the context set, I discuss the findings from a critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA) of
INCLDUES solicitations from 2016-2020, occasionally bringing in other NSF BP program
solicitations from the same years, to reveal how the INCLUDES program, specifically, sets policy
expectations for funded project development. The framing of policy expectations from the
INCLUDES program matters not only for its influence on the work that gets funded but also the
development of a greater scope of higher education DEI work that seeks funding from this
program. Moreover, understanding the particular influences from the INCLUDES program are
important context for understanding the commonalities and differences in the ways that various
practitioners’ participation in project development and implementation.
Broadening Participation: The NSF Takes on the Diversity Challenge
The Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act by Congress in 1980 created the
Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science in Technology (later renamed Committee on Equal
Opportunity in Science and Engineering, CEOSE) within the NSF to “insure the full development
and use of talent and technical skill of men and women, equally, of all ethnic, racial, and economic
backgrounds” (Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act, 1980). The statute formally
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designated part of the agency’s core mission as increasing participation of women, racially
minoritized peoples, and people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who are
underrepresented in STEM, primarily through higher education. As stated in the introduction, the
goal of “broadening participation” and achieving parity with groups’ U.S. populations by developing
their talents and skills promote diversity, a simple form of equity, and inclusion, respectively.
Although the first DEI program that NSF established predates the Congressional mandate by about
a decade, it started with a focus on higher education to fund faculty at colleges and universities that
“historically served disadvantaged ethnic minorities” to the amount of just under $1 million in 1980
(NSF Annual Report, 1980, p. 118). The 1980 law initially mandated that a minimum of $30 million,
or just 2.69%, of the NSF’s appropriations for the following year be devoted to this new goal
(Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act, 1980).
Director John Slaughter led the agency at this time, which overlapped with a federal
administration transition from Democratic control of the White House to Republican. During one
of his first budgetary meetings before Congress, Dr. Slaughter asserted a broader vision for the NSF
in direct contradiction to President Reagan’s wishes for the agency (NSF History - John B. Slaughter
Biography web page, 2020). Despite protections from budget cuts by the Reagan administration, BP
programs under the CEOSE purview remained underfunded (Grew, 1986). Before his early removal
as NSF Director, Dr. Slaughter led organizational restructuring of the agency to buffer support for
STEM education, specifically at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), crucial
organizations for broadening participation and DEI activity (NSF, n.d.c). By 1982, NSF had
established two additional BP programs operating in higher education, Research Improvement in
Minority Institutions and Visiting Professorships for Women, with $3.29 Million in total funds (NSF
Annual Report, 1982).
To this day, the 1980 mandate to achieve “full participation of women, minorities, and other
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groups currently underrepresented” in STEM remains a cemented, if elusive, goal for the NSF
(Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act, 1980). Policy scholars often talk about the policy
window, an opportunity in which two or more forces operating in politics, policy, or a problem
space come together to initiate a policy solution to a given challenge (Kingdon, 2003). While the
broadening participation policy created a wedge, it had not yet aligned with political headwinds or
the problem stream for NSF to make great strides in goals that would come to be grouped under the
DEI umbrella (Kingdon, 2003). That policy window would come later, setting the stage for the
INCLUDES program. In the 1992 biennial report to Congress, the CEOSE set six benchmark goals
for NSF to achieve its BP mission, which partly catalyzed the creation of several new BP initiatives
in the 1990s (CEOSE, 1996; James & Singer, 2016).
17
Out of these benchmark participation goals,
half directly promoted broadening participation within higher education and a fourth, the job-related
goal, relied heavily on improved participation outcomes in higher education. Prior to this point,
affirmative action litigation had a chilling effect on the creation of programs and issuance of new
solicitations from existing programs (Bramwell et al., 2009). In 2008, NSF engaged heavily with the
problem stream surrounding broadening participation, first with a working group that issued a
broadening participation framework for action and then a workshop engaging questions of
broadening participation evaluation (Bramwell et al., 2009; NSF, 2008). These policy guidelines,
along with ongoing pressure from CEOSE, helped NSF shape and strengthen its investments in
DEI work (Bramwell et al., 2009).

17
CEOSE specified participation rates in STEM education and industry that would 1) reduce science and math
achievement gaps for gender and ethnicity by half; 2) equalize high school participation levels in science, math, and
engineering across race/ethnicity, gender, and for students with disabilities; 3) quadruple BA degrees to
“underrepresented” students and persons with disabilities who have attended a two-year college; 4) double science and
engineering doctorates for women and persons with disabilities while tripling them for “underrepresented minorities;” 5)
triple science, math, and engineering jobs for women and “minorities” while doubling them for persons with
disabilities; and 6) triple secondary or postsecondary teachers of science, math, and technical subjects who are
“minorities” while doubling those who are women and persons with disabilities (CEOSE, 1996).
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The NSF eventually developed a portfolio of activities to fulfill its mandate of broadening
participation (NSF, n.d.e, 2008). The structure of the portfolio, and programs that form it, have
changed over the years, with some programs retired or revised and renamed and new ones added
(James & Singer, 2016). Beyond targeted activities, broadening participation became one among
several elements of the “Broader Impacts” review criterion to which every NSF proposal is subject
(NSF, n.d.e). The portfolio approach currently supports broadening participation activity with three
different strategies: Dear Colleague Letters raising specific elements of broadening participation
issues, emphasis programs that are not dedicated to but have components of broadening
participation and are subject to additional broadening participation review, and focused programs
with their primary goals directly aligned to broadening participation (NSF, n.d.e). As of 2020, NSF
had 30 focused programs listed under its BP portfolio, with INCLUDES the most recent addition.
Introducing the INCLUDES Case: A “Bold, New” Flagship DEI Program for NSF
As mentioned in Chapter 1, the CEOSE (2012) “bold” call to action draws on DEI
principles and equity-mindedness. To briefly reiterate, the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity
refer, respectively, to the representation of difference(s), the integration of difference(s), and
achieving parity along dimensions that cross differences possibly through the transformation of
sociohistorical power relations for social justice. Moreover, equity-mindedness reinforces notions of
social justice with a focus on the institutional responsibility for redressing racial equity gaps in
educational achievements for racially minoritized students (Bensimon, 2005). The CEOSE (2012)
calls on NSF to:
implement a bold new initiative, focused on broadening participation of underrepresented
groups in STEM, similar in concept and scale to NSF’s centers, that emphasizes institutional
transformation and system change; collects and makes accessible longitudinal data; defines
clear benchmarks for success; supports the translation, replication and expansion of
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successful broadening participation efforts; and provides significant financial support to
individuals who represent the very broadened participation that we seek. (p. v)
The recommendation consists of five elements, some of which are multipronged. The first goal that
CEOSE sets for NSF clearly draws on equity-mindedness in directing the agency’s broadening
participation efforts to focus on “institutional transformation and system change,” such that will
require resources on the scale of previously funded NSF centers. CEOSE nods to historicity and
accessibility in its call for open, longitudinal data. Additionally, CEOSE holds NSF responsible for
transparent goal setting through its third missive on “clear benchmarks for success.” Apparent in the
fourth element—CEOSE’s recommendation for “translation, replication, and expansion of
successful” efforts—is the desire not to waste resources reinventing solutions while also
acknowledging that policy implementation does translate precisely across all contexts. Finally, the
last element of NSF’s charge, to provide “significant financial support” to racially minoritized
groups, women, and others included in the broadening participation mandate, recognizes the
inequitable share of resources and opportunities available to groups “underrepresented” in STEM.
The idea that racially minoritized peoples are not culturally or in any other way endemically deficient
but rather have been denied the material resources to participate and thrive in STEM wholly
embraces the principles of robust, socially just equity. A program designed in the CEOSE (2012)
vision would indeed be bold and innovative. These are the benchmarks for the INCLUDES
program.
Below I present findings from the CPDA analysis of six primary INCLUDES program
solicitations from 2016 though 2020 to understand how these federal policy documents may
influence the design and development of DEI work in higher education, in general, and the
development and implementation of program-funded work, in particular. Furthermore, the analysis
reveals how the program does or does not respond to the robust equity principles of the CEOSE
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(2012) call to action.
INCLUDES Program Solicitations: A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis
With this context about NSF’s BP portfolio and especially INCLUDES as a response to
CEOSE as a backdrop, I present findings from the critical policy discourse analysis of the six
INCLUDES program solicitations. Where relevant, I contextualize the INCLUDES solicitations’
policy discourse with analysis of other contemporary NSF BP program solicitations and in relation
to the CEOSE (2012) charge. I start by examining the program goals as they pertain to DEI
concepts reviewed in chapter two. Then, I scrutinize how the program does–or rather, largely does
not–define the underlying problem(s) it seeks to address. Finally, I conclude with a review of the
policy expectations that likely influence the design and development of INCLUDES-funded DEI
work.
INCLUDES Goals: Diversity and Integration, Parity, and Innovation
The INCLUDES program continues to evolve as evidenced from shifting language used in
the specific goals stated in solicitations over the years; however, three prominent themes have
endured. The first goal theme of diversity and inclusion toward achieving NSF’s broadening
participation mission is exemplified by the following passage from the 2016 solicitation: “aims to
improve the preparation, increase the participation, and ensure the contributions of individuals from
groups that traditionally have been underrepresented in the STEM enterprise” (NSF, 2016b, p. 1-2,
2017a, 2020b). The second theme of equity is encapsulated by this passage from the 2020
solicitation: “to catalyze the STEM enterprise to work collaboratively for inclusive change, resulting
in a STEM workforce that reflects the population of the Nation” (NSF, 2020b, p 4., 2018a, 2019a)
Finally, the third theme of innovative approaches as a goal is epitomized by the 2016 passage: “The
long-term goal of NSF INCLUDES is to support, over the next ten years, innovative models,
networks, partnerships, and research that enable the U.S. science and engineering workforce to
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thrive” by achieving representational parity for underrepresented groups (NSF, 2016b, p. 2). Next, I
show how these three themes in INCLUDES goals adhere to principles of diversity, inclusion,
equity, and equity-mindedness in complex, uneven ways.
Diversity and Inclusion Goals. The first theme of INCLUDES goals best aligns to a
diversity and inclusion perspective of DEI work in higher education as the program intends “to
build the STEM workforce” with the increased representation of women, underrepresented racially
minoritized people and people with disabilities. (NSF, 2016b, p. 1, 2016e, 2020b). The aims to
“improve the preparation, increase the participation, and ensure the contributions of individuals
from [underrepresented] groups” was stated word for word in the first two and sixth solicitations
(NSF, 2016b, 2016e, 2020b). Although this passage was dropped from the three intervening
solicitations, its reemergence in the sixth solicitation was prominent. After a broad vision statement
for the program, the passage follows the words, “More specifically, NSF INCLUDES seeks to…”
(NSF, 2020b, p. 2). The theme of preparation, participation, and contributions is thus reasserted as
the most explicit actionable goal of INCLUDES.
The goal of increasing participation for underrepresented groups in STEM connects directly
to the idea of representation of differences, which under the principle of diversity carries no specific
categories of difference, targets for representation, or broader aims. The program upholds this vague
goal explicitly through the diversity rationale that posits a value on difference in and of itself that has
become ubiquitous throughout education. The first line of the introduction from the first
solicitation states: “Diversity – of thought, perspective, and experience – is essential for excellence in
research and innovation in science and engineering” (NSF, 2016b, p. 4, referencing Page, 2007,
2016e, 2017b, 2018a, 2019a).
18
Here, diversity, and therefore the differences represented, is divorced

18
This line, word for word, opens the introduction of the 2016 and both 2017 solicitations. A slightly reworded
version opens the introduction of the 2018 and 2019 solicitations: “of thought, perspective, and experience” were
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from the specific groups of people who “traditionally have been underrepresented in the STEM
enterprise,” signaling that their specific participation, increased by some amount, is more a means
than an end. This equivocation sets up broadening participation, in an exclusionary enterprise, as
necessary regardless of benefit or harm to underrepresented groups for the sake of the whole.
Improving the “preparation” of individuals from these groups brings in the concept of
inclusion, however, with an underlying deficit framing. Preparing individuals is a clear step beyond
mere representation of peoples and thus begins to integrate the differences that these groups
represent. Yet, this focus on preparing individuals constructs the groups of which they are a part as
in need of improvement to be worthy of being integrated. This emphasis positions the groups of
people as lacking and therefore rightfully underrepresented until they can be remedied to historically
privileged and narrow definitions of “readiness” or “qualification.” Passively identifying these
groups as ones that “have been underrepresented” allows for this “traditional” condition to be
understood by and justified based on the identified fault with the people as underprepared.
Moreover, the passive language suggests a denial of institutional responsibility for the historical,
systemic underrepresentation of particular groups in STEM.
Ensuring “contributions of individuals” from these groups maintains a strong foothold of
this goal in the realm of inclusion. With this part of goal one, the program aims to integrate the
outputs of “underrepresented” people into the STEM enterprise. The placement of the inclusion of
their contributions following their preparation and participation operates as a subtle but powerfully
symbolic reminder of the underlying deficit perspective justifies the “traditional” status of
underrepresentation and in an unproblematized STEM space. Only after individuals from these

changed to “of perspectives, backgrounds and approaches.” Although the word background may broadly point to a
reconnection with racially and otherwise marginalized groups, these words do not substantively change the analysis
that these target populations are valued for the contributions of their diverse backgrounds to the whole and not
deeper equity reasons.
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groups have been remediated and brought into the existing STEM enterprise are their contributions
worthy.
The 2016 through 2019 solicitations clearly state that the inclusion of these groups’
contributions “is critical to the advancement of science and engineering for national security, health,
and prosperity” (NSF, 2016b, p. 4, 2016e, 2017b, 2018a, 2019a). While our country’s security, health,
and prosperity are laudable benefits, the state of the nation in aggregate does not necessarily reflect
the security, health, and prosperity of historically marginalized groups who are also the ones
underrepresented in STEM. Neither ensuring these groups’ contributions are integrated into the
STEM enterprise nor their participation included in its workforce makes a connection to attenuating
disparities in outcomes for these populations. The positioning of underrepresented groups as
serving national needs obfuscates the nation’s failure to meet the needs of these racially minoritized
groups, particularly through historical STEM exclusion.
The framing of program goals from this first theme shows neglect in linking national
benefits to the well-being and success of the individuals whose preparation, participation, and
contributions underpin such benefits, let alone the underrepresented groups from which they come.
Just how these groups will be integrated, or rather, how justly, remains an open question for the
INCLUDES program. And a significant one at that. The first goal theme strongly aligns the
program to principles of diversity and a version of inclusion that characterizes underrepresented
groups with a deficit perspective. All the while this theme shows a neglect to name these groups
explicit sharing in the benefits of their integration as if representation and inclusion in a system that
systemically marginalizes these peoples is an unqualified benefit sufficient in its own right. It is not.
The discursive establishment of underrepresented groups targeted by the program, leaves the
program and practitioners open to attack for how the higher education DEI work it funds is
developed and implemented. Still, recognizing the complexity of this work, this theme should not be
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viewed in isolation from the other two themes in the program’s goals nor as an indictment of a fatal
flaw of the program.
Inclusion 2.0 and Equity Goals. The second theme of INCLUDES program goals draws
on the equity as parity principle with respect to “ensuring that women, blacks, Hispanics, and people
with disabilities are represented in percentages comparable to their representation in the U.S.
population” (NSF, 2016b, p. 2, 2016e). Just as importantly as who the program identifies as part of its
target population is how the program defines these groups. Program definitions of its target
population of underrepresented groups is an element that evolves over time, both in terms of who
and how. Even within the first solicitation the identified population changes from “women, blacks,
Hispanics, and people with disabilities” on page 1 to “African Americans, Hispanics, Native
Americans, women, persons with disabilities, and persons with low socio-economic status” on page
4 (NSF, 2016b). The first solicitation’s internal inconsistency extends to both who is identified and
how “blacks” or “African Americans” are labeled. By the 2020 solicitation the population has
evolved to name its “target populations” as “African Americans, Alaska Natives, Hispanics, Native
Americans, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, persons with disabilities, persons from
economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and women and girls” (NSF, 2020b, p. 2). In addition, all
six solicitations from the program use only “Hispanics” as opposed to the somewhat more inclusive
usage of both “Hispanics or Latinos,” which have been approved by the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) for decades (NSF, 2016a, 2016e, 2017b, 2018a, 2019a, 2020b; Office of Management
and Budget, 1997). Both of these labels are imperfect modes of generalizing many groups of peoples
variously positioned by race, ethnicity, national origin, language(s), and gender such that the act of
selecting any one term easily becomes fraught with power laden controversy across and within
communities, even families (Salinas & Lozano, 2017). Yet, neglecting to adopt more inclusive
language where allowed demonstrates lack of commitment to a robust form of equity as an iterative
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process for social justice. In both solicitations from 2017 and the 2020 solicitation, the target
populations are acknowledged as “historically underrepresented and underserved in STEM” (NSF,
2020b, p. 4, 2016e, 2017b). The addition and return of the words “historically…underserved”
historicizes the conditions and experiences of these groups as part of an ongoing process of targeted
exclusion over time. The evolution of how INCLUDES defines and identifies its target populations
in the second theme of its goals brings the program’s framing in closer alignment with an equity
principle.
The second theme in INCLUDES goals also evolves over the solicitations in ways that
partially strengthen but complicate the program’s alignment with the social justice transformation
element of a robust equity framing. For instance, in the 2018 and revived in the 2020 solicitations
the program anticipates “new and improved STEM career pathways, policies, opportunities to learn,
and practices for equity and inclusion” (NSF, 2020b, p. 2, 2018a). While not specifying the nature of
the equity practices, stating a need for them alongside new policies and opportunities is a step
towards embracing inclusion without the stain of a deficit perspective and a more robust form of
equity. In addition, the two 2017 solicitations state: “Success will be evident in the formation and
enactment of new policies and practices in institutions, professional societies, and scientific culture
that position inclusion and equity as core values for excellence in STEM” (NSF, 2017b, p. 5, 2016e).
By tying the success of the program to institutional and cultural change, this solicitation
acknowledges, at least to some extent, organizational responsibility for the outcomes of the
populations it names. The connecting language here signals one type of deliverables, “new
[institutional] policies and [cultural] practices,” that may have been considered as part of designing
and developing proposals for these solicitations. However, in the 2018 and 2020 solicitations success
this connection to equity has been interrupted with the insertion of the program’s success tied to
“the successful implementation of NSF INCLUDES will result in substantial advances toward a
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diverse, innovative, and well-prepared STEM workforce to support our Nation’s economy and
continued U.S. leadership in the global STEM enterprise” (NSF, 2020b, p. 2, 2018a). Although the
anticipated equity aims noted at the top of this paragraph follow these goals, they are literally
removed from criteria for “the successful implementation of NSF INCLUDES.” The robust equity
signals remain in these two later solicitations but with the connection to success broken they are
complicated and weakened.
By the 2018 solicitation through to the 2020 one, principles of inclusion and a simplified
equity have been elevated to the central, unifying vision of the INCLUDES program. These three
solicitations attest that, “The vision of NSF INCLUDES is to catalyze the STEM enterprise to work
collaboratively for inclusive change, resulting in a STEM workforce that reflects the population of
the Nation” (NSF, 2018a, p. 2, 2019a, 2020b). While retaining the outcome of parity in
representation, this vision statement helpfully links the goal and the approach of, “work
collaboratively for inclusive change” necessary to achieve it. Moreover, the vision statement holds
responsible the institution of STEM and those who currently constitute the enterprise for doing the
“collaborative” work and achieving the goals of “inclusive change” and equity.
19
Since 2016,
INCLUDES has evolved stronger but complicated connections to inclusion and equity principles.
The final theme from INCLUDES solicitation goals further complicates the program’s relation to
concepts of inclusion and robust equity.
Innovative Approaches as a Goal. The third theme of the INCLUDES program goals
nominally continues support for diversity and inclusion while shifting focus to make the approach of
developing innovative infrastructure the goal. The theme of focusing on innovation for broadening
participation is the most consistent one, represented by a line that appears nearly identically in every

19
Note that inclusion here is not a goal for its own sake but in service to producing equity.
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solicitation: “U.S. leadership in STEM discoveries and innovations focused on NSF's commitment
to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields” (NSF, 2019a, p. 1, 2016b, 2016e,
2017b, 2018a, 2020b). Throughout all six solicitations the third theme emphasizes the innovative
development of INCLUDES itself, blurring the distinction between the program’s approaches and
hoped for outcomes as its primary goal. For instance, the second 2017 solicitation calls for the
development of a hub with the sole purpose of sustaining and growing the network. This solicitation
states: “The ultimate purpose of NSF INCLUDES is to build a Network, whose development is
guided by the NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub” (NSF 2016e, p. 4). The creation of
INCLUDES is clearly a critical outcome and goal of the program. While dedicating one solicitation
to this purpose is completely understandable, naming development of the collaborative
infrastructure approach as “the ultimate purpose of NSF INCLUDES” program does not support
or incorporate inclusion or equity principles. The solicitation also states that testing innovation is the
purpose of the Network: “The initiative will serve as a testbed over time for designing,
implementing, studying, and refining change models that are based on collective impact-style
approaches, and on networks that support adoption and adaptation at scale” (NSF, 2016e, p. 4) The
goal of developing innovative infrastructure to support and test novel approaches, therefore, is
positioned as on par with the goals for participation, preparation, inclusion, parity of representation,
and systemic change discussed in the previous two themes.
The INCLUDES program is partially able to weave the strategies and solutions following
from the innovation theme together with diversity and equity principles. For example, the two
solicitations state that the a “hallmark” of the program is that it draws on, “the development of
collaborative infrastructure to achieve systemic change” (NSF, 2019a, p. 1, 2020b). With this
framing, INCLUDES recognizes the need to design approaches for specific types of outcomes,
aligning innovation with equity-mindedness in the scope of what is necessary to achieve systemic
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change. The program consistently defines collaborative infrastructure as “the process by which
partnering organizations come together to map out mutually reinforcing activities through: (1)
shared vision, (2) partnerships, (3) goals and metrics, (4) leadership and communication, and (5)
expansion, sustainability and scale” (NSF, 2020b, p. 2; 2016b, 2016e, 2017b, 2018a, 2019a). The
particular collaborative infrastructure elements, however, do not necessarily connote any adherence
to concepts of diversity, inclusion, or equity. As noted above, INCLUDES posits that these
innovations will lead to, “a diverse, innovative, and well-prepared STEM workforce to support our
Nation’s economy and continued U.S. leadership in the global STEM enterprise” (NSF, 2018a, p. 2,
2020b). Notably, diversity is named as one intended outcome, but the remainder of the benefits
follow the previously identified pattern of accruing nationally without regard for inclusion, equity, or
equity-minded principles. The confluence of diversity and deficit-based integration, inclusion and
equity, and innovation themes present in the INCLUDES program goals and objectives are better
understood in context of how INCLUDES defines the problem these goals are meant to address,
which I turn to in the next section.
Other BP Program Goals. A brief comparison of other BP program goals helps to
contextualize INCLUDES. By looking closely at other BP programs’ goal statements, we learn that
INCLUDES is not an outlier in terms of setting basic diversity goals of improving representation.
However, other BP programs were not put forward as the “bold” new initiative that would lead
NSF into its future of “Big Ideas” that finally dent the broadening participation issue. Most NSF BP
programs use language that closely follows NSF regulations from Congress and the White House,
which stipulate the agency’s mission of broadening participation in STEM education and workforce
for women, racially minoritized groups, and persons with disabilities as well as broadening
participation of minority serving institutions and research organizations in states with low NSF
research engagement. For example, the CISE-MSI program states that its goal is to “broaden
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participation by increasing the number of CISE-funded research projects from MSIs” (NSF, 2020d,
p. 1).
20
The representative CISE program goal is a straightforward call for more diverse institutional
representation in the grants funded by NSF. Some programs focus on representation while also
reaching for more as does INCLUDES. For instance, the LSAMP program states one of its goals as:
“[assisting] universities and colleges in diversifying the nation’s science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce by increasing the number of STEM
baccalaureate and graduate degrees awarded to populations historically underrepresented in
these disciplines: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska
Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders.” (NSF, 2017a, p. 2)
21

