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Working while Black: occupational experiences, hazards, and triumphs of Black staff and administrators in higher education

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Working while Black: occupational experiences, hazards, and triumphs of Black staff and administrators in higher education

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Working While Black: Occupational Experiences, Hazards, and Triumphs of Black Staff
and Administrators in Higher Education
by
Wilmon A. Christian III

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

December, 2020

© Copyright by Wilmon A. Christian III 2020
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Wilmon A. Christian III certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Brandi Jones
Charles H.F. Davis III
Shaun Harper, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2020

iv

Abstract
Black higher education administrators and staff routinely encounter racism and other
forms of racial mistreatment in their workplaces. However, given overwhelming and unbalanced
attention to faculty experiences in the research literature, not much is known about such
occurrences particular to this employee group. This study was undertaken to provide additional
inquiry distinctive to Black staff and administrators to increase what is known about this group’s
higher education workplace experiences. Qualitative methods were used to explore the racialized
employment realities of Black staff and administrators, and the means by which they obtained
success despite racial mistreatment they encountered. A portraiture methodology was used to
guide this study, which included a diverse sample of 29 participants who were interviewed in-
depth. Findings from this study are presented in two parts. The first is about their experiences
with race, racism, racial mistreatment, and other racialized encounters in the workplace. Included
in the second part are eight mechanisms Black employees used to obtain success and navigate
workplace conditions. Findings from this study are consistent with the literature on race and
racial equity, but add to the research in key areas such as climate-driven departure and success-
framing at work.

v

Dedication
To Black people. In the words of James Brown, “Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud!”

vi

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I acknowledge the goodness of God and the dispensation of His grace
in enabling me to complete this dissertation. Truly, this project is a testament to Him seeing me
through the vicissitudes of life as it relates to juggling a full-time career, marriage, parenthood,
and research. Were it not for the Holy Spirit carrying me late nights when I was too tired to
write; providing fresh insights and inspiration; and reminding of His promise that, “he who
began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…” (Philippians 1:6), I would not have
had the strength, wisdom, dedication, or discipline to finish this research. I thank Jesus Christ
that the gospel is at work in me and evident in this project. I am also thankful for the Body of
Christ, represented in the local assemblies and memberships of Epiphany Fellowship and Bethel
Restoration Center. You all prayed for me and, “The effectual fervent prayers of the righteous
avail[ed] much.” (James 5:16).
I am grateful for my wife, Jade Holmes Christian. God did something special when He
gifted you to me. I will never forget how you moved mountains to provide support for me in the
initiation and completion of this project. Watching you stretch yourself to assist me all while
balancing parenting our newborn son is a picture of love forever etched in my mind. “Thank
you” is too small a phrase to adequately express my gratitude for you. I love you.
Mom and dad, your son, the boy from New Kent, Virginia is a doctor. Thank you for
allowing me to make good on promises I made to you years ago. Thank you for your patience,
encouragement, and prayers, even when things did not seem like they were coming together or
making sense. Thank you for pouring into me. Thank you for your wisdom. I love you.
To the other half of the Polished Scholars. Do you remember that we had a blog where
we pontificated about life? It was there we used the syntax of the academy to express ourselves,

vii

and affirm each other’s gifts. I owe you a debt of gratitude for making clear to me the viability of
graduate education. You intervening in my life at that moment was beyond critical. Thank you.
My friends, too numerous to name, thank you. Thank you for seeing something in me.
Thank you for cheering me and telling me that I was doing something significant. Your calls and
texts kept me on the right track. You listened and provided wise council. You hugged me and
told me I could make it. You dapped me up and told me to keep on keeping on. You understood
and did not mistake me willingly choosing to be off the scene as being aloof. You did not hold
the texts or phone calls that I did not return right away against me. You understood and provided
grace for me. Thank you.
Worldwide Harp, I still have that email from the fall of 2011 where you intervened in a
way that was at first shocking, but later efficacious. You wrote, “I imagine this does not feel
good to hear, but you need to know the truth if you are to actualize your goals of becoming Dr.
Christian…” In this dissertation, your nine-year prophecy is fulfilled. Thank you. Dr. Jones, your
style, grace, and poignant insights will not be forgotten. Thank you for giving me license to be
me in this research. Mr. Charles, my brother. I owe you for bailing me out and calling me up.
Thank you for sticking your neck out.