The LSAMP program also funds “Alliances” through a “collective plan of action” that “implement
comprehensive, evidence-based, innovative, and sustained strategies” (NSF, 2017a, p. 2). Yet,
LSAMP differs from INCLUDES by specifying educational achievement outcomes as its primary
goal, arguably bringing the former program in line with diversity and equity-mindedness principles.
ADVANCE-ing Intersectional Equity. The ADVANCE program boldly stands out
among the NSF BP portfolio for setting nuanced goals driven by principles of intersectional equity-
mindedness.
22
In the program’s 2016 solicitation, the same year that INCLUDES launched, the
ADVANCE program’s stated purpose was “to foster gender equity through a focus on the
identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and
advancement of all women faculty in academic institutions” (NSF, 2016d, p. 2). ADVANCE starts
with a bold stance toward defining its goals through an equity perspective that places responsibility

20
CISE-MSI stands for Computer and Information Science and Engineering Minority-Serving Institutions Research
Expansion.
21
LSAMP stands for Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation.
22
In 2016, the programs full name was ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in
Academic Science and Engineering Careers.
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on higher education institutions. The program continues, specifying goals to “develop systemic
approaches to increase representation and advancement” and “develop innovative and sustainable
ways to promote gender equity that involve both men and women” (NSF, 2016d, p. 2). These goals
consistently follow from the program purpose in noting organizational change is required to
promote gender equity, which also will require collaboration from both those negatively harmed and
those privileged from the current flawed system. ADVANCE fully embraces an intersectional
equity-mindedness by clearly stating an expectation for all proposals to “recognize that gender does
not exist in isolation from other characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual
orientation, foreign-born and foreign-trained status, faculty appointment type, etc., and should offer
strategies to promote gender equity for all faculty” (NSF, 2016d, p. 2-3). ADVANCE not only
names race, among other bases of discrimination, as a factor interrelated to gender equity, it also
ensures compliance to this social science fact through an additional explicit review criterion. Several
NSF BP programs propose basic diversity outcomes of increasing representation among peoples,
regions, and institutional types that are underrepresented in STEM. While the INCLUDES program
does not necessarily provide much in the way of bold or new formations of those goals, NSF does
have a program in its BP portfolio that is attempting to do just that.
What’s the Problem with INCLUDES?
A review of how the INCLUDES program defines the problem it has been developed to
address reveals one major insight that sheds light on the disjointed focus of its goals. INCLUDES
defines the problem as a broadening participation challenge, which is to say it leaves the problem
space relatively undefined. Considering the problem definition throughout the solicitations over
time, INCLUDES devotes exceedingly little space to describing the problem it is meant to address.
Only naming the problem space as a “broadening participation challenge,” without further
explanation, as four solicitations did, closely relates to diversity and simplified equity principles
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(2016e, 2018a, 2019a, 2020b). First, a focus on participation without context does little more than
nod to representation, as discussed above regarding goals. Second, INCLUDES embraces equity
insofar as it deems the broadening participation challenge solved by reaching parity of representation
across STEM and national populations for identified groups. A commitment to robust equity and
equity-mindedness would define the problem as systemic and intersectional, noting racialized,
gendered, and ableist inequities, which can only be remedied through institutional change and
targeted educational outcomes for marginalized groups.
In only the 2016 and the first 2017 solicitations, INCLUDES reaches beyond diversity or
just parity in defining the problem, stating: “The grand challenge of broadening participation in
STEM is to transform the STEM enterprise at all levels in order to fully engage the nation’s talent
for the ultimate improvement of the STEM enterprise” (NSF, 2016b, p. 1, 2016e). Engaging the
“nation’s talent” by “transform[ing] the STEM enterprise at all levels” promises inclusion and equity
as necessary parts of addressing the “broadening participation” problem. Indeed, these solicitations
continue, “NSF INCLUDES aims to address the various complex equity and inclusion-related
challenges and opportunities” (NSF, 2016b, p.2, 2016e). These statements suggest a problem space
defined by the need for deep institutional and cultural change. The program opens up the possibility
for “various complex” problems to be undertaken but does not further describe how any of them
might be related to equity or inclusion. Instead, in the 2016 solicitation the program shifts gears in
how it defines the problem space, stating: “Viewing this challenge as a social innovation problem,
NSF is particularly interested in using approaches to scaling and growth such as collective impact,
networked communities and strategic partnerships” (NSF, 2016b, p. 2). The language “viewing this
challenge as” asserts a new definition, “a social innovation problem,” that leaves behind diversity,
inclusion, and equity rather than incorporating them. The INCLUDES 2016 solicitation naming of
scaling and collaborative approaches as solutions to its problem illuminates why the program
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elevates its approach to a primary goal of the program.
The limited, or in four solicitations complete lack of, discussion of the problem space of
broadening participation is in stark contrast to the breadth of text that all six solicitations dedicated
toward the innovation problem with collaborative infrastructure.
23
Ironically, the same innovative
collaboration framework that INCLUDES set out to develop as one of its primary goals also
emphasizes the need for mutual agreement on problems and goals as well as how to measure
progress toward addressing them. To this end, the program declares that “Collective commitment to
specific objectives for inclusion is necessary for impact at scale in STEM” (NSF, 2016b, p. 4). In
three later solicitations, the program emphasizes adherence to this common agenda by stating a
requirement that all funded projects “focus not only on [their] own vision and goals, but also work
with other organizations within the NSF INCLUDES National Network” (NSF, 2020b, p. 4, 2018a,
2019a). While INCLUDES understandably seeks to open space for projects to address as many
challenges as necessary, these six solicitations provided very little guidance on how to conceive of
the problem it seeks to address or how funded projects could do so through their required support
of the shared vision. Unlike the minimal signaling of inclusive approaches to change for equity
present in a few solicitations that could be overlooked, the ubiquitous messaging in all six
solicitations and requirements for the collaborative approach are hard to miss. The result is that DEI
work developed in response to these INCLUDES solicitations, has been directed to focus on design
over substance.

23
For instance, “to transform the STEM enterprise at all levels in order to fully engage the nation’s talent for the
ultimate improvement of the STEM enterprise” and benefits of the groups that have been systemically excluded from it
and marginalized by it could be further elaborated and explicitly connected to the approaches needed to address it.
Instead of instrumentally relying on marginalized peoples to fix STEM for “the nation,” the harms (past and present)
that STEM has been used to justify against these groups could be named as part of the equity problem that everyone
currently in STEM needs to be a part of transforming for the benefit of these groups. Moreover, instead of focusing on
an approach to a sanitized problem of “social innovation,” an opportunity was missed to explicitly link collaborative
infrastructure to systemic change for intersectional equity.
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Other BP Problem Spaces
As with goal setting, INCLUDES is even more firmly set in the pack of NSF BP programs
that provide minimal clarity about what the broadening participation problem is. A solicitation from
the HBCU-UP program states the problem it is trying to address is “the nation's accelerating
demands for STEM talent,” which requires “more rapid gains in achievement and successful degree
completion in STEM for underrepresented minority populations” (NSF, 2016a, p. 2). This version
of the broadening participation problem does not consider the traditional HBCU student, a Black
student, as the primary benefactor of their participation in STEM. The problem as presented by
HBCU-UP fits perfectly the diversity rationale based on interest convergence in affirmative action
cases, that the representation of racially minoritized students are for the benefit of the entire
campus, or here the nation. Like INCLUDES and HBCU-UP, the S-STEM program discusses the
“national need for a globally competitive STEM workforce” (NSF, 2019b, p. 4). Yet, the S-STEM
program also focuses on “challenges facing low-income students” with scholarships and “a coherent
ecosystem of effective evidence-based practices (curricular and co-curricular activities)” that support
“retention, student success, academic/career pathways and degree attainment, including transfer”
(NSF, 2019b, p. 5). The S-STEM program embraces some equity-minded principles by calling on
higher education organizations to adapt to suit student needs as a major part of the problem it seeks
to address. While INCLUDES, like many NSF BP programs, only explains its central problem
through diversity principles, or, at best, with inroads toward equity-mindedness, INCLUDES was
meant to boldly lead NSF, not disappear into the portfolio.
ADVANCE-ing Nuanced Understanding of Institutional and Systemic Problems.
Once more, the ADVANCE program sets the standard when it comes to identifying problems that
NSF needs to invest in addressing. Consistently since 2016, the ADVANCE program notes that
“Systemic (or organizational) inequities may exist in areas such as policy and practice as well as
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organizational culture and climate” (NSF, 2016d, p. 2, 2020a). ADVANCE embraces equity-minded
principles by identifying systemic roots for problems that need addressing while still not being
prescriptive so as to limit the possible aspects of systemic change that proposals might address.
ADVANCE is not alone in this regard. The AGEP program also seeks to address the need for
“knowledge about the underlying issues, policies and practices impacting the participation,
transitions and advancement” of underrepresented groups in STEM (NSF, 2016c, p. 4).
24
Moreover,
ADVANCE notes that “Intersectional approaches should be considered throughout the project”
because this perspective is “important for identifying equity issues and solutions” (NSF, 2020a, p. 6,
emphasis in original). ADVANCE furthers equity-mindedness by identifying disparities in
representation and achievement as symptoms of systemic inequities that are the problem that
requires studied identification and tailored strategies for change.
The CPDA Summary: Expected INCLUDES-Funded Project Characteristics
In summary, the critical policy discourse analysis underscores how projects successfully
funded by the INCLUDES program policy are likely to develop their DEI work, particularly, goals
and approaches, in relation to DEI concepts. Based on analysis of six solicitations, the program
would be likely to fund projects that have clear diversity goals and, to some extent goals for parity in
representation and inclusion that address symptoms but not necessarily underlying causes. In
addition, analysis of these solicitations suggest that the program would likely fund projects that
present a strong sense of cohesion around a shared vision, collaborative process, shared goals and
metrics, leadership and communication plan, and path for expansion and scaling. Finally,
INCLUDES-funded projects may tend to stress and develop their collaborative approaches over any
of their DEI objectives. In the next chapter, I present the embedded case study of INCLUDES-

24
AGEP stands for Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate.
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funded Project 5 or Diversifying STEM Higher Education (DiSHE). As part of an investigation of
the intersectional social and organizational power dynamics that flow through practitioners’ working
relations. In the final chapter, I also attend to how project development and implementation reflects
or deviates from the policy influences revealed above.

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Chapter 6: The Development and Implementation of DiSHE, An Embedded Case Study
In this chapter, I present findings from an embedded case study examining intersectional
social and organizational power dynamics that impact collegial relationships among the team of
practitioners developing and implementing the Diversifying STEM Higher Education (DiSHE)
project. This chapter starts by briefly presenting some context of DiSHE before exploring five
findings about the role of intersectional social and organizational power dynamics in the
development and implementation of higher education DEI work.
DiSHE: A Typical INCLUDES-Funded Project
DiSHE was one of 21 projects funded by the NSF INCLUDES program that took on DEI
work with a focus on higher education. For the sake of maintaining participant confidentiality, the
description of DiSHE has been generalized to a level of abstraction that necessarily will stress
commonalities with other INCLUDES-funded work, and likely other DEI work.
25
Broadly, the
project’s primary vision is to increase the representation of racially minoritized groups and women
that are underrepresented in STEM higher education. As is mandated by the INCLUDES program,
DiSHE had a central governing body that coordinated among different arms of the project. Also, in
alignment with other INCLUDES-funded projects, each arm was made up of partnering
organizations with their own employees that undertook different elements of the project’s work. As
is true of many, if not most, other funded projects, DiSHE’s team was made up of practitioners who
came from colleges, universities, and other organizations in the higher education environment.
DiSHE practitioners were faculty, former faculty now in administrative roles, and administrators and
staff who were never faculty (where both of the latter two groups were working both in and outside

25
Some elements of the DiSHE project that have been generalized are its primary goal(s), specifically goal-related
activity, and the identification of project specific roles. PIs and Co-PIs do not, therefore, equate to those in the role
of project leader, which is used to designate authority that may extend beyond these individuals as well as exclude
some of them.
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of colleges/universities). The DiSHE practitioners interviewed for this study led and coordinated
central elements of the project as well as partner-led arms. A majority of DiSHE project team
members were women. A majority of DiSHE leaders were white, whereas a majority of supporting
staff were women of color, mostly Black/African American women.
DiSHE practitioners brought to the project a wealth of expertise and experience across
several dimensions of their work, training, advocacy, social identities, and lived experiences. As the
findings below will illustrate, the development of the project, however, did not tap into a collective
understanding of what the project’s DEI work could mean or how it should best be implemented.
As most DEI work does, the DiSHE project shifted and evolved its attention and activities over
time in response to challenges and opportunities. Through a series of concerted efforts, several
members of the project intervened to challenge racialized-gendered
26
power dynamics that had been
wearing on many members of the team, but especially many women of color. DiSHE was not the
only INCLUDES-funded project to face challenges of this nature or to initiate some type of
intervention to deal with them.
27
The findings below do not represent an evaluation of the project’s
success or failure, nor do they bear on its progress in meeting its deliverables to NSF INCLUDES.
Rather, my goal here is to examine how the intersectional dynamics involved in participation
processes impact practitioners, particularly women of color, developing and implementing DEI
work to contribute to a reflective praxis in this field of work.
In the analysis of the case study data, I identified five themes about the experiences that

26
I use the term “racialized-gendered” to denote intersectional dynamics that spotlight the enmeshment of race and
gender as particularly salient formations of power in the context of higher education DEI work due, in part, to the
disproportionate reliance on women of color practitioners to carry it out. The hyphen is meant to deter readers from
thinking of either race and gender as separable or one as predominant/adjective to the other in this text. Instead, these
social formations always, already mutually constitute one another, even as the salience of either may be more
pronounced given situationally contingent circumstances (Carbardo, 2013; Hancock, 2016).
27
As will be revealed in the following chapter that focuses on additional women of color practitioners engaged in
INCLUDES-funded work outside of this case-study.
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foment project discord or foster harmony. These findings illuminate how intersectional social and
organizational power dynamics impact higher education DEI work development and
implementation in the DiSHE project. First, DiSHE members did not share a collective
understanding of equity, inclusion, or diversity; and without any formal opportunity for
organizational learning to address individual conceptions that were inconsistent across members, the
project vision defaulted to a nebulous diversity framing. Subsequently, this conceptual ambiguity in
the project’s vision led to disparate understandings on what the DiSHE project’s work was or
should be, and splintered valuations of the one agreed upon project goal. Third, a lack of racial
diversity in project leadership, the tokenization of women of color leaders, and racialized-gendered
ambiguity about leadership roles combined in the DiSHE project to disempower women of color
practitioners. Then, women of color practitioners were further disempowered through project
configurations that resulted in racialized-gendered communication patterns, more role ambiguity, a
racialized-gendered division of labor, and uneven resource allocations. Finally, DiSHE development
and implementation were undertaken without a foundation of respect and trust that
disproportionately hampered women of color members of the team even as their exploited labor
ensured success for the project. The final section also attends to the interventions that members of
the project led, specifically, in efforts to address many of the concerns raised in this chapter.
Blurred Visions: DEI Work through Many Looking Glasses
DiSHE practitioners joined the project with personal and varied understandings of what
diversity, inclusion, and equity mean. Most commonly, project members’ understanding did not
differentiate between the meanings of these concepts. Practically, this meant that the group lacked a
consensus for how the DiSHE project might work in different ways toward diversity goals that do
not produce an equitable outcome. Moreover, failing to undertake any proactive, internal
organizational learning to ground its members in a shared vision—the first of INCLUDES’s
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collaborative infrastructure elements—only exacerbated the challenges the project faced from this
initial misalignment. In this section, I describe this pattern in the data and illustrate three
inconsistent threads of DEI conceptual understanding that resulted in a dissensus of diversity that
operated implicitly throughout the project.
Missing Organizational Learning for a Shared Vision
According to the available data, the DiSHE project did not carry out any formal efforts to
foster organizational learning about the project’s vision or goals, let alone how they might be
informed by the concepts of equity, inclusion, or diversity. In two instances, people gave
explanations of how the project reinforced their existing understanding of issues related to diversity,
inclusion, and equity. For example, while talking about how a participating site’s pushback
reinforced his notion that “not everybody is going to be ready for things at all levels,” Ken said, “it's
a little disappointing, but not terribly surprising actually.” Here, the “things at all levels” that Ken
notes not everyone would be ready for referred to changes in practice rooted in inclusion and equity
that one arm of project had been educating other sites about. Ken displayed an awareness that
members of the DiSHE project did not hold a shared understanding or vision regarding the
project’s DEI conceptual framing. Yet, rather than collectively working out this view with other
members of the project, he dismissed this potential impetus for organizational learning as
“disappointing but not surprising.” Emily also described her views on diversity, inclusion, and equity
as being reinforced through her participation in the project. Although, she did credit it with raising
her “sensitivity” to debates about how to bring about changes to practice with conceptions around
diversity or equity based on the level of familiarity and understanding of other practitioners.
Only a couple of members agreed that their understandings of DEI concepts grew in
relation to the work carried out by the DiSHE project. Sarah and Walter discussed learning lessons
about how to conduct diversity, inclusion, or equity work, but they experienced these evolutions
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informally and separately from the larger DiSHE project. For example, Sarah described an
interaction she had with a project advisor during a meeting break that helped her rethink how to
create an inclusive project that is aimed at improving equitable practices in STEM education:
She was talking about the importance of you know, including groups like [an identity-based
organization] sort of from the beginning as opposed to […] involving [them] at the very end,
and you know, when the role is, you know, already prescribed and things like that. And so, I
feel like that's something that I understood a little bit more deeply, you know, with in -- with
that conversation with her. Um, and I - I really - I - I heard what she was saying. Um, I don't
know that I've figured out a good way to do that yet.
Sarah’s learning was facilitated by another member of the project that occurred in a conversation
during a DiSHE project meeting break. This teachable moment remained an individual rather than
collective one, however, as the issue was not raised with the larger group during the meeting or
subsequently. Sarah concluded her comment by mentioning that she had not found a good way to
apply the lesson that she learned about bringing in representation from identity-based organizations
as developmental partners rather than passive, tokenized members. Her use of I-statements posed
this challenge as personal and individual rather than as one for the DiSHE project to tackle and
learn from collectively.
Without collective clarifications or formal organizational learning within the DiSHE project,
an undifferentiated understanding of diversity, inclusion, and equity dominated the group, in part, by
default. Each member was left to assume or glean through interactions whether others made sense
of diversity, inclusion, and equity concepts similarly to or differently from themselves. For instance,
Martin said, “I don't see any difference as people tend to bunch their words together or use them
interchangeably, um, yeah, so I -- I -- I don't -- I don't notice any-- any differences.” In several cases,
project members disclosed that they either noted or assumed others used these concepts
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interchangeably, which in some instances led them to do so as well. For example, Lauren stated that,
“I think enough people use [diversity, inclusion, and equity] interchangeably that you can’t do a great
job of distinguishing.” Even as some project members placed important distinctions on these
concepts and the work that is required to address their related but different goals as will be shown
next, this nuance was largely lost because their colleagues were not as critical or compelled to engage
in collective sensemaking. The blurry project vision may have also impeded efforts some expressed
were necessary to move beyond the basic goal of diversity.
DEI Undifferentiated
This undifferentiated understanding was echoed by practitioners whose STEM background
was most salient to their participation in the project. For example, Martin, a STEM faculty member,
responded to a question about understanding of diversity, inclusion, and equity in the following way:
(pause) I more or less, I think see them as the same, um, sort of having the same general
(pause) goal, at least in—in now educational contexts. Yeah. I think—I think—I think I'm
sort of in the category where I don't distinguish very much between them.
Martin positioned these three concepts as having interchangeable meanings and the same goals. Not
everyone who fell into this category, however, was as upfront and clear in their understandings.
Several members of the DiSHE project espoused discernment of conceptual diversity,
inclusion, and equity differences while enacting undifferentiated usage of these concepts in practice.
Some, like the administrator and former STEM faculty member, Claire, provided cursory differences
for at least two of the concepts but then went on to use them interchangeably in practice while
describing their relevance. Claire started by distinguishing diversity as “more obvious, because you
can, you know -- not always, but oftentimes by looking at someone you can tell whether or not they
belong to an underrepresented group,” whereas inclusion and equity were lumped together as
regarding things that cannot easily be seen. However, she continued by describing diversity and
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inclusion interchangeably as dealing with a wide breadth of difference that is not necessarily visible
in an obvious way:
I do tend to think about, um, diversity and inclusion more broadly than I used to. Um, you
know, in terms of thinking about the whole range of diversity, um, in terms of again, some
of the things I mentioned before with, you know, age and geography and the like, and
beyond going the traditional, um, sort of definitions of diversity.
Despite offering some ways that diversity, inclusion, and equity might relate to different contexts, by
immediately juxtaposing these concepts in alternating combinations to refer to the same issue of
difference Claire positioned herself as undifferentiating these concepts in practice.
Another example of this type of misalignment came from physical science faculty Michael.
For him, the work of the DiSHE project was “all about equity.” Michael asserted that equity and
inclusion were the same thing but differentiated them from diversity, which he derided, in part,
because it “can mean almost anything.” Yet, when Michael compared the DiSHE project’s activities
and goals to work he had done and was doing in other STEM organizations, he stated: “I'd say with
different components, during different initiatives, there's slightly different emphasis sometimes, but
it looks just the same.” Michael’s differentiation of these concepts started to fall apart as he applied
equity and inclusion in ways that echoed his critique of diversity; a term that for him meant anything,
which also means nothing.
Another way that some members fell into this category was by conflating the purposes that
these concepts derive even if not their meanings. Project leader Ken who distinguished between the
meanings of the concepts, dismissed the idea that the DiSHE project might take different strategies
to work toward each of these areas, stating “It's not like you can solve diversity without thinking
about inclusion.” Yet, within the DEI scholarship one of the most widely written about critiques of
diversity is precisely that it is often sought and minimally obtained without regard to inclusion or
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equity (Bell, Jr., 2003; Berrey, 2015; byrd, 2019; Chang, 2002; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Tienda,
2013). Similarly, education faculty Emily stated that there were distinctions specifically between
diversity on the one hand and equity and inclusion on the other while only providing a definition of
them as the same:
I see inclusion and equity as being more closely related than, um, diversity and inclusion or
diversity and equity. Although, you know, all of them are trying to be mindful of both
increasing the presence and centrality of people who have historically been underrepresented
and marginalized.
Even as many project members subscribed to some form of an undifferentiated understanding of
diversity, inclusion, and equity, they did not do so uniformly or collectively.
Distinguishing DEI around the “table,” but which table?
For those who did articulate different meanings or purposes of the diversity, inclusion, and
equity concepts, several invoked a common metaphor involving a table. Ashley, whose most salient
experience related to participation in the project is student services, provided one such metaphor:
So, diversity is bringing people to the table. Um, inclusion is the fact that your voice is
valuable in the discussion, but other voices may be more valuable than yours, and equity is
you're at the table, your voice is valuable, and all voices are equally valuable.
Ashley treated these concepts as building blocks where equity relies on achievements with inclusion
and a level of diversity. In Ashley’s concept map of DEI, diversity does not require valuation of
represented difference as do inclusion and equity, which has the highest standard of value parity.
This scaffolded definition of terms echoes Ken’s notion that they are interrelated but does so in a
way that more clearly establishes what those differences are and maps them into ordered progression
that is inconsistent with Ken’s usage.
Before continuing with an undifferentiated use of these concepts, Claire also invoked a table
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metaphor with value and differential treatment:
Um, inclusion, to me, is that people's voices are heard. So, you may have a diverse group at
the table, but if the only voices that are heard or valued are the, uh, majority, then that's not
really an inclusive group. It may be diverse, but it may not be inclusive. Um, equity could be
a very diverse, inclusive (laughs) group, but you're not treating everybody the same or paying
them the same.
Similar to Ashley’s metaphor, Claire created relationships between concepts, but her table highlights
the ways in which addressing one does not necessarily address the others.
Taylor, another professional whose student services background was most salient for her
participation in the project, had physical science training as well. She also used the table and value to
describe the concepts while adding power dynamics:
I think diversity, um, I see as more of a number’s thing, representation. Diversity, who's at
the table. I think inclusion, um, has to do more with climate. How are those who are at the
table, um, valued, and treated, and how do they -- how do they see their role in the
organization or having a seat at the table, what does that mean? Equity, on the other hand, I
think it has to do with power and access, and so, if they're there, and they're valued, what
power do they have to make change within the organization. So, that's how I see diversity,
inclusion, and equity being different.
For Taylor, inclusion covers value and treatment elements that both Ashley and Claire associated
with equity although Taylor did not specify the need for a relationship of equality within these
features. Taylor characterized equity as a concept laden with power, specifically organizational
power. No other DiSHE project member talked about equity, or any of the other concepts, in terms
of organizational power or power to make change. Those who talked about value and equal
treatment in association to inclusion or equity did not divulge how this might relate to decision-
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making power.
Sarah, who like Taylor had physical science training was most saliently connected to the
project through her professional experiences with education, did not use a table metaphor but she
did describe one of the more nuanced understandings of how to differentiate these concepts. She
started by asserting that the differences “implied somewhat different approaches” to the work and
achieving its goals. Specifically, she shared that “with diversity, I feel like, basically what you’re
talking about is numbers [of women, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, Native Americans] …
And then the agenda sort of stops…We’ve got the numbers there, then, problem solved.” Sarah
named specific racially minoritized groups and women as the focus of a representation focused goal
that is the beginning and end of a diversity approach. She continued, “Whereas inclusion, I think,
takes things further than just diversity…it could be based on the individual’s experiences and how
they feel about it.” Sarah clearly distinguishes diversity and inclusion while alluding to connections
but does not fully explicate them. She was the only person to cite research literature in defining
equity, which she drew upon to clear up her own understanding of how to distinguish it from
inclusion. Regarding equity, Sarah stated:
an equity scorecard process…to me, that kind of embodies the concept of equity… You’re
looking at what it is that you can measure. And you’re looking at how are different
demographic groups doing according to this measure or that measure. Then when you see
differences, the implication is that there’s, maybe, there’s some inequity in the system and
you want to work to address that inequity.
Sarah’s remarks, while not prescriptive or explicit, were grounded in the work that needs to occur in
higher education rather than metaphorical or generalized.
Even within groups of project members who did or did not differentiate among DEI
concepts, there was no consensus among practitioners about these principles and, therefore, no
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shared vision that might guide the DiSHE project. Not surprisingly, participants’ understandings of
diversity, inclusion, and equity concepts tended to group around certain background elements that
connected participants most saliently to the program. For instance, practitioners who engaged with
DiSHE as current or former physical science faculty, a group consisting of white men and women as
well as men of color, did not strongly or consistently differentiate these concepts. Whereas, Black
and Latina women practitioners, all of whom had professional experience with either or a
combination of education, student services, and outreach with communities of color, drew some of
the strongest distinctions among these concepts. Other practitioners who were never STEM faculty
held varied and somewhat inconsistent understandings of DEI, except for Sarah. Implications of the
project’s blurry vision became evident in the goals that project members thought that DiSHE could
or should achieve as the next section reveals.
The Goal(s) of DEI Work: When the Whole Is Less Than the Sum of Its Parts
In this section, I show how DiSHE practitioners thought about the project’s goals in many
different ways while only agreeing on one single goal of increasing STEM representation in higher
education. However, even as members agreed on that one goal, how they understood the goal
through their individual DEI conceptualizations created discord among how each valued the
project’s development and what the future implementation could or should be.
Misaligned Goals and Activities: Increasing Diversity or Creating Broader Change?
Project members’ individualistic understandings of equity, inclusion, and diversity showed up
in the incongruent ways they understood what the project was doing and its goals. Substantive
differences arose among members who differentiated between the concepts of equity, inclusion, and
diversity. Most of these members stated or implied that inclusion meant or led to something more
than mere numerical representation. Although, these members did not hold a collective
understanding of what that goal was or what activity would be required of the project to achieve
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inclusion goals.
For Ashley and Lauren, inclusion was either a matter of having voice or one’s voice being
valued. However, they did not identify activities that the DiSHE project was doing or might do to
achieve goals of inclusion. Other members rooted the concept in more organizational or cultural
contexts. For instance, Sarah stated that the DiSHE project was trying to “transform practices in
higher education to be more inclusive,” and, “specifically, uh, build a community of folks who are
engaged in trying to improve the practices of higher education.” Relatedly, Walter stated that the
DiSHE project was “trying to get STEM faculty to change their practices and ultimately the culture
of their departments in order to be more inclusive with lower barriers to access for
underrepresented folks, women, minorities.” While Sarah and Walter primarily tasked the project
with addressing broader institutional and cultural change, others who valued these approaches did
not see them fully represented in the project’s activities and/or goals.
Ashley talked about the project addressing the lack of diversity in STEM, adding, “it's sort of
up to [the DiSHE project] to take that ball or that baton of working on inclusion and equity and all
of that and keep going with it.” Although Ashley believed these broader goals were the under the
purview of the DiSHE project she did not see the project activities as definitely addressing these
issues. In contrast, Taylor was clear that she did not see the project rising to these additional
challenges, stating:
I think the biggest role of [the DiSHE project] has to do with diversity, uh, because it's
looking at increasing numbers through admissions, recruitment, and retention. Um, I think
that inclusion is a part of retention as well as recruitment, and so, um, addressing climate
hopefully will be a bigger part of the project, but I don't think that it currently is a big part of
the project.
Taylor again relates inclusion to climate, drawing specific connections to how the DiSHE project
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might address this issue through particular types of activities that have received less attention.
Disagreements and confusion about equity similarly showed up in contradictory views of the
project’s activities and goals. For instance, Lauren expressed a concern about the DiSHE project
pursuing equity in the STEM community because she understood equity as conceptually through her
STEM background as meaning equal or the same. She discussed how calls for equity would require
treating everyone the same, which could be used to make an argument against affirmative action, a
position with which she did not agree. Through this conceptual model, Lauren expressed that
promoting equity could impede the project’s goal to increase STEM degrees earned by women and
racially minoritized students. No other DiSHE member who distinguished equity from diversity and
inclusion expressed a view that equity was an undesirable goal or could be an impediment to project
goals.
For instance, Sarah’s conceptual understanding of equity contrasts with Lauren’s in
important ways terms of how the project might prioritize goals and choose related activities.
According to Sarah, equity is “having equal opportunity, equal chance, um, equal outcomes.” Sarah
defined equity as equality of outcome in addition to opportunity, whereas Lauren applied the term
narrowly to equality of treatment. Whereas a project following Lauren might focus on addressing
inequalities of opportunity with a goal of increasing representation, following Sarah’s
conceptualization the project might take on activities to change policies or practices within
colleges/universities that improve educational outcomes and experiences. When equal outcomes are
the goal, everyone may not necessarily be treated the same in order to reach that outcome because
different people have different starting positions or needs. Sarah’s equity understanding—with a
focus on outcome—not only aims for a desirable goal but also, for her, one that the scientific
community could understand and embrace because of its rootedness in equality. These related but
contradictory definitions turn on notions of when and how equality enters considerations about equity
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in higher education.
The absence of a collective, operational definition of equity among the DiSHE project
members not only created differences about what the goals should be but also led to discrepancies
about what the activities and goals were. Sarah, Emily, and Ashley expressed that the DiSHE project
was tackling equity in STEM education, or at least that it was working toward this goal with the
potential to make an impact. However, Taylor did not credit the project in this way, stating, “I don't
see equity as being a part of the project at all right now.” Interestingly, Taylor had defined equity as
having the power to create organizational change, which resonates with the activities and goals that
Sarah and Walter ascribed to the DiSHE project, albeit under goals of inclusion. While Taylor,
Sarah, and Walter were all Project leaders with overlapping views of equity and inclusion, their
conceptual map of how DEI principles related to the project’s work contrasted sharply. This
misalignment of understanding points to a missed opportunity for organizational learning to foster
collective sensemaking in DiSHE through clear articulation of how project activities were meant to
respond to different goals. Additionally, the disagreement in these members’ goal understanding may
be driven by more aspirational understandings from Sarah and Walter compared to a more critically
reflective understanding from Taylor based on what she has observed from the project to date. In
addition, this instance of conceptual understanding diverged by racialized identities. Taylor, a Black
woman who expressed skepticism about her project role, may have been influenced in her
understanding of project goals by her limited ability to shape them, which will be further explored in
another finding below. Walter and Sarah, who also described her activity in the project as central,
both identified as white. Taylor’s critique that DiSHE did not address equity, which she defined as
the power to impact organizations, is especially salient in the context of her organizational
marginality.
Goal Consensus, Value Discord
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The DiSHE project did have a broad sense of agreement around one goal—that of
increasing “underrepresented” STEM degree recipients, but even this consensus was wrought with
conflicting values flowing from disparate views on equity, inclusion, and diversity. Most project
members valued some version of the DiSHE project goal as increasing the number of
“underrepresented minorities,” and sometimes women, who earn a STEM degree. For members
who conflated equity, inclusion, and diversity or stated differences they could not name, the singular
goal of increasing the representation of racially minoritized men and women as well as white women
among STEM higher education degree holders was laudable. For instance, Michael who derided
diversity as a worthwhile goal in and of itself but conflated all three concepts in practice greatly
appreciated the DiSHE goal, “to increase the number of higher education degrees from, uh,
traditionally underrepresented, uh, folks.” Michael valued increasing diversity in STEM education as
rooted in equity/inclusion because he contrasted this goal with exclusion. Differences in the value
placed on this goal were, in part, due to the various iterations of it.
For other project members who differentiated among the three concepts, even if
inconsistently, their understandings roughly aligned around setting diversity as the most basic
concept, which referred simply to numerical representation. Within this group some members
articulated a more specific goal as reaching parity with a racially minoritized group’s US population
or some other measure. For instance, Emily characterized the DiSHE goal in this way:
It’s trying to reduce the, uh, the gap between, uh, the percentage of people from different
racial groups in, um, the population and the percentage that are earning higher education
degrees, and then sort of secondarily I would say, um, the percentage of women in the
population relative to the percentage of women who are earning higher education degrees.
By specifying targets of representation for specific groups that are proportional to their
populations, the higher education degree goal is specified as one of promoting equal outcomes.
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Indeed, Emily valued this goal for its equity orientation through just such a conceptualization: “if its
overall goal is to change higher education attainment, then it has to be equity minded, and be
thinking about the ways that practices are resulting in different outcomes from a -- like a numeric
perspective.” In this sense, increasing representation for racially minoritized groups and women
resonates with understandings of equity espoused by Sarah and Ashley, who mentioned that
equalizing the number of higher education degrees would “create the equity” between these groups.
For project members who understood the goal of increasing racially minoritized and gender
marginalized student representation among STEM degree holders as limited to addressing diversity,
the goal was necessary but not sufficient. For example, this goal does not explicitly live up to
Ashley’s definition of inclusion or equity, which involved valuing students, including those racially
minoritized, equally. Ashley’s uncertainty about DiSHE’s value to make a broader impact follows
from her making sense of the project’s activities and goals through her understandings of diversity,
inclusion, and equity. Similarly, increased representation, even proportional to a group’s population,
does not tackle the climate of value and treatment that Taylor defined as relevant for inclusion nor
the power to make organizational change she expressed as required for equity. The individual and
conflicting understandings of diversity, inclusion, and equity that DiSHE project members brought
with them informed how they understood and valued its work and, in turn, their (in)ability to
collectively foster institutional change for racial and gender equity in STEM education. As a result of
not engaging in proactive organizational learning regarding the project’s relationship to diversity,
inclusion, equity, and equity-mindedness, DiSHE lacked conceptual cohesion with which to ground
and guide its development and implementation as the next findings demonstrate.
Racialized-Gendered Disempowerment Through Ambiguous Leadership Roles and Rights
Against this backdrop of conceptual dissensus, the development and implementation of
DiSHE project leadership was hampered by a lack of racial diversity in representation as well as
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tokenization of racially minoritized women project leaders and racialized-gendered ambiguity about
leadership roles. The ambiguity of leadership roles directly impacted decision-making authority,
specifically, and power to influence the project, generally, in ways that further marginalized women
of color practitioners. For instance, although not everyone on the project realized it, voting power
within the project was limited even within the leadership team with power over shaping the project
concentrated in a top-down manner. Representation in leadership positions, as this section will
show, are far more important than representation through participation alone precisely because of
the power that is assumed to, but may not necessarily, go with these positions.
Miss-Representations of Power: Tokenization and Racialized-Gendered Role Ambiguity
Leadership Miss-Representation. The DiSHE project leadership had a glaringly obvious
lack of racial diversity to the women of color and white women on the project. Eva noticed that
representation in certain roles had been an issue in the project “from the beginning,” saying, “when
you're working on projects of this type, it's important to look at who makes up the leadership
because that has been something that's constantly come up. Even from people outside of [DiSHE].”
Eva noted that when she interacted with people about DiSHE, they would question the racial
diversity in leadership of a project doing DEI work. Regarding the representation of women of color
in the project’s leadership, Sarah, a member of the project management herself, also acknowledged,
“I think it can have actually a pretty profound impact.” Despite several DiSHE members’
recognition that the racial diversity of its leadership was a serious matter, the issue also lingered
through early development and implementation.
Several project members discussed the kinds of impact that greater racial representation, and
specifically that of women of color, could have on the project. For instance, Regina shared that if
DiSHE “cannot get to the place of having a more diverse management team, in the long run that
could be a challenge because you're missing out on […] some inside information, I like to call it, to
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help improve the effort.” Regina’s concern involved the loss of perspectives that come from lived
experiences directly with the issues that the project would need to confront to be the most
successful possible. Similarly, Ashley stated the importance of including racially minoritized peoples
who are “supposed to be being advocated for to have a strong voice on what that advocacy looks
like [is] because they have the experience and the background and all of that to really know what is
needed.” In addition to the expertise that Black, Latinx/e and other people of color could bring to
the project in leadership roles, some raised another issue.
Eva noted, “You have to walk the walk too. You want to affect diversity in other places and
in these departments, but there’s a glaring problem in the leadership group if there’s no diversity
there.” The lack of racial diversity in the leadership of a DEI project was a problem in its own right
because the lack of representation in powerful positions demonstrated that the project was not
practicing what it was allegedly advocating. Meagan further characterized these problems as “power,
equity or should I say inequity? I think it's due to both, organizational structure, so those who are in
leadership, but also it does revolve around those who are in leadership are not…any person of
color.” Meagan named that the lack of people of color in power was an inequity in the project.
Tokenization. Throughout the project’s development and implementation, even as the
leadership changed somewhat, it did in fact have a woman of color, and sometimes two, in a
nominal leadership role. The belief that there were no women of color in project leadership,
however, can be understood by their tokenized participation. The events surrounding one of the
project’s important presentations with NSF demonstrates how women of color in leadership
positions were treated. Salma, who was technically on the project management team, turned down
an invitation to participate in the presentation because in her words “they wanted me to participate,
to represent [my organization], but the role that I had, the word tokenism comes to mind.” She was
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not the only woman of color made to feel in that instance that the project was engaging with them
in a superficial way for the sake of showing off a woman of color.
Angela recalled that meeting as well saying, “I mean all the presenters were people on the
management team except for me. I was the only person of color so from what I can see, I just was a
fly in probably to come and present (laughs).” Angela, who is not on the project management team
is a co-leader in one of the project arms, had not been invited to partake in the development of the
presentation she helped deliver. She also noted how some, though not all, of the project members
treated her as if, “they feel like they need to hold my hand,” but “I’m not that type of person.” She
gave an anecdote that perfectly illustrated her point that some people on the project held laughably
low expectations of her: “I came to one of the rehearsals or whatever and the comments to me, "oh
you did such a great job." I was like just reading a slide… and explaining that’s my job (laughs).”
Angela’s experiences participating in the project presentation confirmed Salma’s expectations that
some members of the team were more interested in a woman of color mouthing their words than
facilitating these project members’ meaningful interactions with NSF.
Role Ambiguity. During its development and early implementation, most of the women of
color, as well as one of the white women, who held project positions that by their titles seemed to
convey obvious leadership status within DiSHE had to deal with ambiguity surrounding their roles
in the project. For example, Taylor declared that she did not have a clear understanding of her role
within DiSHE despite her formal representation on the leadership team alongside four white
colleagues during the developmental stage. Taylor stated, “my role in DiSHE, which I don't think I
have a clearly defined role, is to support the overall project of broadening participation in [STEM
higher education].” The overly broad role that Taylor described as her position in the project belied
her own declaration that she possessed relevant work experience from which to contribute to
conversations about what works, what does not, and ideas for how to move the project forward.
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Despite her professional expertise and lived experiences, Taylor felt that she played a minor
role in shaping the DiSHE project. When asked to elaborate on her contributions, she stated, “often
I think those conversations have been off the record, and sometimes it's just discussions between
me and [Sarah].” Taylor’s leadership within the project may have been disempowered through the
“off the record” and limited sharing of her ideas with a woman project leader. An empowered view
of shared or collective leadership might place responsibility on Sarah for facilitating dialogue within
the larger project regarding Taylor’s contributions. Yet, Sarah’s own challenges with disempowered
leadership may have contributed to her inadvertently acting as a blockage instead of a conduit for
contributions from other women similarly disempowered in their project leadership roles.
The ambiguity surrounding formal leadership positions within the DiSHE project allowed
Taylor’s racialized labor to be less integrated and, therefore, undervalued. For instance, Taylor
discussed a concrete contribution she made to DiSHE that related to bringing into the project more
women of color and other people of color who represented racial-affinity professional organizations
within STEM: “I think having project partners and reaching out to folks outside of the [lead
organization] was also my idea. And I think that will hopefully shape the larger project going
forward.” Her liaising efforts were racialized by the fact that she, a Black woman, was reaching out
to other racially minoritized professionals. These leadership acts were, unfortunately, sidelined
within the project’s development. Taylor’s attempts to employ her leadership in collaboration with
other women and especially women of color she sought to bring into the project’s sphere of
influence were thwarted, making her formal leadership practically disempowered. Commenting, “I
don't know what is meant by leadership positions in DiSHE,” Taylor indicated that leadership
ambiguity was a larger issue within DiSHE. Other struggles by women of color with
disempowerment due to ambiguous leadership roles, specifically regarding voting power will be
discussed in the next section below.
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During the DiSHE project’s development, Sarah, one of its leaders, had just been promoted
to a time-intensive leadership position within DiSHE’s lead organization. Adding to the complexity
of roles and working relationships within this organization (and, thus, within DiSHE), Sarah took
over the post from another DiSHE project leader, Ken, who had been in that job for over a decade.
Ken’s extensive experience in the context they were working to change contributed to his ongoing
power in the DiSHE project and its lead organization. Regarding this dynamic Sarah noted, “a lot of
people will look to him for the leadership or the answer and they don't necessarily look to me.”
Some at this lead organization turned to Ken for more than his longevity and experience,
positioning him as the authority instead of Sarah. Noting her relative youth as someone of “middle
age” compared to the power consolidated among older, white men within her organization, Sarah
added, “I especially noticed this with guys.” Sarah’s being overlooked despite her official leadership
position reflects unchecked implicit bias (if not also explicit bias), which often contributes to the
institutionalization of gender disparities as part of an organizational status quo.
The ambiguity of project leadership roles was confounded within DiSHE as Ken led an
ongoing initiative that was understood by many people, internal and external to DiSHE, as this
project’s predecessor. Sarah stated, “I do feel like sometimes I do have to do a little bit more to get
people's—command of people's attention, respect—that they don't necessarily assume that I'm the
one leading the effort.” On top of assuming more official responsibility, Sarah experienced
additional labor demands in trying to translate her formal authority into practical authority by
developing the project according to her studied and nuanced vision (discussed in an earlier finding
above). When asked about the emergence of the DiSHE project, Sarah explained that “I've sort of
developed my own interests and things that I'd like to see happen, more sort of along the lines of
building a community of people that are involved in inclusive practices.” Some DiSHE members
continued to confuse the two projects in meetings and interviews despite Sarah’s differing focus
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through equity and inclusion framing and separate project activities. Sarah expressed desire for the
opportunity to lead DiSHE according to her vision; however, patriarchy and organizational ghosts
helped to disempower her leadership. Sarah, lamented, “Ultimately, you would like to see a lot more
diversity in those, you know, key positions that are making lots of important decisions about [STEM
higher education], but that's not who we have at the table right now, at this particular table.” And,
through Sarah’s own constrained time management, she allowed racialized-gendered
disempowerment to undermine the leadership of others she might have helped uphold, like Taylor
and the women of color she tried to integrate into the project.
“What Is Meant by Leadership”: Limiting Decision-Making and Agenda Setting Authority
Missed opportunities for equitable and equity-minded leadership on DiSHE included things
like redressing the representation of project management and creating space for organizational
learning about the DEI foundations of their collective work. In practice, DiSHE leadership
consisted of standard managerial activities, but even these activities tended to undermine and
marginalize women of color and their interests on the project. Here, I present two patterns in the
data, surrounding voting and agenda-setting.
Voting. The DiSHE project further marginalized women of color practitioners on the team
by setting unclear limits on which members of the management group were allowed to vote and
how agendas would get set. Gina, a coordinator who regularly took part in the management
meetings, recalled the moment she learned “we have voting and non-voting members?” as jarring
and confusing. In the several previous meetings of the management team, Gina had assumed and
participated as if she and every other member had a vote. The point of clarity came when Gina
recounted someone saying, “Should we wait for Ashley to be in this meeting because they're not a
voting member? So, they don't really have to be.” Upon learning that Ashley, who held a nominal
leadership role in the project, did not have authority to vote, Gina asked if she were a voting
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member only to be ignored. She recalled, “And then the conversation just kept going about whether
to postpone the voting… nothing was answered. Like [my question] wasn't answered. It was weird.”
Gina had inadvertently stumbled on one of the major issues of contention—how the leadership
team operates and who on it has any power to shape the project—that would continue to cause
friction in DiSHE for some time.
Further complicating matters, Ashley described a slightly different situation in which, “for a
long time, I did not have that voting power.” Through Sarah’s strong advocacy, however, Ashley
was eventually allowed to “be her proxy” and vote “when she was not there.” The project rules
about which roles in the management team could vote, or even that any roles could not, were
apparently obscure to some members of that team. For anyone not privy to the conversations about
Ashley’s unique role, as Gina was not, varying practices over time likely sowed more confusion. For
her part, Ashley appreciated the power sharing that came from Sarah’s actions: “That helped me, I
think, have more leadership and more of like being able to mold the structure.” As the DiSHE
project development evolved through implementation, Sarah seemed to take on more responsibility
for supporting the leadership roles of women of color. As project implementation continued, Salma
took over as the voting member for her arm of the project when her supervisor, who was a white
man, left her organization. She recalled, “since I've been on the [leadership team], I don't remember
voting a single time.” The non-voting that Salma remarked on turned out to be the fraying of the
DiSHE leadership just as she, the first regular woman of color voting member, joined the team.
Agenda Setting. The leadership team was, as Salma put it, “structured in a funky way,
you've got an agenda and then you're going to get through this and all of that kind of stuff. […] It's
not working. We know it's not working, we're all miserable in these meetings.” The agendas for
regular project management team meetings that everyone struggled to get through were agendas that
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most of the leadership team did not have any part of shaping and less influence in directing. Eva
shed more light on these leadership meeting dynamics:
Sometimes you're discussing something, and you can tell that maybe there's already been a
preferred, desired outcome for it. And so even though there might be some conflicting
thoughts about it, it's more so, well, we kind of already had this idea about how we think it
might--about how we think it should work and what would be the best outcome. And so,
then you have more conversation about that because it's more about like, "Well, let me
convince you." As opposed to actually trying to work something out, I guess, a compromise.
The collective misery that Salma declared comes through the image that Eva describes, in which the
agendas were set by a narrow portion of the team—the project director and Backbone lead—with
undeclared motives. In part this occurred because the leadership team was regularly confronted with
fully formed proposals from the project director, Ken, that contained “all this language that we will
never approve,” according to Gina. She also noted that Ken was the only one who had, “a say as to
what gets on the agenda” and the run of meetings. As a result, when not everyone on the leadership
team would agree on a proposed direction, the discussion would go back and forth incessantly, with
the outcome “delayed, and delayed, and delayed, and delayed.” The inability of the leadership team
to make progress on issues where there were disagreements about the best outcome, combined with
the ambiguity about who had voting-level decision-making authority, led Eva to declare the meetings
often felt like “a waste of time.”
One issue, specifically, that stymied the leadership team involved how to improve the
project’s representation of people of color and amplify their perspectives in the project’s future
development. In this regard, Ashley tried to use her new power in the project by “encourag[ing] the
structure of the [leadership team] to be slightly different, to be more inclusive of the various
stakeholders within the project.” Those various stakeholders included more people of color, many
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of whom were women of color. Regina put it, “the extent to which it's impacting the management, it
has to, almost necessarily, impact sort of the tentacles of the project.” The racialized-gendered
disempowerment of women of color through ambiguous leadership roles and limited authority
certainly impacted the rest of the project’s implementation as the next two findings illuminate.
Configurations of Power: Communications, Role Ambiguity and Division of Labor
As Regina presciently noted in the last section, challenges with racialized-gendered
disempowerment spread beyond the DiSHE project’s leadership and were evident in how project
configuration was developed and implemented. The fourth finding illustrates ways that project
communication patterns interacted with further role ambiguity, division of labor, and uneven
resource allocations in how the project was configured, which also contributed to racialized-
gendered disempowerment for women of color.
Racialized-Gendered Advising Role Ambiguity and Communication Patterns
More Role Ambiguity. First, the advisory group, mired in ambiguity, was a marginal arm of
the DiSHE project during development. Taylor from the development leadership team saw value in
bringing in outside perspectives, particularly from people of color to the DiSHE project:
The project advisors have such a wealth of expertise to offer, to bring to the table, but it's
not related to admissions. There's not a place for them right now in the current structure. So,
it'd be nice to create a place for them.
Likely related to the disempowerment Taylor experienced in her own role, she was unable to shape
the project development in a way that could meaningfully engage the advisors, particularly the
advisors of color. Advisor Maya expressed challenges to participating in DiSHE: “It's hard for me to
know what the [leadership team] of the project, what they view as the advisory role. I don't have that
information.” The advisors were not provided clear guidance on how the leadership team viewed the
advisory role in part because the leadership did not have a clear consensus about this among
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themselves. Another member of the project leadership team, Emily acknowledged the value of
incorporating the advisors: “I think we need to do more to be in conversation with the project
advisors and give them opportunities to critique what we're doing and be open to changing what
we're doing based on that critique.” She specifically discussed the advisors’ potential contributions in
connection to surfacing and problematizing racialized organizational practices of DiSHE and the
project’s activities. Ken, however, had a different perspective, noting, about these “amorphous
organizations,” that “we've communicated stuff well, and we've given them opportunities to
participate; and I think they're participating at about the level I think they're going to participate.”
Despite several members of the leadership team advocating support for deeper engagement with the
advisors, no organizational changes were enacted during the project development to counter the
advisors’ positioning at the margins of the DiSHE project.
The project continued to evolve through its implementation, and yet, the positioning of the
racially minoritized women advisors from racial-affinity professional organizations did not improve.
Sarah and Ashley continued through development and implementation to work with the
representatives of these groups to improve their organization’s relationship with these groups as well
as the DiSHE project’s relationships with them. Despite these sustained efforts along with backing
from some other members of the leadership team, the advisors were not official partners in the
implementation of DiSHE. The leadership of two racial-affinity professional organizations were
invited to a kick-off meeting for DiSHE because as Ashley shared, “we had been operating under
the assumption that they were considered partners within [DiSHE].” Ashley recounted how she,
Sarah, and these representatives all found out at the same time during that gathering that the
organizations had been sidelined yet again:
We get to the national meeting and the opening plenary and there's a slide thanking all of the
partners. …So, all of [the partner organization] logos were up there, but [the two racial-
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affinity professional organizations] were not. And, so after the meeting, they were like, “Oh,
we were surprised not to see us.” And we were like, “Oh yeah, I’m sure that was just a quick
oversight. We’ll make sure to talk to the [leadership team].” But when we talked to the
[leadership team], one person, in particular, was like, "Well, actually, no. They're not
partners." (Laughs) And the partner is this. And it was a lot of back and forth over stuff that
had not been clearly delineated. And so, it was easily understood to be one way by one part,
one group and also understood to be a different way by another group. And [we] did not
realize it until that moment.
The racialized-gendered role ambiguity and limited authority of women of color as well as the
gendered disempowerment of Sarah in DiSHE development and implementation demonstrated in
the previous finding continued to directly undermine incorporation of the women of color advisors
to the project.
Communications. Throughout the development of DiSHE, the advisors of color were
marginalized through racialized communication practices that limited information shared with them
and opportunities for them to provide input. Contrary to Ken’s conjecture that DiSHE had
communicated “well” with the advisors of color and given them “opportunities to participate,” the
advisors of color whom I interviewed lamented only having one point of contact with DiSHE at the
time of their interviews. All DiSHE advisors and affiliates had been invited to join the leadership
team and coordinators at a combined annual conference hosted by the lead organization and DiSHE
project development meeting. Based on that involvement, Maya stated, “My understanding of what
the DiSHE project is aimed to do is create a community or a network.” She added, “I really want to
be a part of those conversations, but in terms of what the actual question that DiSHE is asking, I'm
not sure that I have a clear idea about that.” When asked to discuss DiSHE goals and activities,
Maya said, “I don't know what the project is, because like I said, I've only really been included in the
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conversation at that one conference, so I'm not sure what the project is, or what has been done
since then.” Maya’s comment echoed other advisors who felt unprepared to speak concretely about
the DiSHE project due to limited project communications with them.
These communication patterns, however, were uneven and not every advisor felt out of the
loop about DiSHE. In particular, Claire stated that she was satisfied with the communication,
noting, “they’ve been keeping us up to date,” and mentioning a one-on-one meeting with Ken from
the project leadership team. In discussing the project’s relationships with the advisors, Sarah
mentioned, “I gave a presentation at the [organization represented by Claire], to their [higher
education] advisory board, and I talked with them about some of the things that DiSHE is doing,”
adding, “I feel like those relationships are going well.” Sarah also acknowledged the disparities across
relationships with different advisor communities: “I think with some of the other connections, it's
been a little tough. Mainly (laughs) I think on my part certainly, what's been really hard is lack of
time.” The project advisors were organizationally peripheral members of DiSHE and the limited,
uneven communication patterns with them created racialized communication practices that further
marginalized advisors of color. The racialized communication patterns were perpetuated, in part,
through the early inaction of Sarah, a leader of the project development. The demands of her newly
adopted positions within the DiSHE project and its lead organization were undoubtedly complex
and created sexist disempowerment challenges for Sarah to overcome. Yet, she also contributed to
patterns of racialized-gendered disempowerment for women of color in the project by dedicating
time to maintain good relationships with a nominally race neutral organization while claiming time
constraints as the reason for not making progress on improving relationships with racial-affinity
professional organizations. The advisors of color were not the only members of DiSHE to
experience racialized-gendered disempowerment through project configuration as the next section
demonstrates.
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Racialized-Gendered Division of Labor and Communication Patterns
Returning to one of DiSHE’s primary shortcomings, the project configuration created
racialized-gendered divisions of labor across the mostly white voting-members of the leadership
team and the almost all woman of color coordinators powering the project’s activity. Cynthia
remarked, “pretty much everyone who's in a position of power is a white person and every person in
a support staff position is either, honestly, a Black woman, interestingly enough, or […] is a person
of color.” The flipside to the DiSHE project’s problem of a mostly white leadership team, or more
specifically, mostly white voting team was a mostly Black woman support team who were not
themselves fully supported by the project. Ashley reflected on the practitioners who were
coordinating various arms of the project, “there isn't as much feedback from different areas of the
project that are actually doing the day-to-day work. They're missing pieces in [leadership] that I don't
think necessarily get heard otherwise. Simply because people are not in the room.” As Ashley
referenced, some of the women of color coordinating and leading arms of the project had struggles
that were not formally addressed by the leadership team.
Gina also commented on some of her colleagues’ challenges that she learned about after the
fact, “I had no idea that that was happening, because we don't communicate with each other (laughs)
at the [leadership team] and there's no space for people to really express how they feel or if they feel
like something's not right.” Alongside the challenges discussed to this point, several of the women
of color practitioners also faced difficulties carrying out their work in a culture where
microaggressions were somewhat regular occurrences in the project. When asked about these
instances, Angela stated, “I haven't heard much about microaggressions and it could be because I
mainly have a man [liaising with DiSHE] so he may not see that often or feel that often, which is
why I will not hear about it.” Even though Angela was higher ranking at her organization than the
man who was the primary liaison for their organization and the project, he was the voting member
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of the leadership. As someone who likely did not experience microaggressions, nor recognize or
cultivate relationships of confidence with those who did, this man also failed to fully communicate
the racialized-gendered turmoil in the leadership team to the rest of his team. Reflecting on the
racialized-gendered issues causing conflict in the DiSHE project, Regina brought in a pop culture
reference to comment on this being a specific communication skillset that not many work-
environments value, as opposed to niceness or professionalism:
This MTV show “The Real World” had a great tagline when it started. It was like, "when
people stop being polite." And I think about that in context of, you know, any kind of work
where you're trying to do [DEI work]. There's got to be that point at which people stop
being polite, and really have the real kind of conversations. I don't know that we know how
to do that, typically, in the context of the workplace.
The leadership team, due to its disconnect with the project’s arms and as a whole, was hindered by
inability to communicate about racialized-gendered power dynamics openly and directly in order to
address these issues in the project. Recalling what Eva said above, a DEI project that cannot carry
out equitable practices in its own work does not foster confidence in its ability to help other spaces
improve their DEI. The broader power dynamics in DiSHE especially isolated one arm of the
project via communications and resource allocations, discussed next.
Communications and Resource Allocations. The broader marginalization of women of
color and communication challenges within DiSHE exacerbated the resource-constrained
implementation of the project arm undertaken by Salma and Cynthia. As mentioned above, Salma
took over the lead role of her arm of the project, started directing activities out of her home
organization, and became its voting member on the leadership team, after DiSHE implementation
was already underway. When she joined the leadership team, however, rather than being fully
supported Salma was confronted head on with its culture of racialized-gendered marginalization. She
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recalled, “somebody on the [leadership team] said to me, ‘Hope you can fill his shoes.’” referring to
her former supervisor. This moment set the tone for Salma’s engagement with the project as well as
her determination to limit the support she sought from the leadership team: “You don't even know
me. How can you say that to me? You don't even know what I'm capable of doing. Right. And so
that bothered me.” At the outset, Salma faced questioning of her abilities juxtaposed with a
misplaced faith in those of her former supervisor, a white man.
As it turned out, Salma inherited a part of the project that had not, in fact, been well
managed or developed at all within her organization: “we had marketing people who were mad,
leadership people who were going, what the hell is this project? He was just not good at
communicating. He didn't know how to talk about it in a way that made sense.” Because her
difficult initiation into the leadership team, Salma had faced this and other challenges alone until
Cynthia, a Black woman, joined her team. Cynthia, acknowledging no ill intent, shared some
communication frustrations in working with other people on the project, “Whenever I ask for
something I get it,” but “I had to know to ask for it, that's the trick, but once I asked for it, I got it,
right?” Both Cynthia and Salma noted that the breakdown in communications surrounding their arm
of the project, where project members would not share information or other resources proactively,
were regular occurrences. Cynthia commented on the systemic nature of the communications
challenges, “Interestingly enough, my dissertation focuses on how background gives people access
to information and knowing the right questions to ask. So, it's exactly that. I get all the information I
need, but I have to know what to ask for and when to ask for it.” The poor communications
patterns, established with the microaggression Salma experienced as she stepped into a leadership
role, created undue stress and avoidable difficulties for her and Cynthia that were compounded by
the project’s financial resource allocations.
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The resource allocations from the grant were not evenly shared among different arms of the
DiSHE project configuration even when those parts called for similar levels of work. Ashley
reflected:
It seems simple when you're writing it in a proposal as a sentence (laughs). When it actually
comes to the amount of work that actually goes into that a lot of people sort of felt like they
were, I don't want to say bamboozled, what's the word? They weren't expecting that it would
be that much work.
There were other arms of the project that received even less resources than the one Salma and
Cynthia had to wrangle. Ashley empathized that the message from the project was, “‘Well, actually
you do this, this, this, and this.’ The same as somebody else who's getting four or five times as much
as you have,” which resulted in members feeling “overwhelmed and pressured to do more than they
can actually do.” Cynthia noted this pressure during meetings “when we're having conversations
around like we should do this program and it's like we literally can't because we don't have the
money or staffing.” The resource constraints on their part of the project, meant that Salma and
Cynthia had to do more with less and under constantly shifting demands from the project. The next
section reveals how the previous findings are all interrelated in the ways that the DiSHE project
development and implementation were carried out without a foundation of trust and respect.
Building a Shaky Foundation without Essentials: Trust and Respect “Is Just a Minimum”
28

The last finding from the embedded case study of DiSHE reveals a DEI project that did not
build trust and respect into its foundation—to the distress of women of color members, who were
marginalized in support roles and ambiguous leadership positions, and whom the project relied on
to carry out its day-to-day work. Of course, these women were not the only project members to be

28
Hill, L. (1998). Doo-Wop (That Thing) [Song]. On The Miseducation of Lauren Hill. Ruffhouse and Columbia
Records.
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negatively impacted by DiSHE not cultivating a culture of trust and respect; however, due to their
racialized-gendered positionality, they bore the brunt of commonplace microaggressions whether
experienced as racialized, gendered, or intersectionally. These challenges generated additional
emotional labor burdens on women of color practitioners who had no recourse but to do this work
that enabled everyone else in DiSHE to do the project work promised to NSF. As mentioned at the
start of this chapter, the DiSHE project required an intervention (as did other projects) to address
these crucial missteps in development that caused lingering problems throughout implementation.
Fomenting Mistrust through Disrespect and Emotional Labor
Several women of color practitioners did not feel that their work or perspectives, informed
by both professional experiences and lived, were respected in the DiSHE project. In the sections
above, Salma and Angela described microaggressions they experienced that let them know not
everyone on the project believed in their abilities to contribute meaningfully to DiSHE. In addition
to sharing details about being on the receiving end of such slights herself, Ashley commented on the
routine nature of them: “there are often many microaggressions that I have witnessed at least
towards underrepresented groups who are working within the project, which does not help to
increase trust at all.” Ashley’s remark highlights the interconnected relationship between respect and
trust as it is difficult to build trust without respect. Furthermore, Cynthia expressed how
communication played a role as well, “So when you don't find out big things about a program until
like four or five months into working there those things do damage trust with the people that you
rely on and work with.” Microaggressions contributed to the breakdown of communications more
broadly, as discussed above, creating a feedback loop that further undermined trust within DiSHE.
The DiSHE project generated emotional labor, in part, as an unavoidable aspect of doing
DEI work as someone personally invested in the outcomes and, in part, because it did not recognize
and respect how these conditions impact the women of color practitioners on the team. Cynthia
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discussed this point: “Trying to justify and explain my work and why I do it this way required
emotional labor, and then being met with resistance or no-one validates what I'm saying also creates
emotional labor. […] like the work just feels heavy.” The heaviness that Cynthia mentioned was
something that could build up over time or hit someone differently in any given moment. Regarding
microaggressions and the emotional labor they extract, Maya offered: “They don't become
unpainful. They don't become normalized really. And sometimes I'm more prepared because I'm
expecting it but other times. It's still hurtful.” The toll of microaggressions, the emotional labor of
not feeling respected or validated, was something that could spring up and derail women of color
practitioners at any moment. Moreover, Cynthia commented: “the issue of trust [being] required in a
working relationship. Maybe in another type of program or work, this stuff wouldn't matter as
much. But when you're advocating for students, I kind of need to know what's going on.” She had
not realized the importance of trust at work until her experiences on DiSHE where she found it
lacking. Regina underscored the importance of how DEI work is carried out with the labor of
marginalized practitioners: “these are people's lives, right? And so, the kind of processes, the ways
that we make decisions about sort of how we run a program are a lot more nuanced in this context
than they might be otherwise.” The nuances of professional relationships among DEI practitioners
were not navigated well by DiSHE as evidenced from the this and the previous findings, resulting in
the need for an intervention so the project could reassess how it operated as discussed next.
The development and implementation of DiSHE focused on meeting project objectives
divorced from the respect and trust necessary to foster internally equitable working relationships,
particularly at the expense of women of color. Ashley noted part of the problem with DiSHE was
that “we said we were going to do all of these things in a set amount of time. And we have to get all
of these things done come hell or high water, regardless of which relationships get damaged.” By
that measure, the project was successful. Gina noted that the work was completed in a dysfunctional
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environment, however, “so it's kind of interesting that we're getting all this stuff done still. Imagine
what we could do if we were working functionally. Like, we could do so much more.” The “we” that
Gina referenced as “getting all this stuff done” were a majority of women with most women of
color in subordinate roles. In particular, Salma noted, “That project consumed my life until Cynthia
came. […] It took over my life. It was, it was not fun. I was very upset, very mad at my former
supervisor for not having done anything.” The rush to “get all of these things done” ended up
exploiting the labor of women of color committed to supporting people marginalized in STEM and
changing STEM while making these practitioners’ jobs harder.
The notion that taking the time to foster respect and trust among the DiSHE practitioners
would be worthwhile for women of color and improve the project overall surfaced in several ways.
Eva diagnosed the issue as a foundational fault in DiSHE:
I think if there was more trust and respect, by just having those things established as a
foundation, would make a difference. There wouldn't be as much to break down if those
two things were just in place because then people just feel more comfortable with sharing
things. And you can feel more invested if you actually feel like it's heard, and it'll make a
difference.
As she mentioned building respect and trust at the current stage of implementation would require
breaking down the DiSHE structures already built to replace them with ones that supported a
collaborative environment. Gina concluded, “It's like people really need to get comfortable with
each other, trust each other, get to know each other. I think that is the most important aspect and
we completely skipped over that.” Ashley, who believed the elements were present for a better
project to emerge, shared a similar view:
I think the project is made up of really good people, who want to do good. Like our retreat
last year had its frustrating points, but there were also some really good connecting points as
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well. I have good personal relationships with the majority of people on the team. I think that
if we could connect, if everyone could connect that way and if we could find ways to
connect with one another—not just on an icebreaker level, like that shallow tell me two
truths and a lie way (laughs). I really think that that would significantly benefit the project
because I think it would benefit, it would help support the people who are doing the work,
so that they can do the work (laughs).
A fairly clear consensus developed from the participants of this study that the DiSHE project should
have prioritized building a community of respect and trust into its development and implementation
efforts, especially with the women of color practitioners involved and potentially involved in the
project.
A Crumbling Foundation Leads to Painful Renovations
Several members of the project, who wanted DiSHE to engage more meaningfully with
STEM higher education practitioners of color and the many women of color on the team, had to
employ a variety of tactics over a sustained period of time to intervene in the business-as-usual flow
of project activity. For instance, Cynthia noted that “Emily and Walter led a whole survey collection
where people were very open about how race, power, gender kind of impact our work.”
Documenting the internal challenges was an important step for the project to create space for
additional perspectives from people who had not felt heard previously. An internally nominated
group of five women project members, including two women of color, were tasked with developing
new structures and procedures for DiSHE. Eva noted, “So by September we said that we would
have a new [DiSHE] structure; and it's going to be August and that's not even close.” The lengthy
process required to consider the changes necessary and figure out how to implement them, as
opposed to having developed the project from the outset with respect and trust as integral, created
difficulties for project members as well. Gina shared her exacerbation, “we spent the last four
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months talking about how to do the thing, what we should be doing, which is like eight meetings,
which is insane. That's a long time.” Although change happened slowly in DiSHE, Eva did notice its
occurrence: “I've seen where there's more of that shared leadership. Where you don't feel like Ken,
Beth, they're making all the decisions, or even sometimes mostly Ken coming through Beth.”
The DiSHE project was still developing new processes for members to work together at the
time the study concluded. Although that effort was taking longer than anyone wanted, some
welcome changes were already being implemented through how the internal change process
occurred. The work to make the work of DiSHE reflect the best of intersectional equity and equity-
minded principles was not easy but it generated hope for some. Eva stated:
I'm hopeful. And, of course, it'll be interesting to see how everything works out. And
hopefully because there has been so much discussion […] hopefully with all of that kind of
decided, and everyone's agreed upon it, then it can just kind of move forth. And there'll
actually be some change in that there'll be a multitude of different voices that can be heard.
Cynthia acknowledged the value of this and continued, “They're doing the work, but I don't know if
it's happening fast enough to keep everyone who's currently on the project on the project.” Even
among those who were hopeful for the future of the DiSHE project, some people understandably
questioned whether the toll, in particular that endured by women of color practitioners, was too
great.
DiSHE Case Study Summary
The embedded case study of the NSF INCLUDES-funded DiSHE project revealed five
major findings about how racialized-gendered social and organizational dynamics intersect in the
ways that practitioners’ backgrounds and positionalities influence their understanding and
experiences of DEI work. These dynamics were salient in how practitioners did or did not
foreground respect and trust as they developed project vision and goals and implemented leadership
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roles, decision-making, project configurations and division of labor, resource allocations, and
communications. Women of color practitioners of DiSHE, who were mostly Black women,
disproportionately experienced racialized-gendered disempowerment through marginalized status
and emotional labor from microaggressions and invalidation of their abilities. They endured the
environment of disrespect and mistrust that those inequitable collegial relationships fomented
despite shouldering a greater portion of the day-to-day work of the project, which allowed it to be
successful in many other ways. Connections among the findings across chapters are elaborated in
the discussion chapter. The next chapter explores a greater variety of experiences of women of color
practitioners with INLUDES-funded DEI work in higher education.

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Chapter 7: Working in Higher Education DEI while Black, Latina, Asian and a Woman
This chapter delves into the experiences of 12 women of color practitioners working on
INCLUDES-funded projects throughout higher education. They occupy positions that span from
part-time, temporary worker to tenured, full professor to various levels of administrative staff from
colleges, universities, and other organizations in the higher education environment filling in the
middle. All of these women of color practitioners have earned higher education degrees, with
backgrounds that include STEM, social sciences, and humanities. Of these women, six identified as
Latina/Hispanic, five identified as Black/African American, and one identified as Asian/Asian
American. All of these women of color practitioners have supported at least one NSF INCLUDES-
funded project. Two-thirds of these practitioners have held leadership positions across six different
INCLUDES-funded projects, while the remaining third worked in staff positions funded, at least in
part, by two other projects. Their full stories cannot begin to be told within the pages of the chapter
that follows. Instead, I share borrowed glimpses of their voyages through a specific slice of diversity,
equity, and inclusion work in higher education. I have no doubt that their narratives will resonate far
beyond.
This chapter is broken down into three primary findings about the pitfalls and perks women
of color experience while carrying out higher education DEI work. First, I show how five of the
twelve practitioners, three Latinas and two Black women, faced professional impediments that arose
from NSF project configurations that were not well mapped onto the structures of their
organizations. These challenges, while not necessarily overtly racialized-gendered, cannot be
understood outside the context of ongoing intersectional equity struggles women of color face
regarding pay, promotion, and sexual harassment to name a few. Jennifer, Vanessa, Sofia, Ruby, and
Georgina were all vulnerable to and frustrated in some way by these organizational features. In some
instances, their difficulties were exacerbated by their co-workers and fellow project members while
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in others they found respite with supportive colleagues. Next, I reveal the ways that two Black
women, one Latina, and one Asian Woman experienced deep misalignments with members of their
teams around how their projects carried out their work with underlying racialized-gendered
implications. Although Britney, Jessica, and Shirley were part of the same project, their disciplinary
backgrounds and political values informed divergent positions on the many tensions that arose in
their project and their underlying causes. Meanwhile, Jane’s cultural values and commitments caused
her concern with how her colleagues approached more than one aspect of their project work.
Finally, I demonstrate how two Latinas and one Black woman—Grace, Gabriela, and Jasmin—
experienced three different projects as predominantly positive, benefiting from teams operating with
shared leadership. The three themes presented below add a greater variety of experiences, along with
positive examples and nuance, to the themes found in the previous chapter.
Configuring Frustration: Caught between NSF and Organizational Structures
Organizational structures, sometimes combined with complicity from project leadership, led
to configurations that frustrated women of color practitioners working for INCLUDES-funded
projects. In particular, Jennifer, Ruby, and Georgina, who worked on different projects, felt
frustrated that their work was not recognized by official titles, both on their projects and from their
employers, nor with supports commensurate to their labor. Here, support sometimes included
monetary compensation and yet was even more saliently desired in other forms. Meanwhile, Sofia
and Vanessa also worked for the same project as Ruby, though all from different sites, which led to
their own particular challenging experiences with how their respective arms of the project was
configured. Specifically, Sofia experienced job insecurity and isolation while Vanessa struggled with
feeling that her work was not well understood or fully valued at her organization due to a leadership
void. Importantly, these project configurations implemented through constraining organizational
structures occurred within broader higher education and U.S. societal contexts of racialized-
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gendered inequities in employment, which should be understood as underlying elements of these
stories even if not always apparent.
Leadership without Full Recognition or Support
Jennifer Untitled. Project 3 was a higher education systemwide DEI collaboration, in which
Jennifer was a co-leader and held a mid-level administrative position at one of the colleges in the
system. Jennifer’s positionality as a Latina, with a STEM background and history of organizing a
STEM community across this system, made her “the perfect person to run this task force or
coordinate or provide the leadership” for the INCLUDES-funded Project 3. She noted regarding
the activities and strategies behind their intended impact, “And those aspects, I was very involved in
those things.” Originally, the STEM task force submitted a proposal in which Jennifer was not
listed as a leader, despite her contributions from the beginning. After the first attempt was
unsuccessful, the group resubmitted a very similar proposal with one especially notable difference: “I
think they said they needed me because I'm [STEM]. I'm a Latina.” Jennifer was named as a co-
leader of Project 3 on its second, successful proposal for INCLUDES funding.
Yet, Jennifer found it difficult to implement her arm of Project 3 due to how it was
configured onto the structure of her higher education system. As part of Jennifer’s arm of the
project she was tasked with “coordinating faculty at other colleges that don't report to me.” Jennifer,
therefore, had navigate the challenge of trying to work with faculty that did not necessarily have any
relationship to her or incentive for complying with her requests, because the success of her arm of
the project depended on implementing activity with faculty buy-in from across the system. As she
noted in reference to her leadership position on the grant, “That doesn't mean that that translated
though to all the different faculty members of each college.” To help her deliver for the project, her
office was only awarded enough money to support a student worker for at most 10 hours per week.
Jennifer recalled, “I wanted to give students an opportunity and things like that, but it was very
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much so a heavy lift for several years for me.” In addition, she did not receive any compensation
from the grant. When asked why she was not supported on the grant, Jennifer responded, “I don't
know that my [system] would've allowed me any because I'm not a faculty member. I'm an
administrator, so I don't know that they would've allowed me any compensation and... Because of
that, I didn't press for it.” The leadership role that Jennifer held within the grant that she brought to
her organization was not deemed sufficient by the organization to provide her with the structural
supports to thrive as she carried out the work.
As a result, Jennifer was placed in an awkward position of taking on additional labor for her
project above and beyond her usual job description, expending social and cultural capital that she
did not possess. Jennifer carried out this work with almost no support from the project despite her
leadership organizing the STEM community that laid the groundwork for the project. In addition,
she contributed strategic activities and credibility, through lending her name and positionality as a
Latina in STEM, to the proposal. Even as the project to support Latinx in STEM was funded, in
part, due to Jennifer’s leadership as a Latina in STEM, the project did not provide the organizational
structures to support her.
As her time working for the project continued, Jennifer’s situation was only made worse by
her project team across the system and in her organization. In retrospect, Jennifer realized there was
one element of support that the project could have helped her gain without confronting
organizational rules about allocation of grant resources and administrative salary. She declared, “in
hindsight, and hindsight is perfect, right? more support from a [system] perspective that said, “She...
[Jennifer]'s the point person, she's coordinating something for the entire [system].” Documentation,
most notably in the form of a title, would have provided Jennifer the cultural capital that could have
facilitated her role of providing systemwide coordination. What happened, instead, distressed
Jennifer profoundly. A new top administrator at a partner college, a project member she worked
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with regularly, and other members of the project leadership met with a systemwide representative to
negotiated for that representative to replace Jennifer on the grant. Despite her leadership role on the
grant, these members of the project leadership met and conducted these negotiations without
involving Jennifer, only informing her after the deal was done. Jennifer recalled that the systemwide
representative, a white woman, who replaced her had informed her of the change by saying, “It's just
because they want my title” and “I'm just going to be the person at NSF in name only.” Jennifer
recalled the difficulty of that time as well as shouldering her feelings of betrayal:
I stayed with the grant. I met all the targets. I submitted everything that I needed to submit. I
mean, it was a long eight months to have to deal with what was going on behind my back
and to know that I was there to do the work but not get any of the recognition as a [leader].
All the documentation that was filed with NSF to replace me as a [leader], all of those things.
And I had to just watch all that happen, and everyone act as though that was okay.
Jennifer was left with little recourse but to continue her work for the project, which she did for the
benefit of the students. While Jennifer initially worried that these actions would damage her career,
especially as far as her relationship with NSF, that does not seem to have occurred. Recently,
Jennifer was awarded her own NSF grant as the leader of a new higher education DEI project in
STEM with a completely different set of colleagues. Jennifer’s fortitude and determination to work
for students of color in STEM have so far carried her to success. Yet, her experiences beg the
critical question: if she, and others like her, had been supported by colleagues through
intersectionally equitable collaborations, how much more could have been achieved by now to
remake STEM higher education equitable for Jennifer and her students?
A Georgina and Ruby by Any Other Title Would Still Do the Same Work. In another
project, Georgina created a joint effort with a faculty colleague who was a white woman in STEM,
and she supported that woman taking the lead on the grant. Georgina remarked that her colleague
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and partner was, “a faculty member, so it made sense for her to be the [lead]. And I suggested it just
because—in fact, I don't know if it's changed, but at one point, staff members could not be [leads]
on grants.” However, Georgina was in the fortunate position of working with a faculty partner who,
in practice, was willing to share the lead role of the project. The collective approach of the
INCLUDES grant also facilitated Georgina and her faculty partner to set up and run their project as
a team.
The structural conditions at Georgina’s college that prohibited her from the possibility of
leading a grant, however, went beyond the title. Georgina pointed out that the same “system,” which
limited her opportunities based on her employment classification, also created conditions that made
her contributing to the project more burdensome than for the faculty member. At first Georgina
only intimated as much, commenting on “the school that I'm in, their politics behind who does
what.” Soon though, she more freely shared her frustration with the system and the politics.
Georgina called out an engrained problem:
I feel like it's a system (laughs). So, I feel like from what's made space for, to what's not
made space for, who can sort of focus on a couple of things versus who has to juggle
multiple things... I think it's all of those things. So, I think it turns, it connects with how we
function as a team, but also the culture of our university.
She connected the structural constraints placed on her position to dynamics among her project team
and the broader elitist culture of her university that valued the status of faculty but not
administrators. At Georgina’s organization, faculty—but not administrators—were allowed
opportunities and privileges through grants, such as negotiating “space” in the form of time and
money to “focus on a couple of things versus… juggl[ing] multiple things.” Regarding the project
she co-led, Georgina added, “But [the partner’s] workspace has made space for her to do a lot, then
my workspace hasn't made space for us.” Even though Georgina worked with someone who was
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willing to share the power to lead and shape the project, this could not account for the additional
“juggling of multiple things” that Georgina had to do with less institutional support.
Unlike the women above, Ruby joined another project already underway by accepting a
junior level staff position. Ruby was an experienced higher education administrator who needed
work. Unfortunately, she did not have the luxury of waiting for an optimal job opportunity because
she had health issues for which she required insurance. Soon into her new position, Ruby realized
that while the title suggested entry-level work, it actually required much more. She recalled, “when I
showed up, everyone was like, ‘Oh, finally,’" because her supervisor had “been talking about this for
years” and her arrival signaled, “he finally got this up and running.” Ruby added, “when I started it
was me, like I was the program.” Despite her title, Ruby was responsible for starting up and running
her project’s program at her site, which she felt comfortable doing thanks to her previous experience
working in four other colleges over several years. She described her role: “a lot of what I think my
job is beyond student services is to streamline communication as best as possible, between so many
entities that have different stakes;” adding, “I have to think holistically because everyone else is
thinking about what their part of the job is.” Ruby, as the only practitioner devoted full-time to the
program, was the only one who understood the intricacies of how all of the pieces of the program fit
together and how to tease them apart again for reporting purposes with various stakeholders. In a
sense, Ruby was still the program.
As a savvy professional, Ruby sought out additional formal responsibilities to justify a title
change more appropriate to her experience and the level of work she was doing for her program.
Since her program had funds to support two part-time workers, Ruby asked to supervise them,
noting “Because I felt like I was going to be answering all their questions anyway. I was going to be
the one onboarding them.” After volunteering for more responsibility, Ruby was immediately
offered yet more work on the grant, coordinating regionally among programs like hers that
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represented different arms of the grant project. In this conversation where she agreed to additional
work, Ruby also raised the matter of her title, which she stated, “was kind of confusing the way it
was written into the grant, but also the way that our school had classified my position.” Ruby noted
that the project proposal configuration and her organization’s structures were not well aligned,
which created ambiguity and confusion around position.
Her supervisor, who was more than willing to unload work, quickly agreed. Ruby was
supported in immediately adopting the new title and using it in her communications—emails,
business cards but the matter was far from closed. Ruby relayed that that conversation had occurred
more than a year earlier; and her deserved title change, “unfortunately, it's a working title.” She
stated, “the plan was to get it officially put down. But based on the bureaucracy, in the way that
positions are classified at my institution, it can't be an official title.” What Ruby did not know at the
time of her initial conversation about titles and responsibilities with her supervisor was that even as
he agreed, “he wasn't actually 100% sure he could do that.” When Ruby would raise the matter, it
created tension in her relationship with her supervisor that she thought was undeserved because, in
her words: “I'm just advocating for myself, I'm following up on a promise that we have, [that] you
had made.” The difficulties Ruby experienced over the title of her employment were related to
additional unsupportive experiences she faced through her position. Ruby and Georgina experienced
broader difficulties, in part, due to the lower status they held in their organizations because of their
non-faculty positions, as the next section shows.
It’s the Faculty’s World; They’re Just Working in It. Ruby and Georgina did not
experience their structural difficulties as harshly as Jennifer did, but they understood that their work
deserved more validation and support than they received as non-faculty in their organizations. For
Georgina, that meant more respect for her expertise and leadership in racial equity work regardless
of her non-faculty status. She highlighted the varying levels of comprehension and engagement with
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DEI work centering racial equity that different project members had with regard to how her team
functioned. She stated, “it can't be we're in a situation where someone avoids me, but they come to
somebody else because they think they have a different perspective [on the position of race in the
project],” adding, “Not that we all have to be the same person, but everyone needs to be
knowledgeable of this space [of racial equity] because we're going to be tested in this space.”
Georgina succinctly diagnosed a potential quagmire from uneven knowledge and a misalignment in
the centering of race in the project’s work that she wanted to avoid, which led her to bring in an
outside expert to lead the team through racial equity training. Georgina talked about realizing there
were critical conversations around race that had not happened with her project team despite working
together for a while. Yet, to function cohesively as a team, Georgina understood that they would
need to collectively construct a baseline understanding of racism and racial equity in higher
education.
With the understanding of a seasoned DEI professional, Georgina commented on her
team’s growth while noting that the work to stay aligned would require ongoing concerted effort: “I
think we’ve all grown. We are not...on that front end, but we still have some places to go.” One of
those places for growth in the team overall related back to the constraints that Georgina faced
because of her administrative position, which she named as a “tinge of academic or faculty
superiority.” When asked if her team valued her expertise and experience doing DEI work,
Georgina replied, “So it's weird, I think sometimes it is valued and then sometimes it's not valued
because it's not coming from a traditional academic.” And this feeling of faculty superiority that
Georgina experienced as “tinges” was in spite of the fact that she, “wrote multiple papers on it,
published.” Georgina experienced the structure and culture of her college as reinforcing pressures,
which maintained a hierarchical faculty and staff divide that she bore the weight of as a member of
the latter group.
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Relatedly, Ruby understood an element of the difficulties she continued to experience with
her supervisor as related to their different career paths as a faculty administrator versus
administrative staff. During a tense annual evaluation, Ruby’s supervisor suggested that her
position’s responsibilities did not warrant her informal title to be made official, but that at least she
was well paid while waiting for her next job opportunity. Knowing that by accepting this position
she had taken a pay cut while in a bind, she did not hesitate to correct his misplaced assumptions,
stating, "Well, I actually don't get paid enough, but it's fine." Ruby continued:
I also know that he doesn't know of anything beyond his job. Right? Like, where this is what
I do; this is my background. I've worked at four, this is my fourth college in [this city]. I
know how this works. Right? I know classifications. I have friends in higher ed. But again, I
think that's the disconnect with faculty versus people who work in higher ed, in the student
services piece.
Because of her professional experience and network, Ruby knew her worth and the value of her
work. Yet, circumstances beyond her control placed Ruby in a position with a supervisor who not
only underappreciated having someone as experienced as her who was able and willing to take on
running elements of the project he was not. The supervisor also lacked the know-how or willpower
(or both) to finesse his organization’s bureaucracy to support the staff that was supporting him.
Configuring Insecurity and Instability Through Undermanagement and Underfunding
Whereas Sofia and Vanessa also worked in student services under the same project as Ruby,
their limited, more varied professional experiences and much different project configurations
presented dissimilar organizational challenges. Vanessa worked on a team of four full time staff but
still did not feel fully grounded in her role and the program at her school. She noted, “we report to
the [faculty administrator]. And [she] is so busy. She's running an entire STEM division. So, I feel
like there is... I don't really feel like I have a supervisor (laughs), even though she's technically my
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supervisor.” Vanessa picked up on a leadership void that she thought related to her own difficulty
finding her footing in the program as well as others. She stated that “some of the lack of clarity is
because there wasn't somebody in a leadership role from the beginning, when we all started, who
was really involved with writing the grant.” Vanessa also realized that the role ambiguity she felt
created tensions between her and the team, sharing, “They didn't really know what's going on with
the grant or, like... So, we had some team conflicts because for a while people were, like, ‘Well, what
does Vanessa do?’” Without leadership from the grant there was no one to provide a cohesive vision
for how the team was meant to work together.
With circumstances that were diametrical to the construction of Vanessa’s, Sofia worked as a
team of one with two bosses. Despite her role supporting a program that had existed for many
years, Sofia’s position was cobbled together with two part-time temporary contracts paid by two
separate organizations. Sofia was appreciative to be doing a job she liked, and that the grantee
organization was able to keep her working over the summer during which time her college contract
lapsed. Yet, the oddity of the arrangement and its drawbacks were not lost on her. She shared that
“since last week now I have 45 hours a week, but again, since they're both considered part-time, I
don't have benefits or anything like that, which is really a bummer.” During this time of overlap,
Sofia was particularly distressed about managing her relationships with her two employers. She
commented on the challenging position she felt placed in:
I don't want to step on anyone's toes. I don't want to get myself in trouble, but I'm getting
paid through the college and I'm also getting paid through [Grantee Organization]. So, what
information am I allowed to share? What are the expectations of, if I find [a student
opportunity] or whatever, do I share this both with [Grantee Organization] and the school,
or is it just for [Grantee Organization], is it just for the school? So, kind of knowing what I
can and cannot do is still kind of being worked out.
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Considering her tenuous employment status, Sofia understandably had heightened concern for
managing her role sandwiched between two organizations and staying in good graces with both of
her employers. She brought up the possibility of her contract not being renewed more than once,
noting, “when that ends, it's always up in the air as to—hopefully you'll be back, but don't hold your
breath type thing.” The instability that Sofia felt from her job was something that always stayed with
her even as she found her work satisfying and enjoyed interacting with students, faculty, and others.
Even though Sofia knowingly took a chance, “because that's just where my heart is,” she confided
that “it is a bit discouraging to know that I've been here for a good little minute now and I still can't
get something full-time, or at least ongoing. I wouldn't even mind if it was part-time, but ongoing.”
Although Sofia liked her supervisors and felt supported by them, that support and those amicable
relationships had not translated into more stable employment for Sofia after more than a year
supporting a program that had existed for closer to a decade.
These five practitioners were all corned into less-than-ideal work arrangements in one way or
another, despite genuinely liking the work that they did for the most part. Their difficulties were
collateral damage from the collision of INCLUDES-funded project development with ill-fitting
organizational structures, and at times made worse by colleagues or supervisors who would not
validate them for the work they did. These practitioner’s structural challenges with title, status, pay,
job security, recognition, validation, and support are reflective of broader trends in racialized-
gendered disparities in higher education employment. For Jennifer, Georgina, and Ruby, leadership
without title, recognition, or support threatened professional validation and the career growth that it
could foster. For Sophia and Vanessa, lack of security and missing structure were elements to endure
in hopes that they would improve. The next section examines the experiences of four women from
two different projects who faced challenges stemming not from structural configurations but
misaligned values and relationships to one another and their work.
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Value and Expectation Misalignment
One third of the women of the color represented in this chapter—four practitioners—
managed value and expectation misalignments with colleagues in their projects. Jane, who was a
leader in one of the parts of her project, was fairly optimistic and inquisitive about her team and
their work. Yet, she expressed two substantive misalignments between how project implementation
was occurring versus how she expected it to in accordance with her values. Britney, Jessica, and
Shirly, all leaders in various ways, experienced misalignments about how to develop and implement
their project based on different values and expectations of the work, which they also attributed to
differences in values and expectations.
When the Little Things Have Not So Little Ramifications
Some differences in expectations about how to implement an INCLUDES-funded project
might seem somewhat superficial at first pass but the implications can run far deeper than
immediately realized. This was the reality that Jane and Shirley confronted. Jane was invited to
participate in the project after it had been developed. She started “just being in part of a very small
element of the bigger picture” as a learning opportunity because she found “the whole language and
operations of NSF was incredibly intimidating.” Jane’s role changed shortly after joining the project.
She stated, “I realized they needed a little bit more help with organization. It was operating in a way
that made me really uncomfortable, and in terms of just operations.” The elements of project
implementation that Jane categorized as “just operations” included “forethought and planning,”
“last minute decisions,” and “transparency for our participants, clarity for our participants.” She felt
so strongly about these operational [things], Jane said “And so I stepped up my game and then I
became a little bit more involved. […] helping with leadership, and organization, and procedures.”
Jane knew that her team would have been fine with continuing their implementation as they had
been, which also demonstrates that they did not necessarily appreciate all of her initiative. This was
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not a deterrent for Jane who described her motivation: “I needed [the project activity] to feel like I
was doing justice for our participants.” Jane’s commitment to the participants first and foremost
informed her values, which drove her actions to take on more responsibility than she was initially
comfortable with.
In another project, Shirley relayed that “there were personality conflicts,” primarily between
one of the project leaders she described as “a very strong personality, incredibly smart guy” and
“some of the other folks in the [project] who view themselves as leaders.” Shirley’s use of the term
“personality conflicts” to describe the issue and descriptions of the parties involved hinted not only
at her alliances but also her general dismissive disposition toward the conflict. She continued, clearly
stating her position: “I didn’t view his leadership style as being confrontational or problematic at
all.” Shirley thought of the conflict as innocent misunderstandings, but she recognized that “as time
went on and the wounds kind of festered. I think it only got harder to trust the group.” As it
happened the misalignment of project leadership and implementation were holdovers from the
project development that had not been dealt with. Shirley attributed the underlying causes of project
misalignments to “different expectations of leadership in the two generations” and “the culture of
different disciplines too.” Just as members of this project had divergent expectations for leadership
and implementation, unsurprisingly they also disagreed on the underlying causes of those
misalignments and judgements about those causes. Ultimately, the misalignments ran much deeper
than personality conflicts for several team members and this project initiated a thorny intervention
that led to some leadership restructuring and personnel changes. Shirley rejoined:
that's not anybody's fault. It's just a difference in expectations. Now, should we have aligned
our expectations more carefully? Yeah, I think we should have. If we'd taken more time at
the beginning, maybe we could have avoided all this.
Whereas Shirley’s project had greater splintering that required a recombination of one sort or
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another, Jane seemed to be the odd person out in hers. And Jane, therefore, took it upon herself to
pick up any slack that she perceived as possibly detrimental to project participants.
This Ain’t To-may-to To-mah-to, Just Call the Whole Thing Off?
For other practitioners, or in Jane’s case other instances, concerns about misaligned values
and the resulting project implementation were much stronger from the start. Jane found herself
troubled about one particular initiative that she felt her team was rushing forward with for the
wrong reasons. Jane expressed her desire to “do something purposeful instead of just doing things
and checking it off the box.” As a practitioner who centered culturally sustaining approaches in her
practices, doing meaningful work was a central value for Jane. Clearly feeling conflicted by her
inexperience with NSF, she added, “but that's just my ignorance in terms of the integrity of doing
what we said we were going to do.” Jane tried to rationalize her apprehension in terms of what she
reasoned her team’s perspective was. In raising this and other issues, she mentioned that one of her
colleagues on the project had instructed her that too much questioning was “not always
professionally the best way to step forward.” She did her homework to understand the importance
of the initiative in the proposal and in the project, but she still had lingering questions that made her
feel uneasy. She shared that “sometimes I get scared because everyone is enthusiastic about it. And
then I'm the only one saying, well, why now? Why not later?” Jane’s trepidation about the timing of
the initiative and potentially postposing activity so it could be done well rather than just done related
to disruptions from COVID. The box-checking, compliance driven mentality that she perceived
from her team was not something that she was comfortable with, especially under these conditions.
Similarly, Jessica and Britney were disquieted by some of the fault lines in their project that
they understood to be much more serious than Shirley. Although these three women were not in
consensus about the project’s challenges, neither were they in total disagreement. For instance,
Britney and Jessica agreed that there were disciplinary divides that contributed to the group’s
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misalignments, particularly in how some members understood others’ expertise and related roles in
the project. The nuances, however, in how Jessica, Britney, and Shirley connected these elements to
the misalignments mattered greatly. Shirley told a story of hypersensitivity:
And just because you're an expert in XYZ, doesn't mean you can't learn from somebody else
who might be new to the table and have a slightly different idea. That being asked a question
is not equivalent to somebody saying that you're not an expert; they're just asking a question.
Where Shirley understood different disciplinary norms around questioning and critique to be benign,
Britney diagnosed a failure to show respect:
How do we value the assets that these folks bring to the table? Because they were invited
here to share their assets. So, when they share them, if you make them feel terrible about it
or pick it apart, what's the point in having them here?
Crucially, the primary questioner in this story was an older white man with a STEM background and
the expert being questioned was a middle-aged woman of color scholar from the social sciences. The
positionalities of these project members created undeniable power imbalances that were
underpinning their exchange and broader group interactions. Meanwhile, Jessica unearthed yet a
different take: “even still today, some of the people on [the project], they don't clearly understand
the distinction between the social science research and the evaluation.” Jessica’s interpretation of the
line of questioning as fundamentally misguided was not necessarily opposed to Britney’s, which they
both related to a shared understanding of the fundamental misalignment of the project. Britney
summarized: “it was how people were just treating each other and their labor, not respecting the
labor or the expertise that they brought to the table.” Jessica’s verdict amplified Britney’s: “You can't
engage like that. That's not good leadership, and that's not equity work. You can't... we can't try to
foster equity work but then act like this in our project.” For Jennifer, the white man’s “act[ing] like
this in our project,” or working with colleagues who were women of color in ways that did not show
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them respect for their knowledge and contributions, did not “foster equity” and, therefore, did not
amount to equity work. The disrespect and underdeveloped understanding of social science and
equity scholarship that Brittany and Jessica noted goes to the heart of what it meant for them to do
equity work, which amounted to a pretty large, fundamental divide in the project.
Jane, Jessica, Britney, and Shirley experienced varying levels difficulties in the projects they
were part of due to misalignments of their values with those of some of their colleagues about why
certain project activities mattered and how to respectfully work together. As racially minoritized
women practitioners engaged in DEI work, experiencing value conflict with the people who were
supposed to be their comrades in the struggle created feelings of frustration, alienation, betrayal, and
even a sense that social justice was not being furthered through their projects.
Enacting Shared Leadership for Shared Benefits
The final theme departs radically from the previous two, elaborating how three women of
color from three different INCLUDES-funded projects experienced working in teams that enacted
shared leadership broadly through collaborative decision-making, sponsorship, and accountability.
Sharing power of decision-making to shape the project was an important element of shared
leadership for Grace and Gabriela, especially, and for Jasmin, to some extent. For all three
practitioners, sponsorship within their projects, or support for professional growth, was crucial for
enacting the ideals of the project inwardly and building trusting relationships. Grace and Gabriela
also spoke of the ways that their projects maintained accountability for the shared leadership that the
teams had fostered.
We’ve Got the Power
29

A few women of color experienced shared leadership by their projects sharing decision-

29
The Pointer Sisters. (1980). We’ve Got the Power [Song]. On Special Things. Planet.
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making power throughout their leadership teams. In a couple of these instances, it was critical for
these women who were leaders to embrace shared leadership in deep ways that allowed the entire
leadership team to shape their projects. For example, Grace talked about her project’s process for
developing the proposal with broad input, “So everyone had proposed these [activities based on
their expertise] and that we agreed. And then we said, who wants to adopt that at their institutions
so we can study how well it transfers.” Grace’s project approached their project in stages where they
were sure to reach a consensus based on the strengths and interests of the team before moving on to
the next developmental stage. She added, “And then so based on what people adopted and based on
what people wanted to lead, they became leaders.” For Grace, sharing power in the development
process through respecting colleague’s contributions and research interests as well as reaching
consensus at one stage before moving on enabled shared leadership of the project.
In another project, Gabriela asserted a collaborative approach informed by her background.
She stated, “my thing is always, don't come into a community and determine what the needs are for
the community. You know, this is a conversation.” For example, Gabriela expressed how she
broached the project idea with her future partners, “Hey, this is what we just did, or [my colleague]
and her group of researchers. This is the training we just implemented. […] And we would love to
work with you. Are there any needs that you have?” By starting her conversation with a statement of
resources her team could bring to the table and then asking what the potential collaborator’s needs
were, Gabriela created space for them to define their own involvement as well as shape the project.
She also noted, “I feel like when you have people that are very passionate and very clear on the
vision and aligned with the vision and how we're going to get there, it's almost like a very natural
collaboration.” Because Gabriela’s approach to building the project started with bringing partners in
as co-creators of its vision and strategies, collaboration seemed to naturally flow from their
alignment and passion.
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A third project was already underway when it brought Jasmin on board in a newly created,
full-time position to coordinate across activities. Jasmin described the configuration of the
leadership team succinctly, “the lead PIs from those organizations make up the leadership team,
which I'm a part of. […] But in that group, only the PI members and myself are voting members.”
Although Jasmin was a project coordinator, her team understood the centrality of her role and a
need to empower her accordingly. She talked about the leadership team in superlatives, “all of them
are very passionate about this work and they are all very opinionated. I feel like with passion comes
opinions. The dynamic is everyone’s super, super respectful of each other's opinions, which I love.
Everyone's super, super supportive.” In addition, Jasmin noted her role’s importance for the
cohesion of the project, “my primary responsibility is to kind of connect the dots. […] the core of
my work is to unify everyone and let them know that we're working towards the shared vision and
make sure that everyone knows what's happening.” Jasmin’s positioning as an equal member of the
leadership team enabled her to fulfill her duties as a unifier working with members from across the
project. In addition to the power sharing that the three practitioners described above, all of them
also valued their project’s work to pay forward opportunities as part of sharing leadership into the
future.
Enacting Shared Leadership by Sponsoring Leaders
All three women who worked in projects that enacted shared leadership connected their
positive experiences with their colleagues, in part, to a culture of sponsorship, especially for women
of color practitioners. For instance, Grace talked about her project’s model of shared leadership not
just being limited to the INCLUDES grant; rather it was a starting point for supporting one another.
She explained “And you have this idea around [this arm] you lead it, you'll get the funding and then
you bring in whoever you want. So, everyone has a chance to go after funding and then we support
that.” Backing various leaders with ideas for additional grants was just one way in which Grace
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noted the group sponsored “the success of each other.” She also mentioned, “we did a lot of
mentoring [of our junior colleagues on the team.] So, we nominate them for awards, [we recognize
colleagues] for the work that they're doing in the community. So, it's all very much around being a
supportive environment.” In many ways Grace described the ways that her “collective” worked
together as every bit as important as the outward-facing work they did to support their project’s
vision in higher education. Moreover, how they worked together was a part of their vision.
As a valued member of her project, Jasmin was provided opportunities for professional
growth through her supervisor’s sponsorship. Jasmin noted how her boss invited her to speak with
people in powerful positions, “my boss, who's a PI on the grant, she just [asked], is this something
that you want to do? If you don't feel comfortable it's totally fine, but this is an opportunity if you
want to take it.” Jasmin accepted these professional opportunities; and highlighted that “[the PI] was
super happy to have me on that call with them. And she introduced me as an equal. […] It was like
we were on a level playing field.” For Jasmin, the egalitarian and respectful way that her supervisor
carried out the sponsorship was a meaningful part of it.
Through another opportunity, the woman who leads Jasmin’s organization attended a
meeting that Jasmin was running. During the introductions, the leader fumbled something and made
light of it at her own expense. Jasmin commented on the moment: “that was cute. It didn't have to
be funny,” adding, “she's been consistent. And I feel like because of where she is, because of her
position that kind of pulls out the genuineness…Like it makes them comfortable being who they
are, because she's just so who she is.” Jasmin trusted her standing as a leader of the project because
she assessed the people in her project and organization’s leadership positions to be egalitarian and
genuinely invested in her professional growth.
Finally, Gabriela began trusting her colleague and project co-leader, in part, because the
colleague followed through with sponsoring her career growth over time. Gabriela noted her
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colleague, who’s work the project was partly built around, “thought the idea was genius and brilliant
and said, "You have to be [co-leader]; this is your idea." Gabriela became a co-leader of the
INCLUDES-funded project that she had devised through the insistence of her colleague who was
also a mentor that had invested in Gabriela’s career. Gabriela recalled that the trust she placed in her
mentor had developed over time:
It didn't happen overnight. It probably started back when I had been offered a job at
[another college]. And she sat me down and she brought in the executive director and
brought in the associate director. […] And said, “tell us why you're considering another job.
We feel like we've looked, we've searched hard to find someone like you, and we don't want
to lose you.”
Gabriela understood her organization as a place she could grow professionally because these actions
made her feel, “like I was supported, valued, and empowered.” Gabriela shared that she was
confident placing trust in this colleague because, “over and over, I've seen her deliver through
action.” Gabriela’s mentor, colleague, and co-leader of the project proved herself a sponsor of
Gabriela’s professional success through encouragement and ongoing actions, which translated into a
project run through shared leadership.
Accountability for Shared Leadership
Grace and Gabriela also shared how their projects addressed challenges to maintain
accountability for the shared leadership within their projects. Over the years, Grace’s team had
experiences with people or groups who were not interested in meaningful collaborations but wanted
to benefit from an association with or endorsement from her project. She recounted a few stories
like the following:
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A couple of years ago, someone else called me and said, "You wrote us a letter last year, and
we're renewing this. Can you write us a letter again this year?" And I said, "No. I mean, we
never heard from you."
Grace’s project learned a difficult lesson that they had to protect what they had built together. Grace
stated, “we don't just bring anyone into the group, just because they want to be part of the group.
They have to really show that they're committed and are going to do something.” Her team decided
to issue MOUs that required agreement to data sharing related to the strategic actions the group had
agreed upon.
In Gabriela’s project, she talked about how her co-lead and mentor was also a role model for
building trust, even during tricky situations. Gabriela stated, “she's someone that I could be
completely honest and transparent with,” and “it's hard to find, especially from a white woman.”
Gabriela followed her praise with an example of a time another colleague and she delivered
constructive feedback to the mentor:
[My colleague] and I sat down with her, and she was working on her opening talk that
morning. And my colleague is Black, and she told her, "Mary, you need to just stay in your
lane. […] And we're going to help you along the way, but don't ever try to be someone that
you're not to fit in.” And she took that quite well.
Gabriela stressed the importance of transparency and honesty for building and maintaining trust in
relationships. Gabriela’s appreciation for her mentor’s ability to receive critical feedback fed into a
reciprocal, trusting relationship that held them accountable to one another and the shared leadership
of the project.
Findings Summary
This chapter presented three findings about the experiences and perspectives of a dozen
women of color practitioners with various professional standings and levels of access to
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organizational power as they maneuvered participation in INCLUDES-funded projects. About half
the women of color experienced moderate to severe structural challenges related to their
employment and careers. Another third of the practitioners experienced high levels of emotional
labor while confronting value misalignments with their colleagues, which also have the potential to
create professional and structural challenges if not navigated with care. Likewise, several of the
women who experienced structural challenges also experienced high levels of emotional labor and
distress from professional relationships that exacerbated their precarious positions. Even among
these women’s difficulties several of them still retained positive views of their experiences, in part or
on average. Finally, a quarter of them revealed how they shared power, sponsored one another, and
held each other accountable as part of a model of shared leadership enacted for the benefit of all. In
the chapter that follows, connections among this and the preceding chapters’ findings are discussed,
particularly in relation to previous research and the RIO framework that guided the study.

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Chapter 8: Discussion; Implications for Practice, Policy, and Research
This study began with a sobering acknowledgement: Systemic inequities based on
intersectional dynamics of racialized, gendered, and other historical, social hierarchies have endure
throughout the institution of higher education despite the varied efforts of many stakeholders for
over half a century (Museus et al., 2015; Patton et al., 2019). Formally organized DEI work has
grown on college campuses over these decades as attention to and dialogue about these issues
becomes more sustained in higher education (Anderson, 2012; McNair et al., 2020). To be
responsive and beneficial to the needs of groups systemically marginalized in higher education,
however, a praxis of DEI work requires action and studied reflection. Accordingly, scholars are
increasingly recognizing the field of DEI work in higher education with an emergent body of
research though much remains to be done (Patton et al., 2019). We have to examine the way we do
DEI work because the only way to address the inequities baked into the institution of higher
education is to create new, intersectionally equitable ways of relating in academia through our work.
One element of DEI work that has received relatively little attention pertains to the
development and implementation of DEI work. For instance, scholars have been calling for
intentionally designed DEI work that specifically focuses on the impacts for racially minoritized
students for more than a decade, which begets the necessity of empirically examining how
practitioners develop and implement DEI work (Harper & antonio, 2008). In addition, we have long
known that practitioners and their mindsets, whether deficit oriented or equity-minded in particular,
have profound consequences for the practices that are implemented in higher education (Bensimon,
2006, 2007). Moreover, scholars have documented that social identities, such as race and
socioeconomic status, play significant roles in how higher education practitioners understand and
carry out their work (Bowman & Bastedo, 2018; Posselt et al., 2017). This scholarship not only
highlights a need to understand how DEI work is carried out but also how practitioners differently
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positioned participate in the work differently and under what conditions.
This last point leads three more issues of critical importance regarding the context of DEI
work. First, one cannot ignore the intersectional context of marginalization and labor exploitation
experienced by racially minoritized people, especially women of color, for higher education
organizations—even in the name of DEI work (Hirshfield & Joseph, 2011; Lerma et al., 2019;
Zambrana, 2018). This literature begins uncovering and demands deeper understanding of how and
why women of color are bearing the brunt of DEI work rather than benefiting from it (Hancock,
2016; Museus & Saelua, 2014). Moreover, intersectionality theory as normative paradigm further
directs attention to how the very processes of participation in DEI work might be reifying rather
than transforming the intersectional power dynamics that have created the inequities it seeks to
redress (Hancock, 2016). Finally, the development and implementation of formal DEI work is
subject to influence by how it is funded (Anderson, 2012; McCambly & Colyvas, 2022). Alongside
extant literature, the RIO conceptual framework developed in Chapter 3 guided this study.
Revisiting RIO
The RIO framework was developed to address the relational, intersectional, and
organizational concerns raised by the literature and the gap that exists around how practitioners
participate in DEI work, which this study partially fills. The framework drew on relational sociology to
focus on the micro processes that connect the practitioner to the work and their colleagues in the
particular field of higher education DEI as well as inform tracing these processes back to the
INCLUDES program through the solicitations (Mische, 2011). The program’s discursive
construction of DEI work echoes through how practitioners developed and implemented their work
as the synthesis below elaborates. Intersectionality provided the primary normative paradigm of the
framework, guiding selection of the topic, framing of the problem space, and an understanding of
the macro power dynamics involved (Carbado et al., 2013; Hancock, 2016). Hopefully this study
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contributes to intersectional equity through the knowledge it has uncovered and the way it engaged
the women of color practitioners conducting the higher education DEI work it examined. The
inclusion of racialized organizations rounded out the framework, with attention to the ways that
organizations systematize and normalize the intersectional power dynamics thar individuals
continually recreate through relation in sociohistorical context (Ray, 2019). In addition to codifying
inequities as status quo conditions, the DEI work examined was also impacted by organizational
power enmeshed with race and gender.
While these theories each brought different emphases (micro, macro, meso) to the
framework and the study they also shared an interest in meaning making through historicized,
situated activity, whether situationally contingent or networked in a field. Taken together, the RIO
framework buttressed the study well. Through sustained attention to the liminal spaces that blur
distinctions of micro, meso, macro activity, this study suggests that fundamental change of relations
occurs only when it touches all of these interconnected dimensions. Further conceptual
development was primarily scaffolded onto the pillars of intersectionality and racialized
organizations as elaborated in the discussion and the implications. Although the inclusion of
relational sociology was fruitful in this study, the relational contributions may prove too redundant
with intersectionality and unnecessary for the sake of parsimony.
With the aforementioned concerns in mind, this study set out to interrogate how
intersectional social and organizational power dynamics operate in the development and
implementation of DEI work, especially in the experiences of women of color practitioners, in ways
that may or may not manifest equity in the processes of participation in that work. Guided by the
RIO conceptual framework, this case study employed a CPDA of the NSF INCLUDES program
and embedded case study of DiSHE one its funded projects focused on higher education. NSF,
which is one of the largest sources of funding for the STEM enterprise, recently launched the
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INCLUDES in response to a call for bold, new action to create meaningful progress on broadening
participation in STEM. The resources that grant-funded work provide as well as the influences they
can wield make this program an important context for investigation. In particular, this study asked
and answered the following research questions:
1. How does the NSF INCLUDES program, as a form of federal policy, shape the
development of diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) work in higher education?
2. How do social (e.g., race and gender) and organizational (e.g., role) power dynamics operate
through the implementation of an NSF INCLUDES-funded project in ways that manifest or
undermine principles of diversity, inclusion, and equity among colleagues?
3. How do women of color practitioners participate in and experience NSF INCLUDES-
funded DEI work?
Below, I summarize the answers to these research questions through a discussion of the findings
from the chapters about the CPDA of the INCLUDES solicitations, the embedded case study of
DiSHE, and the experiences of women of color practitioners working throughout INCLUDES-
funded projects. Also, as part of this discussion I place these findings in conversation with extant
literature. Next, I synthesize takeaways across from across this study as guided by the RIO
framework. Finally, I close with this study’s implications for practice, policy, and research.
Discussion of Findings
Bringing Grant-Making Organizations Back into the Work They Fund
The INCLUDES program was meant as a direct response to a 2012 CEOSE report calling
for bold, new action from NSF to address its mandate to broaden participation. Examining how the
INCLUDES program frames its goals and the problem space addressed RQ 1 by providing an
understanding of the type of DEI work it is likely to fund, and therefore what type of DEI work will
be fostered through its financial incentive. My analysis of the INCLUDES program solicitations
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shows its framing of goals and the problem space for DEI work do not adequately respond to the
robust equity elements of that call to action.
I found that the INCLUDES program solicitations put forward goals related to three
primary themes: increasing diversity and integration for national interests, tipping the hat toward
equity, and driving home innovative approaches. Through the first theme, I showed that the
solicitations centered diversity and inclusion by focusing on increasing participation and enhancing
the preparation of underrepresented groups in STEM education so they can be integrated into
STEM employment for the security and competitive advantage of the nation as a whole. The
solicitations also revealed an underlying deficit perspective towards marginalized groups, such as
racially minoritized peoples, and insufficient onus on the STEM enterprise for improving broader
outcomes and experiences of these groups. With respect to the second theme, tipping the program’s
hat toward equity, I acknowledged that the program, over time, has strengthened the equity
component of its goals by identifying specific groups as targets for achieving parity between their
populations and participation in STEM as its core vision.
30
I also noted an increasing
acknowledgement of the need for systemic and inclusive change to achieve broadening participation.
With the final theme, I argued that a major focus of the program lies in the development of
infrastructure for the INCLUDES program based on collective impact approaches it deems
innovative. Other than an aside tying collaborative approaches to systemic change, the impetus for
collective impact appeared to be driven by a value for innovation without explicit connections to
diversity, inclusion, or equity principles.
Concerning definitions of the problem space for DEI work, I found that the INCLUDES
solicitations do very little in the way of defining the problem of “broadening participation” that it

30
The specific groups are African Americans, Alaska Natives, Hispanics, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Native
Pacific Islanders, persons with disabilities, persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and women and girls.
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was designed to address. Language from the first solicitation in 2016 that presented the challenge as
one of total transformation of STEM to fully involve talent from across the nation in improving
STEM itself was dropped in all subsequent solicitations. Even the 2016 solicitation pivoted to name
the program’s main problem as one of social innovation. The initial proposal and subsequent ones
focused on the collaborative infrastructure of INCLUDES as the main innovation challenge that the
program is set to resolve. Although the program employs a collaborative infrastructure with a claim
for the necessity of shared and specific goals across funded projects and the entire INCLUDES
network, it has provided little guidance for how to conceive of those goals or the problem(s) they
are meant to address.
By way of forestalling the potential critique of this research that these findings are merely
part and parcel of the politics involved with federal agencies, I also conducted comparisons with
other NSF BP programs with active solicitations issued during the same timeframe to better tease
out how INCLUDES held up as a bold, new initiative. From this broader context, I found that the
framing of goals, the problem space, and even approaches by the INCLUDES program are
inadequate, rudimentary, and not all that innovative. By contrast, the ADVANCE program boldly
adopted an intersectional perspective toward setting systemic and institutional change goals in
STEM. Even bolder, ADVANCE asserted additional review criteria that require successful
proposals to address problems of systemic gendered inequities in relation to other social categories
such as race/ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation, and others. As for innovative
collaborations, LSAMP and other programs have used alliances and other collective approaches to
achieve their goals without supplanting them with innovation.
Solicitation and Proposition. The INCLUDES program undoubtedly has funded projects
that responded well to its framing of goals and the problem space, possibly leading those who knew
how to play the funding game to shape their work in this image. Therefore, in response to RQ1
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based on the findings above, INCLUDES is likely to promote DEI work in higher education that
proposes simple diversity goals of increasing the representation of currently underrepresented
students and/or faculty in STEM, possibly aiming for eventual parity with target population
demographics in the U.S. Moreover, the program may lead those developing DEI projects to focus
on building robust infrastructures and impressive partnerships instead of setting a strong foundation
of common understanding of the DEI problem space. For example, a higher education DEI
proposal could choose women or economically disadvantaged students as a target population to
increase their STEM undergraduate course taking rates to the levels of men or middle-income
students by offering services like tutoring and time management while having practitioners take on
caseloads to monitor whether they attend and are passing their classes. If such a proposal were able
to garner noteworthy partner organizations with vast a network, it could well score high under
review despite the underlying deficit perspective applied to these student groups and lack of racial
awareness or concern for intersectional dynamics among race, gender, and class. Through its
emphasis on innovation in terms of network development and accompanying inattention to equity,
the INCLUDES program may well have influenced higher education DEI work to concentrate on
high profile alliance building based on poor or scattered understandings of systemic, intersectional
inequities and with strong commitments to representation but not necessarily toward equity or social
justice. Indeed, as the DiSHE project Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 representing experiences of women
of color practitioners from eight other projects indicated substantial variation in the centrality and
understanding of equity exists both among and within INCLUDES projects.
Scholars have just begun theorizing the DEI work of grant making organizations through
higher education contexts as “racialized change work” to account for the engagement,
institutionalization, and impact it might produce (McCambly & Colyvas, 2022). Such a construct has
potential for helping scholars and practitioners invested in institutional change for equity better
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understand the complexities of working through grant-funded channels. The findings from the
previous section contribute to this conversation with a somewhat different focus. Grant making
organizations through the influence of financial inventive, have the power to shape definition and
meaning making of a DEI problem space and goals. Hopefully, the increased scholarly attention
directly toward the contributions of grant-making organizations, as more or less visible partners of
the work they fund, will encourage heightened critical self-reflexivity among their practitioners.
Racialized-Gendered Organizations & Intersectional Equity
Through the embedded case study of the NSF INCLUDES-funded DiSHE project, I
addressed RQ 2 by studying the intersecting social and organizational dynamics that operated
through practitioners’ positionalities, understandings, and experiences of DEI work that. I found
evidence through five themes that these dynamics abetted predominantly racialized-gendered
disempowerment of women of color practitioners. These dynamics were operationalized through a
dissensus of project principles and vision for DEI work; a strained alliance around a singular
diversity goal; ambiguous leadership roles and rights for women of color; project configurations that
disproportionately impacted women of color via communication breakdowns, more role ambiguity,
and the division of labor; and finally, a foundation that had been developed and implemented with
minimal regard for trust and respect.
To begin with, I found that the DiSHE project did not engage in proactive or formal
activities to foster a collective project perspective about its vision, goals or how either related to DEI
and equity-minded principles. Instead, individual practitioners engaged with the project from their
personal and varied understandings. The most common perspectives within the project took on a
multitude of undifferentiated understandings or conflated applications of diversity, inclusion, and
equity. White men and women as well as men of color who engaged the project most directly
through their former or current STEM faculty background generally fell into this camp. Among
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project members who differentiated, or attempted to differentiate, these concepts almost all invoked
a table metaphor. Women of color practitioners held some of the strongest positions not only
distinguishing among these concepts but also ranking them, and accompanying goals, in value.
Without a clear vision for the project, the group developed a dissensus of diversity that implicitly
filtered into dissensus in DiSHE’s development.
During DiSHE development, the project’s clouded vision led members to have varied
understandings of what the project goals were as well as incompatible judgements about the one
agreed upon goal of increasing the racial diversity of STEM students. Although some members
expressed desires for the project to do more, à la inclusion or equity, there was no consensus on
what or how to achieve broader goals. For members who confounded the concepts of diversity,
inclusion, and equity, the singularly settled goal was laudable. Whereas, increasing participation of
underrepresented students was not satisfying as a stand-alone achievement for the women of color
who understood inclusion and equity were relevant to address the need for STEM climates, cultures,
and institutions to change. They were also skeptical about whether the project could or would
expand its goals. A few of the white project members who displayed varying but discerning
conceptual views also valued these broader goals, which they thought the project did or would
address. Without an established vision or clearly articulated set of goals coming out of the project
development, DiSHE implementation also lacked conceptual cohesion for how to operate as a team.
The first two findings from the DiSHE embedded case study complicate and reinforce the
need for intentionality and organizational learning that scholars have been calling for in DEI work
(Bensimon et al., 2016; Bethune et al., 2020; Harper & antonio, 2008). First, this study shows that
intentionality and organizational learning for equity are intertwined processes that cannot develop
independently of one another in the context of a team-based project for DEI. Furthermore, this
study supports Bethune et al.’s (2020) recognition of practitioners’ socio-political identities as a
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mediating component of organizational learning. I found that identities were also critical to
individual sensemaking about optimal project design, development, and implementation. Drawing
on the RIO framework specifically Hancock’s (2015) intersectionality-based notion of situational
contingency (i.e., that time-place dependent situations mediate the saliency and experience of always
intersectional power dynamics) helps clarify this challenge. Implementing intentional organizational
learning about DEI among a group of higher education practitioners with various sociopolitical
identities, backgrounds, expertise, and levels of organizational power is a relationally complex
undertaking. And yet, this type of organizational learning, in which practitioners also actively engage
with intersectional power dynamics, is likely a necessity at the outset of developing any DEI activity
as well as on an ongoing basis.
Regarding development and implementation, I found that the DiSHE project fomented
racialized-gendered disempowerment of women of color practitioners in a few ways. First, the
DiSHE leadership team had little to no racial diversity, depending on when and how leadership roles
were to be counted. In addition, the project engaged the few women of color with nominal or
peripheral leadership positions in ways that tokenized them or limited their power through obscure
limitations on voting among the leadership team. Racialized-gendered ambiguity within the
leadership ranks directly impacted who had power to set the agenda or otherwise influence the
project in ways that further stifled engagement with women of color practitioners in other roles as
well.
Beyond the DiSHE leadership, project configurations further contributed to racialized-
gendered disempowerment through troubled communication patterns that interacted with further
role ambiguity, division of labor, and lopsided resource allocations to various parts of the project.
The DiSHE advisory board, particularly the women of color representing racial-affinity
organizations, remained marginalized throughout project development and implementation via its
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ambiguous role in the project and minimal contact points for information sharing or providing
input. The division of labor in DiSHE separated the mostly white voting-members of the leadership
team from the almost all women of color coordinators working on the day-to-day activities that
brought many about project successes. Finally, strained project communications fraught with
microaggressions aggravated difficulties for women of color already working under resource-
strapped conditions.
Finally, I found that the DiSHE project was assembled on a shaky foundation; team
relationships were not bonded with trust and respect. Commonplace microaggressions
disproportionately affected women of color whether they experienced them as racialized, gendered
or intersectionally. The cumulative disrespect that women of color involved in the project
experienced (i.e., from exclusion in shaping its vision and goals, holding fully empowered leadership
positions, as well as enduring tokenization, marginalization, and microaggressions) resulted in
distrust and profound emotional labor. Yet, all the while, they experienced pressure to be successful
and meet project demands for deliverables rested heavily on the backs of women of color in roles
responsible for day-to-day project work. Through sustained advocacy from several project members,
both women of color and others, the project eventually conducted interventions to address these
issues. Although many project members were hopeful about the change processes underway, these
interventions were also long and difficult undertakings with costs of their own. I return to this
theme for further discussion in the synthesis section below.
Query and Reply. To summarize a response to RQ 2, the INCLUDES-funded DiSHE
project’s development and implementation undermined diversity, inclusion, and equity principles.
Although the project failed to support diversity by racially diversify its leadership team, a notable
problem for many inside the project and out, the high rate of Black women practitioners who were a
part of DiSHE could also be called a “success” for diversity. And, thus, is the danger of diversity for
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diversity’s sake since as a standalone principle of representation without regard for power dynamics
it would disregard their marginalization and participation in predominantly supporting roles. Second,
DiSHE failed to adequately integrate the women of color who were part of the project in a variety of
roles, ill-defined or otherwise disregarded. Or, in the metaphor of choice among these practitioners,
there were not enough people of color at the table and the few women of color allowed in the room
were not allowed to sit directly at the table with equally valued voices. Without these supporting
elements, the project was ill-equipped to manifest equity or equity-mindedness through its
development or implementation. Drawing on one participant’s definition of equity, the women of
color in DiSHE were systemically denied the power to make organizational changes to the project.
The previous three findings build most on the racialized organizations pillar of RIO with a
lift from the intersectionality pillar. The participation processes mediated through the organizational
elements of the DiSHE project support tenets of Ray’s (2019) theory while also extending it to
acknowledge that organizations are racialized-gendered entities. First, DiSHE operated as a
racialized-gendered organization influencing project members’ “ability to shape their lives and react
to larger social forces” because their agency was “partially determined by their location in” the
project (Ray, 2019, p. 36). Project configurations, communication breakdowns, and role ambiguity
were three organizational mechanisms by which women of color practitioners, especially those
advisors representing racial-affinity organizations, were systematically marginalized by the DiSHE
project and limited in their ability to shape the project and their experience of it.
Second, “Mundane, everyday organizational processes, such as working in a race-typed job,
reinforce the connection between racial schemas and resources” that legitimate the unequal
distribution resources (Ray, 2019, p. 40). Integral to the configuration of the DiSHE project was the
racialized-gendered division of labor that created a nearly all white voting block of leaders alongside
a nearly all Black woman coordinating group. Note, as Ray does (2019), that the presence of a token
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person of color or woman, or even a woman of color, in leadership does not negate this trend and
the overall racialized-gendered power dynamic it produces. Ray (2019) describes how the decoupling
of formal rules from organizational practice support the racialized organization. The decoupling of
formal leadership positions from obscure limitations on voting rights and access to agenda setting
maintained the racialized-gendered power dynamics of DiSHE.
Finally, Ray (2019) focused on whiteness as a positive credential and blackness as a negative
credential through attention to racialization as a relational. Ray draws on Harris’s (1995) scholarship
to show how Whiteness as a credential also operates by granting “access to organizational resources,
legitimizing work hierarchies, and expanding White agency” (2019, p. 41). Ray’s operationalization
here demonstrates the entanglement of his theory’s tenets and the reinforcing capacity of relational
processes of racialization in organizations, two features he declares outright. The DiSHE case study
demonstrates that these relational processes are intersectional as well. For instance, microaggressions
that revealed lower expectations of the capabilities of women of color, the concentration of Black
women in coordinating roles, Black women’s ambiguous leadership positions that lacked power, and
the curtailing of opportunities to allow the Black women of racial-affinity organizations to
participate in the project as partners all reflect the negatively racialized-gendered credentialling of
women of color, particularly Black women, that occurred within the DiSHE project. The widespread
and normalized disrespect experienced by women of color practitioners in DiSHE was a result of
the racialized-gendered credentialing that occurred in the project.
The DiSHE project undermined intersectional equity through practitioner participation
processes laden with racialized-gendered-organizational power dynamics that largely disempowered
women of color. In laying out his theory of racialized organizations, Ray (2019) was poignant in
noting: “Even diversity programs can reinforce and legitimate racial hierarchies they are purportedly
designed to undermine” (p. 39). The project’s organizational features were imbued with racialized-
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gendered power dynamics that reinforced and legitimized race-gender hierarchies. The processes of
participating in the DiSHE project cannot be divorced from the interdependent racialized, gendered,
or organizational dimensions of power that animated the projects development and implementation
to occur as it did. The inextricable, systemic racialized-gendered-organizational processes of
participation in DiSHE amounted to disempowerment of women of color, quasi-disempowerment
of white women, and a hegemony of white patriarchal project leadership.
Equity is everywhere these days, or at least equity talk, because equity has crossed into the
cultural zeitgeist of buzzwords—words that stand for socially desirable ideas that have been so
widely and superficially used that their usage now risks being meaningless (Anderson, 2012;
Bensimon, 2018; McNair et al., 2020). Critical scholars are taking note of the ongoing problem of
misalignment between rhetoric and action that often stymies progress toward DEI, particularly the
equity, outcomes and challenging practitioners to do better (McNair et al., 2020). I applaud their
candor and I want to take it a small step further, toward what I hope to eventually culminate in a
giant leap for women of color higher education practitioners participating in DEI work and far
beyond.
This study shows that the DiSHE project was unable, as a collective, to develop and
implement an intersectionally equitable means for achieving its evolving DEI goals. Although
intersectionality is most associated with problematizing the visibility of women of color’s lived
realities, its conjoined intellectual purpose as a normative paradigm is to assert an improved
understanding of social reality in order to transform the power dynamics that shape it (Hancock,
2015; 2016). When understood as such, the work of higher education DEI (or any part of the higher
education institution, really) can never be just about externally oriented aims. No matter how well
fashioned by equity the goals are, they are already implicated by the power dynamics operating
through the processes of participation in the DEI work. When critical scholars and practitioners call
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for deep cultural and systemic change for intersectional equity, we have to first apply it to how we
participate in those endeavors with one another. We need to hold space for building trust by getting
to know one another, showing respect and validation regardless of status, and with transparent
communications. This is not to say that practitioners, who are people, have to be perfect but we do
all need to do better. Some of the practitioners in this study provide examples of how to collectively
lead through the dynamics we hope to propagate.
Finding Women of Color Practitioners
With purposeful sampling and data collection from additional women of color practitioners
from across several different INCLUDES-funded projects, I sought to explore greater variability of
positionalities and the situations that would reveal different experiences with participation dynamics.
Although two of my three findings here, which speak to RQ 3, revealed additional negatively
racialized-gendered-organizational patterns, I also found some evidence of racialized-gendered-
organizational empowerment. In the latter instances, project members intentionally developed race
and gender conscious ways of participating in the development and implementation of their work
that empowered women of color practitioners.
One dominant theme from Chapter 7 revealed how projects designed for NSF review were
not well mapped onto organizational structures in the ways they were configured to the detriment of
almost half of the women of color practitioners. Although there is not sufficient data or variety of
sources from any of the projects represented here to determine if these situations hold as racialized-
gendered-organizational patterns internal to the projects, they can and should be understood for the
women of color practitioners within the broader racialized-gendered-organizational power dynamics
affecting women of color’s employment in the U.S. Organizational structures including position
classifications, scope, and eligible supports were not well matched to the efforts that these women of
color contributed to their projects. In the case of two practitioners, project leadership exacerbated
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their difficulties by utilizing or allowing organizational constraints in the form of official titles
withdrawn or withheld to diminish recognition for their project contributions. In addition,
organizational structures that placed women of color practitioners in positions with contingent
employment or without clear access to leadership from the grant PIs created challenges of job
instability and insecurity. This problem is not isolated to INCLUDES projects, or to DEI work,
generally speaking. The reality of women of color concentrated in lower status, lower paying, and
increasingly contingent positions in the U.S. and on college campuses brings to light the racialized-
gendered systemic nature of standard organizational configurations in higher education and society
(Kezar et al., 2019; Navarro, 2017).
Another four women of color practitioners in project leadership roles managed varying
levels of distressing value and expectation misalignments with project colleagues. Even
misalignments of project implementation viewed as somewhat minor by participants led to larger
changes or confrontations when they involved racialized or gendered values by at least one fraction
involved. In some instances, women of color practitioners disagreed with colleagues, even other
women of color, about the severity or causes of value misalignment and expectations of one another
in project development and implementation. Women of color with educational backgrounds and
experience in culturally responsive pedagogy or DEI practices viewed misalignments in how the
project should carry out its work as hinging on racialized, justice-oriented values and experienced
emotional labor from managing then. Whereas one Black woman with a STEM background and
experience working in DEI practices viewed misalignments as more of personality disputes due to
different generational expectations.
Lastly, I found a pattern of shared leadership and shared benefits that uplifted three women
of color practitioners in three different projects. These projects empowered shared leadership by
ensuring women of color practitioners held decision-making authority. Women of color in these
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projects were also sponsored for professional growth, which was viewed as an integral element for
enacting the equity ideals of the project inwardly and fostering trust among colleagues. Two projects
also drew on transparency and accountability to maintain and protect the shared leadership they
fostered. Organizational elements of shared decision-making, professional sponsorship, and
transparent, accountable communications were racialized-gendered in ways that ensured benefit to
women of color practitioners, in particular, while also benefiting women and people of color more
broadly within these projects. These projects were, therefore, able to enact and foster racialized-
gendered-organizational empowerment.
Call and Response. The findings from the additional practitioners across eight other
projects enabled greater insight and nuance to the various experiences of women of color
practitioners participating in higher education DEI work funded by INCLUDES (RQ3). I find that
one risk to INCLUDES-funded projects developing as broad networks is that they may not deeply
connect with the practitioners on the ground implementing the work. The work of creating and
maintaining a network of organizations can reduce attention to the network and experiences of
front-line practitioners. This marginalized and disengaged process of participation disadvantages the
practitioner and is a potential disservice to the vision of the project.
The organizational constraints faced by many women of color working on grant funded DEI
projects in higher education cannot be separated from the larger patterns of employment that
disproportionately place women of color in lower status, lower paid, and less secure positions on
college campuses. These practices are also part of a growing trend termed the “Gig Academy” which
is increasing precarity in all but the most senior administrators and professional staff managing
everyone else (Kezar et al., 2019). For a woman of color already doing the work that a title might
recognize and facilitate to be replaced “in name only” by a white woman with such a title rather than
recognized and promoted renders visible racialized-gendered-organizational power dynamics
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consistent with broader patterns. For several women of color, their organizational constraints were
tied to their lower status positions as non-faculty on colleges and universities where privileging
status, especially that of professors, is still largely touted as meritocratic and, therefore, egalitarian
(Kezar, 2001). These are all examples of legitimizing unequal distributions of resources (Ray, 2019).
This study provides further support for the power that disciplinary logics hold over the ways
practitioners engage their work and relate to one another (Posselt, 2015). For instance, Shirley relied
on her STEM training and generation to normalize interactions between a white man with a STEM
background and a woman of color with a social science background. Meanwhile her colleagues
Britney and Jessica, who both had social science backgrounds, objected to the racialized-gendered
power imbalance they read as contributing to disrespectful interactions. Through an intersectionality
perspective, disciplinary training and age provide additional prisms that illuminate the different
situationally contingent positionalities of Shirley and Britney—two Black women with completely
different takes on the same interaction. Relatedly, popular culture and media often imbue different
generations with cultural characteristics but rarely is one’s generational taken seriously and
considered intersectionally in scholarship (Love et al., 2015). To take generational influence seriously
in an intersectional sense does not equate to accepting the potential salience of this social
construction as a given nor its presence an essentialist complement. Next, I synthesize across
findings and datasets.
Synthesis of Key Takeaways Across the Study
Reflection across the findings highlights two key areas for further discussion, connecting
chapters five and six as well as six and seven. First, I will discuss how the definition of INCLUDES
via NSF’s solicitations for proposals may contribute to the design and implementation of projects,
like DiSHE, that undermine some of the program’s own goals. Then, I will relate this directly to the
experiences that women of color on DiSHE and other INCLUDES projects shared with me, to
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highlight racialized-gendered participation.
From Solicitation to Development to Implementation. The INCLUDES program’s ill-
defined problem space and goal emphases on diversity, innovation, and their approach of
partnership building were evident in many of the projects sampled in this study. Despite requiring
funded projects to develop shared visions, goals, and metrics (both internally and externally across
the network), INCLUDES failed to provide a well-defined problem space to orient practitioners and
their projects in this regard. The DiSHE project, as well as four other projects, which involved
Britney, Shirley, Jessica, Jennifer, Jane, Ruby, Sofia, and Vanessa, had clear problems of
misalignment in values, expectations, and understandings of project work. Grace, Jasmin, Gabriela,
and Georgina conveyed the strongest sense of a unified purpose in their four projects, which in their
accounts emanated from strong practices of shared leadership (in three instances) and leadership
facilitation of intentional, proactive organizational learning (in one instance). A caveat must be noted
that interviewing only one member of a project is insufficient data to make claims about the
relational dynamics therein. And yet, these examples can still provide insight for future practitioners
about common challenges, whose origins deserve to be investigated.
The three fairly distinct goals of the INCLUDES program similarly manifested as disparate
goal focuses within and across projects. For instance, DiSHE, as the embedded case study, stands
out for the splintered goals that various practitioners wanted the project to strive for while settling
into a dissensus around only the goal of diversifying STEM student populations. DiSHE did extend
its long-term goal to one of parity in racial representation of students. Albeit, and in accordance with
the INCLUDES program, the project did not base this goal on a unified understanding of or plan to
address the full equity challenge that might be required to achieve such a goal. The misalignments of
activities and purposes documented from the narratives provided by members of four other projects
also touch on some degree goal fragmentation. Again, Grace, Jasmin, Gabriela, and Georgina all
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worked hard to keep their teams on the same page about their goals, which in the examples of Grace
and Gabriela reflected equity internally to the project.
Interestingly, I found that projects developed and implemented the INCLUDES focus on
developing collaborative infrastructure in two starkly different ways. The projects that struggled the
most with developing a foundation of shared understanding about their work also focused efforts
on building impressive-seeming partnerships, though not on strong relationships. Whereas Grace
and Gabriela centered their relationships with project partners in how they strived to build equitable
collaborations. Foregrounding respectful, trusting relationships among colleagues while collectively
doing the work to align understandings and expectations of the work were critical elements that
either seem to have been taken for granted by the INCLUDES program or not given due
consideration by those doing the work. Although the directly requiring respect and trust-building
could easily come across as condescending in a federal agency’s grant solicitation, there are other
ways of signaling these values. The elements of aligning understandings and expectations of the
work could be interpreted as represented by the shared vision, goals, and metrics of the INCLUDES
collaborative infrastructure. And, yet, by not providing any guidance on the problem space the
program was designed to address it did not provide a foundation for projects to scaffold this work
of alignment onto. Moreover, by emphasizing the innovation of its collaborative approach instead of
integrating diversity, inclusion, and equity aims into that approach, the INCLUDES program
modeled the separation of means from aims. Indeed, the program has set itself up for a major
challenge of claiming a shared agenda across projects, some of which are internally divided, that are
evidently at odds in purpose and practice. The next section considers the experiences of women of
color practitioners across all nine projects, not to draw false equivalences but to underscore nuances
in broader themes.
Crystallizing Women of Color. The other major area for synthesis draws inspiration from
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across the intersectional social and organizational power dynamics that 22 women of color
practitioners experienced across nine different projects. Their experiences varied as much as their
situations did as individuals with different backgrounds and trajectories. Both in response to
intersectionality and the crystallization analytic strategy, I am moved to present nonessentialist
perspectives and differential meaning making as it occurred in relation to these variances (Hancock,
2016; Hurtado, 2015).
31
Here, I want to highlight the multifaceted values of trust and respect for
their ubiquity in both presence and absence.
Through these stories, we perceive that how one shows and receives respect, as part of trust
building, is culturally and situationally contingent as well as power laden (Hancock, 2016). For
example, the pressure to meet deliverables as a sign of success, which Jane mistrusted as “just
checking boxes” instead of meaningful activity, went even further in DiSHE. Ashley and others
believed that these pressures partly drove the group to skip over building respectful relationships
and contributed to dysfunctional working conditions. Gina and others believed the project could
have accomplished even more if they had taken the time to build relationships with these values as a
foundation, both initially and as the project matured and new members joined the group. As Jane
was new to the world of NSF, she wavered in her convictions due to self-described “ignorance” and
being the only voice of concern. Unfortunately, communication breakdowns, configuration
cleavages, and resistance from the project director to dedicate time to community and relationship
building only cemented the absence of trust and respect in the project. The tension between
efficiency-productivity and relationships-community became a protracted struggle and a shared
concern for many DiSHE practitioners even as they began interventions to change leadership and

31
As a reminder, crystallization draws on a power conscious frame to support the presentation of findings with
heterogeneous perspectives and differential meanings or impacts that arose in relation to the specific positionalities,
situations, experiences, and perspectives of participants.
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structures.
Concerns about respect for expertise, experience, and abilities is one that came up for several
people. The absence of this type of respect was felt through microaggressions, such as when a white
man in a leadership role quipped to Salma about filling the shoes of her previous supervisor or when
Angela was showered with praise for presenting a few slides that she was not even consulted in
producing. In another project, Shirley did not agree with her colleagues’ assessments of disrespect
from how a white man with a natural science background questioned a woman of color with a social
sciences background. To her, these were harmless matters of disciplinary norms and generational
expectations that one must not take personally because they were not meant as personal attacks.
Whereas, for Britney and Jessica this exchange was the epitome of the problematic STEM cultural
norms founded in patriarchal white supremacy that they wanted their project to root out
systemically. The historical, systemic exclusion and disregard for women of color as intellectual
contributors in the sciences produces underlying racialized-gendered power dynamics in these
interactions that cannot be waived off, even if their age and disciplinary trainings lead them to
experience it differently. How should projects handle such differences in interpretation and the
reactions they may elicit? How can projects reduce the likelihood that such exchanges will occur in
the first place because those with power are more attuned to how it is operating? Such questions as
these are outside the bounds of the current study, but they are critical to the development of DEI
work that people from historically marginalized identities experience as respectful and affirming.
Finally, people even experienced the presence and absence of respect and trust through
different salience and quality. The presence of trust and respect was a sustaining and energizing
force in Grace, Jasmin, and Gabriela’s stories as they exalted their projects’ work and relationships.
Not that these spaces were perfect shelters, as was made clear by the need for internal accountability
in Gabriela’s project and protective transparency in vetting potential collaborators in Grace’s.
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However, collaborations built with these values, uplifted them as they sought to uplift their
colleagues. Gabriela’s story about learning to trust her white woman colleague and project teammate
through that woman’s consistent follow through of support, showed that trust can take time and
proof-in-action to build. In contrast, the absence of trust and respect weighed heavily in too many
stories told by too many of these practitioners. Cynthia stands out in the sample for her revelation of
just how integral she found trust to be for her to do her job, particularly in the field of DEI work,
only after she felt it lacking. Shirley providing a visceral anecdote with her reflection that even
slights, if not properly addressed, can fester and either erode trust or create a harsh environment
where it is not likely to grow. Still, others were matter of fact, like Ashley who declared that
microaggressions do not help “increase trust at all.” While people were more apt to name trust
outright, respect was an underlying ingredient necessary to foster trust. Showing respect and building
trust are inherently relational acts that, given so many intersectional power dynamics through which
people’s perceptions and experiences are refracted, are made more difficult when work, especially
DEI work, does not treat them as foundational and worthy of the time and energy they require.
Implications
This study has broad implications for practice, policy, and research related to the
development and implementation of higher education DEI work. For higher education DEI work
to achieve the highest ideals of intersectional equity, the practitioners who develop and implement it
must enact intersectionally equitable participation in the work. Recognizing the influential role of
funding to shape these participation processes, the study also has critical contributions specifically
for grant making organizations and colleges and universities. Finally, the application of the RIO
framework in this study has revealed insights that contribute to scholarship and theory development
for DEI work in higher education.
Implications for Practice
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This study’s primary contribution has significant implications for how practitioners show up
to and participate in higher education DEI work. The processes by which practitioners participate in
developing and implementing their projects hold potential to directly reproduce or to alter the
intersecting social and organizational dynamics in higher education that DEI work purports to
change (Ahmed, 2012; Arminio et al., 2012; Bensimon, 2007; Berrey, 2015; Ching et al., 2018; Ching
& Roberts, 2021; Damon A. Williams, 2013; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015; Griffin, 2020; Hurtado et al.,
2017; Kezar, Eckel, et al., 2008; LePeau, 2015; Liera & Hernandez, 2021; McNair et al., 2020; Porter
et al., 2018; Posselt, 2020; Slay et al., 2019; Thomas, 2020). Moreover, these organizational processes
are inherently relational and situationally dependent. Therefore, catchy and simplistic slogans, such
as “be the change you want to see,” miss the complexity of interpersonal negotiation that
necessarily, if not always perceptibly, occurs among practitioners amidst racialized-gendered and
other intersecting power dynamics. Practitioners must attend to these dynamics at the outset. This
requires intentionally engaging in organizational learning about intersectional equity in order to
develop and implement an aligned project purpose, goal(s), and processes of participation that
subvert systemic hierarchies and enact intersectional equity (Bensimon, 2005; Harper, 2011).
Specifically, I am recommending that when practitioners consider developing a new DEI
project, they start with, and revisit at regular intervals, intentional organizational learning for
intersectional equity. What I mean by intentional organizational learning for intersectional equity is
that these groups engage in facilitated discussions that directly and openly address key aspects of
DEI work. In addition, practitioners should consider intersectional power dynamics of race, gender,
and organizational roles and titles when assembling a team to design and carry out DEI work. The
purpose of this praxis is for practitioners to build respectful, trusting relations; deep knowledge
about equity as intersectional; and intersectionally equitable processes of participation that can
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endure throughout the design and implementation of their work. Specific topics might include, but
are not limited to:
• Individual understandings about what diversity, inclusion, equity, intersectionality,
and social justice mean and how they will be collectively operationalized for the
project being considered
• The role of higher education in producing and perpetuating inequities based on anti-
Black racism, settler colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, and how they are
intersectionally connected
• How each practitioner in the team is personally impacted by intersectional, systemic
power dynamics with an understanding that individuals hold complex positionalities
along multiple dimensions that impact how we work (e.g., race, gender, sexual
orientation, (mental and physical) ability, religion, generation, caregiver status, and
background socioeconomic status and training)
• How participation processes are mediated through organization elements of the
work (e.g., project roles along with their rights and responsibilities, how decisions
will be made generally and specifically regarding resource distribution—including
funds for salary and various factions of work, titles, and non-financial support, and
communication norms)
• Practices and policies that sustain or disrupt historic, intersectional power dynamics
• Models and theories about how the group’s work could be designed to empower
women of color practitioners and others who are vulnerable to potentially less
apparent intersectional inequities
Intentional organizational learning for intersectional equity requires direct, early, and ongoing
communication. Improving the lived experiences of higher education practitioners, with particular
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attention to women of color, by creating new ways of being in relation with academia and the people
who inhabit this space is a meaningful outcome in its own right of any and all DEI work. This
organizational learning should especially be directed toward the areas where this study noted
intersectional equity compromised or enabled: leadership models (shared or hierarchical),
communication patterns (with whom is what information shared and readily available, who regularly
confers with whom), project configurations, and division of labor.
These recommendations are extensive and will require additional time during development.
that would contribute to a more equitable and just institution of higher education. Many resources
exist, the detailing of which is beyond the scope of this study, that may need to be adapted both for
an intersectional equity praxis and the particular contexts of the practitioners and the work.
Understandably, not everyone will be on the same page nor is the purpose for everyone “to be the
same person, but everyone needs to be knowledgeable of this space because we’re going to be tested
in this space,” in Georgina’s words. For the work to function in intersectionally equitable ways there
need to be ongoing ways of responding to the tests that will inevitably arise. These do not need to
be as extensive as the initial participation process development although revisiting initial collective
agreements at some interval is a good idea. The purpose of these recommendations is not for
practitioners to develop a perfect set of participation processes, which do not exist, but to be more
intentional, collectivist, and reflective about continuously aligning principles and practices. The goal
is to foster intersectional equity work that transforms societal and organizational relations, practices,
policies, and culture as well as the material conditions for systemically marginalized groups.
Implications for Policy
Another significant contribution of this study is directing attention to how grant making
organizations influence the form and function of higher education DEI work through the ways they
define the problem space they seek to impact and the goal(s) they wish to achieve. I recommend that
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NSF and other grant making organizations develop well-articulated problem space(s) and goals for
their DEI programs, providing this information in the program’s solicitations. Furthermore,
regarding approaches—recommended or required—that these organizations put forth, NSF and
other grant making organizations should endeavor to connect the rationale and each element of their
proffered approach(es) with a given program’s objectives and problem space. Demonstrating a
program’s internal alignment may help clarify the processes of developing and implementing DEI
work for prospective grantees. Finally, I recommend that NSF and other grant making organizations
use the most inclusive language possible when identifying target populations that a program is
intended to serve. For grant making organizations, adequately defining a DEI problem space and
sufficiently connect its DEI objectives to the approaches it puts forth should be a baseline of
information provided to support prospective grantees.
The practitioners who work at grant making organizations, including NSF, are not exempt
from the intersectional social and organizational power dynamics revealed in this study, nor are the
philanthropic organizations who make this work financially possible (McCambly & Colyvas, 2022;
Quinn et al., 2014). Although the inner workings of grant making organizations that fund higher
education DEI work are beyond the scope of this study, reviewing the recommendations for
practice above in light of these organizations’ work may facilitate a reexamination of how grant
making organizations define their DEI problem space and goal(s) (for more literature on
philanthropy see Tomkins-Stange, 2020 and the peer-reviewed journal Philanthropy & Education).
In addition, I have several recommendations for higher education DEI proposal review,
which inevitably impact proposals themselves if adopted. I recommend that foundations and others
provide intentional guidance for reviewing these proposals with further considerations for
intersectional equity (Posselt, Hernandez, Villarreal, et al., 2019). For example, requiring a facilitated,
experiential case-based racial and intersectional equity training for all reviewers could facilitate
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improving practices and policies. Also, I recommend that reviews consider the intersectional
positionality of the practitioners proposing the work and whether and how teams and individuals
acknowledge their positionalities as impacting the work they propose. Note that I do not
recommend explicitly requiring positionality statements. Although, I do recommend providing
transparent guidelines about the inclusion of any criteria that are used in review processes. One
purpose of this recommendation is for grant making organizations to consider more intentionally
who they fund in relation to what they fund. Second, and in full agreement with the CEOSE 2012
report, grant making organizations should provide “significant financial support to individuals who
represent the very” diversity they wish to increase. Finally, I recommend that proposals be required
to provide information regarding explicitly how their work will engage and/or benefit any individual
or organization that submits a letter of support or similar endorsement. The purpose of this
requirement is to create healthier partnerships in practice and to subvert the unethical exploitation of
racially minoritized individuals and racial affinity organizations. INCLUDES and other programs’
review processes currently risk the possibility of currying favorable reviews without deep, or in some
instances any, engagement with said entities.
These recommendations are intended to help grant making organizations better attract and
select proposals as well as influence DEI work that is more intersectionally equitable in its means
and ends. The Science Philanthropy Alliance is one organization that has made offering skill-
building training part of their DEI commitments in their most recent strategic plan and, therefore,
may be well positioned to facilitate some of the recommendations above (Science Philanthropy
Alliance, 2022). By supporting higher education DEI work that challenges systemic inequities
through its configuration and enacts intersectionally equitable participation processes, grant making
organization will be more effectively supporting the transformation of the institution of higher
education. Supporting DEI work that aligns intersectionally equitable processes to goals is the only
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way of actually achieving them. Through an appeal to improving the efficacy of our work, this
study’s findings and recommendations may be more openly received by public, non-profit, and
private funders of DEI initiatives who seek tangible returns on their investments.
Implications for Research and Theory
Studying DEI work helps higher education scholars learn, reflect, and do better in directing
resources, including money, time, energy, and other intangibles, more efficaciously in the service of
fostering a more intersectionally equitable institution. To that end, this study’s contributions have
important implications for research and theory.
First, this study’s central argument is that the processes of practitioners’ participation in DEI
work are imbued with intersectional racialized-gendered-organizational power dynamics that enable
this work to enact or undermine intersectional equity. Future researchers should endeavor to
conduct longitudinal studies of funded projects like DiSHE that examine the immediate project
outcomes and more global impacts of the project in relation to the participation processes examined
in this study.
Future research could also apply insights from this project to the study of other aspects of
higher education work such as processes of participation in research. Scholars might examine
whether similar team-based development and implementation processes occur under different
contexts of DEI work. The science and technology studies community has a long tradition of
examining the sites and contexts of academic scholarship, but with relatively few exceptions,
researchers have not studied DEI issues as they play out in the course of research design, data
collection and analysis, or dissemination. Yet, we know that as with all social realities, these
processes are not immune from intersectional power dynamics. The RIO framework, in concert
with my findings about project design, communication, leadership, and division of labor, have broad
applicability to the study of other groups who are engaged in long-term project-based work together.
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Theoretically, this study extends Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations by showing
that participation processes involving organizational features are intersectionally racialized and
gendered. Although the specific processes and organizational features that this study revealed fit
within the tenets Ray (2019) developed, each tenet could be reconstituted as follows: 1)
intersectional organizations shape agency 2) intersectional organizations legitimate the unequal
distribution of resources 3) organizations wield the positive credentialing of people whose positions
are privileged by intersectional power dynamics, and 4) the decoupling of formal rules and
organizational practices support the status quo of intersectional power dynamics.
Based on this study, I propose one additional, foundational tenet for scholars today who are
using the racialized organizations framework to guide their thinking: Organizations are always already
imbued with the intersectional power dynamics of the societies in which they are formed unless they are intentionally and
actively configured to subvert these dynamics. Given the presence of these intersectional power dynamics in
higher education DEI work, the focus of this study, they are unlikely to be absent in any other
organizational contexts. Future research could examine empirically whether this version of tenets
hold in other contexts. Scholars could use these insights to explore whether and how additional
tenets of intersectional organizations exist. Finally, future researchers might study the participation
practices of higher education DEI work with a focus on race and gender as they intersect also with
other salient forms of power such as religion or ability.
Conclusion
Many practitioners are starting to move beyond the diversity agenda to take on intersectional
equity in a variety of ways, and this study focuses on how we design, implement, and participate in
the work crucial to the realization of intersectional equity. Naming and interrogating the inequities
built into and through higher education, including the spaces where we claim diversity, inclusion, or
equity imperatives, may help academia move toward the horizon of redressing systematic oppression
PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK
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and fostering intersectional equity for social justice. Even initiatives with explicit racial and gender
equity goals may still be developed and implemented in ways that are inequitable due to how
practitioners participate in this work. Perhaps with a spotlight, some critical reflection, and guidance,
higher education practitioners can create intersectionally equitable, affirming, and supportive
organizations for students, faculty, and all of the practitioners working in this space. The primary
contribution of this study suggests that practitioners need a wholistic transformation of the
processes by which they relate and collaborate in the development and implementation of
intersectional equity in higher education. This project offers a number of concrete directions in this
regard. Through the theory, findings, and synthesis, three domains of participation emerged as
particularly salient for projects to consider in thinking about the relevance of intersectional equity,
particularly women of color practitioners: 1) role definition, including powers and responsibilities,
among all team members not just leaders 2) project configuration, including communication,
division of labor, and allocation of resources both tangible and intangible, and 3) relationship
building around respect, trust, validation, and organizational learning.
My aim for this study has been to highlight the experiences of women of color practitioners
working for DEI change in academia so that we might begin to change the intersectional,
inequitable relations of power within which they work and live. I hope this study contributes to and
supports the efforts of higher education practitioners dedicated to remaking academia as a space of
and for Black, Indigenous, Latina/e, and Asian women and nonbinary people as well as others who
have been historically and systemically marginalized by academia. As we learn to match our actions
to our words, may our ends not only be justified by our means but also made manifest by them.

PARTICIPATION IN DEI WORK

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Appendix A: Semi-Structured Interview with Women of Color Practitioners
Hello ____________. Thank you for making time to discuss my dissertation on diversity, inclusion,
and equity work in higher education funded by NSF INCLUDES program grants. I want to learn
more about how faculty, administrators, and staff work together in these types of grant projects. My
goal is to help researchers and practitioners critically design and deploy initiatives that make the best
of the energy, time, and resources needed to support equity in higher education.
• Will you please sign a consent form for this interview?
• Is it alright with you if I audio record our conversation? You may stop the interview
and/or recording as well as pass on a specific question at any time for any reason. [if
consented, start recording]

I would like to start by getting some background on your role in the project development.
1. How did the idea for this project come about?
a. How did you get involved? If not initiator: Who brought you in?
b. Did you bring anyone into the project?
c. Who were the key people involved in developing the project and grant proposal?
2. Have you declined any requests to be a part of other projects focused on diversity, inclusion
or equity in higher education?
a. Why did you decide not to get involved with that/those efforts?
b. How is this project different?
Thank you, now I’d like to learn more about how this project functions and your work in this
project.
3. For projects with multiple grants/PIs. So, there are multiple grants for this project, listing
________ as PIs, who leads the project overall?
4. And how is the project structured?
a. Who are the leaders of the various project components?
b. How was the project structure determined? Who had a say? Who made the
decisions?
c. Do you think there is sufficient representation of women of color and other women
or people of color in the project leadership?
5. For project leader: Can you tell me about your leadership style?
6. For Co-PIs and project members: How do you work with others directly involved in your
component of the project?
7. Is there much collaboration across project components or do they operate more
independently?
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a. Depending on role: How closely do you work with the overall project leader/leaders of
project components?
b. For Co-PIs and project members: How do you work with other people involved in
different project components?
8. Have there been any tensions with project implementation among the project members?
a. Can you give me an example?
b. How was this resolved?
9. The abstract for this project’s grant mentions that it is focused on ________, can you
elaborate on the specific goals of the project?
10. Depending on project role: What are the main activities of the project? What are the activities of
your area of the project?
a. Who came up with the idea for these activities?
b. How have you contributed to developing them?
c. How do you help carry out these activities?
11. How do these contribute to the project goals you just mentioned?
12. What are you hoping to accomplish through this project within the window of grant
funding?
a. How is the project tracking that?
13. How does ________ [the project goals] fit into your larger vision for improving diversity,
inclusion, equity in ________ [project focus area]?
I appreciate your sharing so far. I want to dive deeper into how support and resource distribution
work in the project. I know that to fully address the issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity in
STEM higher education, we could always use substantially more resources and support. So my next
questions are focused on these aspects internally within the project.
14. How do you feel your work is most supported in the project?
15. Thank you that’s helpful. I’m also interested in a variety of types of support that are
important for this kind of work.
a. Do you think your area of the project has sufficient financial resources relative to
other components?
b. What about compensation for your travel and time relative to other project
members?
c. Do you have insights into how the decisions were made to allocate the project grant
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funding in the way that it was?
d. I’m curious who supports you that you feel has really “got your back” in the project?
i. Can you give me an example of a time when that person supported you?
16. Can you think about whether there was a moment in the project where you did not feel
supported in whatever way? Would you tell me about that?
Thank you. Now I would like to ask some final questions about your experiences as woman of color
working in this project.
17. Can you tell me if and how you draw on your experiences as a woman of color in academia
for your work in this project?
18. Have you experienced any challenges as a woman of color working on this project, either
internally or externally?
19. How do you think the experiences and perspectives woman of color in academia are valued
as contributions to this project?
I just have a couple of last questions. I’m planning to select a small number of projects for further
study, interviewing more project members, collecting project artifacts, and conducting observations
of project meetings and/or events to better contextualize how people work together in these kinds
of projects.
20. Do you think your project would be a good case to study? Why or why not?
21. How open do you think other members of your project would be to this?

I really appreciate your time and everything you’ve shared with me today. Is there anything else you
would like to add?

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Appendix B: Semi-Structured Interview with Additional Project Team Members
Hello ____________. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me about my dissertation
study about participation in diversity, inclusion, and equity work in higher education. I’m interested
in examining the processes that go into the development and implementation of funded equity
work. I want to learn more about how faculty, administrators, and staff do what they do in this type
of work in order to help researchers and practitioners critically design and deploy initiatives that
make the best of our energy, time, and resources.
• Will you please sign a consent form for this interview?
• Is it alright with you if I audio record our conversation? You may stop the interview
and/or recording as well as pass on a specific questions at any time for any reason. [if
consented, start recording]
I’m going to start with some background questions about your work prior to or outside of this
project.
1. Have any of your previous roles or projects involved work with diversity, inclusion or racial
and/or gender equity? (Mirror language used by participant)
a. Can you give me an example of how that work dealt with diversity/equity?
2. How were those projects structured similarly or differently than this project?
a. Prompt or follow up on specific features/stories/events
3. What role do you see diversity/equity work playing out in your career or other parts of your
life?
a. Prompt or follow up on specific stories/events
b. Why are you personally engaged in diversity/equity work?
The next questions will focus on this project, but please feel free to bring in anything else you think
is relevant:
4. How did this project get started?
a. Tell me about your role in shaping it.
5. What led you to initiate/get involved with this project?
6. How do you see this project as related to your prior experiences with diversity/equity work?
a. Field? Goals? Strategies? People?
7. What is the problem or problems that this project is meant to address in STEM higher
education?
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a. probe to describe that problem
b. Why is this a problem?
c. What are some of the causes?
8. Is there an end goal? If so, what is it?
a. Is this possible?
b. Under what conditions?
9. What are some of the steps that can lead to that end goal?
a. Prompt for several examples
b. Which of these are easier to make happen now?
10. Do you think there are differences in what it means to work towards diversity vs. inclusion
vs. equity in physics doctoral education?
a. If different: How does the work vary?
b. If similar/same: Probe for explanation.
c. How are diversity, inclusion, and equity related?
d. How should this project’s activities address the differences that you have identified?
11. How has your thinking about diversity, inclusion, and/or equity changed over the course of:
a. Your career?
i. Probe for a moment, conversation, event that affected the way the
interviewee thinks about these
b. This project?
i. Moment, conversation, event that affected the way you think about these
12. How do you work with others directly involved in your component of the project?
13. Is there much collaboration across project components or do they operate more
independently?
a. Which other project members do you work most closely with?
b. How do you work with other people involved in different project components?
14. Are you satisfied with how the project is working with the program partners?
15. How do you think the project should work with advisors?
a. Be ready to clarify who the advisors are.
16. What differences does it make if women and people of color are in leadership positions in
this project?
a. Prompt for specificity about activities, roles, expertise
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I’m going to switch gears to some more personal questions:
17. What are some of the meaningful identities you hold?
18. And, in terms of race/gender/profession-discipline, how do you identify? (If not already
mentioned)
I really appreciate your time and everything you’ve shared with me today. Is there anything else you
would like to add?

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Appendix C: NSF BP Focused Programs with Solicitation Issued 2016-2020
1. ADVANCE: Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions (3)
2. AGEP: Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (1)
3. B2 2.0: Build and Broaden 2.0 (1)
4. CREST & RISE: Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) and
HBCU Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (RISE) (1)
5. CISE-MSI: Computer and Information Science and Engineering Minority-Serving
Institutions Research Expansion Program (1)
6. EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program Track-1: (RII Track-1) (5)
7. EPS-WO: Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research: Workshop
Opportunities (1)
8. HBCU- EiR: Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Excellence in Research (1)
9. HBCU-UP: Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (3)
10. HSI Program: Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (3)
11. Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers
in Engineering and Science (INCLUDES) (6)
12. LSAMP: Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (2)
13. S-STEM: NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (3)
14. PREM: Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (2)
15. PRFB: Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (2)
16. SPRF: SBE Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (3)
17. TCUP: Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (2)

Number of proposals from each program during 2016-2020 indicated in parentheses.
Data Source: National Science Foundation

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Appendix D: INCLUDES-Funded Higher Education Projects Active as of May 2020

1. ACCEYSS: Association of Collaborative Communities Equipping Youth for STEM Success
2. Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships (AMP): Broadening Participation in New
Hampshire's Workforce
3. BEST BET: Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training - Beginning Enhancement Track
4. Building a Network for Education and Employment in Environmental Stewardship of
Indigenous Lands
5. Capacity Building in Disaster Research for Scholars from Under-Represented Groups
6. Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (CAHSI)*
7. Diversifying Future Leadership in the Professoriate in Computing at Research Universities
(FLIP)
8. Expanding the First2 STEM Success Network (First2Network)*
9. Fostering Engineering Identity and Support Structures to Promote Entry and Persistence in
Engineering for First-Generation Students (First Gen)
10. Growing STEM engagement and participation in Native Pacific Islander communities
11. Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN)*
12. Increasing Minority Presence within Academia through Continuous Training (IMPACT)
13. LEVERAGE, Strengthening the ASSIST Collaborative to Illuminate Engineering Faculty
Pathways
14. National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty (Aspire)*
15. SPICE (Supporting Pacific Indigenous Computing Excellence) Data Science Program for
Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders
16. Statewide Consortium: Supporting Underrepresented Populations in Precalculus by
Organizational Redesign toward Engineering Diversity
17. STEM Core Expansion (STEM Core)*
18. STEM Opportunities in Prison Settings (STEM-OPS)*
19. STEM PUSH (Pathways for Underrepresented Students to Higher Education) Network*
20. Supporting Emerging Aquatic Scientists (SEAS) Islands Alliance*
21. Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYS) Program to Bridge inclusion in Post-Secondary
Education Through the Sciences

* Indicates Alliance phase project
Data source: NSF Award Search https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study examines how higher education practitioners participate in developing and implementing grant-funded diversity, inclusion, and equity work, particularly focusing on the experiences of Black/African American, Latina/Hispanic, and Asian/Asian American women practitioners. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in higher education is as prevalent and varied as are the inequities that permeate the institution, from the underrepresentation of students and faculty of color to myriad forms of structural and cultural marginalization and exploitation along racialized and intersecting forms of social hierarchies. DEI rhetoric and activity have been expanding for decades, but institutional change for intersectional equity appears to be stalled. Important research continues documenting inequities, and scholars are beginning to systematically examine the efforts to address them and why more progress has not been achieved. Current focus has centered on documenting the benefits of diversity (in support of race-based affirmative action) and critiquing the limitations of a diversity framing to affect transformative and lasting change.

Although many areas of DEI work remain to be explored, one important aspect that has not received sufficient attention is how practitioners participate in developing and implementing these initiatives. We know that the labor demanded of DEI work in higher education continues to fall on the shoulders of women of color disproportionately and inversely to the returns it garners for them in personal well-being and professional reward. I aim for my scholarship and praxis to improve the lived experiences of women of color at the vanguard of creating liberating ways of being in relation in academia and, thus, contribute to an intersectionally equitable higher education of the future.

I developed a conceptual framework, Relational Intersectionality of Organizations (RIO), to combine insights from three theories at the micro, macro, and meso levels of analysis (relational sociology, intersectionality, and racialized organizations, respectively) to guide the design of this study and analyze intersectional power-laden processes. With the RIO framework as my guides, I conducted a case study using critical policy discourse analysis (CPDA) to examine six solicitations from the National Science Foundation (NSF) INCLUDES program. In addition, I conducted 23 interviews and 41 hours of in-person observations as part of an embedded case study of the Diversifying Higher Education (DiSHE) project, one 21 focused on higher education funded by INCLUDES. Finally, as part of a purposeful over sampling strategy, I conducted 12 additional interviews with women of color practitioners across eight other INCLUDES-funded projects. NSF, which is one of the largest sources of funding for the STEM enterprise, recently launched the INCLUDES in response to a call for bold, new action to create meaningful progress on broadening participation in STEM. The resources that grant-funded work provide as well as the influences they can wield make this program an important context for investigation.

Findings from my CPDA of INCLUDES indicated that the program did not define its goals and problem space in alignment with a robust conception of equity. Outside of a consistent theme of diversity and achieving representation in STEM for underrepresented groups on par with their populations in the U.S., the primary goal driving INCLUDES was the development of the program itself through a national network and hubs organized around a collaborative infrastructure.

The case study of DiSHE revealed that conceptual misalignments of diversity, inclusion, and equity, which were not addressed by the project in any formal way, led to a dissensus of diversity implicitly guiding the project’s vision and goal development. Disagreement about the projects goals and understanding of how they were meant to address different aspects of diversity, equity, or inclusion principles created further tensions in the project. As DiSHE implementation continued, racialized-gendered disempowerment of impacted primarily women of color practitioners, most of whom were Black, through ambiguous and tokenized leadership roles. Moreover, racialized-gendered disempowerment was also perpetuated through project configurations such as communications, additional role ambiguity, and division of labor—resulting from a nearly all white leadership team and project coordinators who were mostly Black women. Finally, DiSHE faced a foundational challenge; it was built without respect and trust due to common microaggressions and emphasis on productivity despite insufficient and imbalanced resource allocations.

From interviews conducted with additional women of color practitioners, a greater variety of experiences were uncovered from participation in development and implementation of INCLUDES-funded work. The first two themes echoed racialized-gendered challenges though less apparently so. First, project configurations that were not well mapped on to organizational structures led to constraints in the forms of leadership not being fully recognized or supported as well as job insecurity and instability. The other way that these practitioners experienced racialized-gendered difficulties were through value and expectation misalignments with other project members based on participants cultural, political, and educational backgrounds. Lastly, some women of color practitioners benefited from shared leadership through collaborative decision-making, sponsorship, and accountability.

The discussion reviewed several implications for practice, policy, and research. The primary contribution of this study suggests that for higher education DEI work to achieve the highest ideals of intersectional equity, the practitioners who develop and implement it must enact intersectionally equitable participation in the work. Based on the findings and synthesis from this study, I built on Ray’s (2019) racialized organizations theory by rearticulating its four tenets as intersectional. In addition, I proposed adding a foundational tenet: Organizations are always already imbued with the intersectional power dynamics of the societies in which they are formed unless they are intentionally and actively configured to subvert these dynamics. My aim for this study has been to highlight the experiences of women of color practitioners working for DEI change in academia so that we might begin to change the intersectional, inequitable relations of power within which they work and live.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Hernandez, Theresa Epidia (author)

Core Title Participation in higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion work: a relational intersectionality of organizations analysis

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Urban Education Policy

Degree Conferral Date 2022-12

Publication Date 08/21/2024

Defense Date 07/18/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag and equity work,diversity,higher education practitioners,inclusion,intersectionality,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizational relationships,women of color

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Posselt, Julie (committee chair), Bensimon, Estela Mara (committee member), Hancock Alfaro, Ange-Marie (committee member), Harper, Shaun (committee member)

Creator Email theresa.e.hernandez@gmail.com,thereseh@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC111379770

Unique identifier UC111379770

Legacy Identifier etd-HernandezT-11150

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Hernandez, Theresa Epidia

Type texts

Source 20220825-usctheses-batch-975 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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