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Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi
Chapter One: Background, Purpose, and Overview of the Study................................................... 1
Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................... 3
Black Employees in Higher Education ............................................................................... 5
Purpose of the Study ......................................................................................................... 10
Guiding Questions ............................................................................................................ 10
Significance of the Study .................................................................................................. 11
Assumptions ...................................................................................................................... 12
Organization of the Dissertation ....................................................................................... 13
Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature ................................................................................. 14
Race, Labor, and Workplace Contexts ............................................................................. 15
Labor Relations and Workforce Management in Higher Education ................................ 27
Administrators of Color in Higher Education ................................................................... 48
Black Staff and Administrators in Higher Education ....................................................... 51
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 56
Chapter Three: Research Methods ................................................................................................ 58
Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 58
Methodological Approach: Portraiture ............................................................................. 59
Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 67
Participants ........................................................................................................................ 70

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Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 71
Trustworthiness ................................................................................................................. 74
Ethical Issues .................................................................................................................... 77
Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 78
Researcher Statement ........................................................................................................ 79
Chapter Four: Findings ................................................................................................................. 83
Part One: What They Went Through - Racialized Workplace Experiences ..................... 83
Part Two: How They Got Over - Success and Navigation ............................................. 201
Chapter Five: Summary, Discussion, Conclusions, and Implications ........................................ 237
Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 240
Empirical Conclusions .................................................................................................... 250
Implications for Future Research .................................................................................... 253
Implications for Practice ................................................................................................. 255
Closing ............................................................................................................................ 263
References ................................................................................................................................... 265
Appendix A: Role Types ............................................................................................................ 308
Appendix B: Interview Protocols................................................................................................ 311
Appendix C: IRB Approval ........................................................................................................ 314
Appendix D: Informed Consent Form ........................................................................................ 315
Appendix E: Participant Communication ................................................................................... 316
1

Chapter One: Background, Purpose, and Overview of the Study
Over the past five years, I have worked as a Black administrator in two research centers
focused on racial equity - one at the University of Pennsylvania, and the other at the University
of Southern California, my present employer. I have had opportunities to participate on research
teams for qualitative campus racial climate studies that executives at community colleges and
four-year institutions across the United States have hired our centers to conduct. These
experiences have shaped my interest in the study of Black employees’ racialized experiences in
postsecondary workplace settings. Three examples are particularly noteworthy.
The first was at an institution in the Pacific Northwest. Though intimately familiar with
the literature on campus climates, it was my first time participating on a research group
collecting this kind of data. New to this line of work, I listened intently to the numerous
interview participants, took copious notes, and frequently consulted with my colleagues during
this experience. They patiently explained to me the methodology and assisted me in managing
the dozens of interviews planned months and weeks in advance that occurred over the three-day
visit. On the first day, I perceived awkwardness and reticence among some participants to share
their racialized experiences on campus. On day two, however, unexpected and seemingly
random, I encountered a Black woman who served on the staff there. Not at all scheduled for an
interview, she intentionally sought out our research team and found the place on campus where
we were conducting interviews. Crying and visibly distraught, she began to detail her racialized
experience at the institution to me. With horror, I listened to the racism she faced; how she was
harassed and discriminated against by coworkers and supervisors; and how she was repeatedly
passed over for promotions and other opportunities for professional advancement because of her
race. She talked about the many times she sought help from trusted others on her campus to no
2

avail. She informed me that there were many others like her who, due to institutional fear and
retribution, decided it best to keep quiet and work on in such lurid conditions. That day she
recounted many other examples of clearly inappropriate and toxic behaviors and situations in her
workplace to which she had been subjected.
In the Fall of 2016, I was part of a team of researchers from the Penn Center who were
assigned to conduct a climate investigation of a graduate school at a large research one university
on the West Coast. Located in a city known for its incredibly rich racial diversity, we were more
than curious about the dynamics occurring therein that had prompted the request for such work.
As I had done before on other climate studies, I engaged with interview participants and listened
purposefully to the stories of staff persons and administrators of color at the West Coast school.
After the study concluded, a nagging thought for me remained: For as much as diversity was
promoted at the institution and graduate school, and as much as it was a supposed characteristic
of the city in which they were located, I recalled seeing few employees in the interviews who
identified as I did: Black.
In the Fall of 2017, researchers from the newly inaugurated USC Race and Equity Center
were called upon to study the campus climate of a community college in Southern California.
This would be one of their many engagements with the institution. As per protocol, researchers
on this team conducted interviews with various racial groups on campus organized by roles in
which they were employed. As the team began to analyze data, what they found was so alarming
that it warranted further discussion and the insights of other researchers at the center. For
example, Black employees in their sample were undeniably frustrated by the institution’s
lethargy to hire more Black people. In addition, they also voiced extreme displeasure with the
repeated ways in which the institution mishandled racial matters and how that impacted their
3

attitudes about working there. Curiously, they described the extent to which they experienced
racial harassment, microaggressions, discrimination, and even retribution by other non-White-
identifying colleagues of color. Sadly, and most vividly, one of the participants in this group, a
janitor, shared how he was called “nigger” while simply trying to exercise the responsibilities of
his role.
Provided in these examples are common themes in the higher education literature related
to Black employees’ experiences. Little research, however, exists to make known the ways they
succeed despite the racism, inequities, and other forms of harm routinely experienced in their
work settings. Few studies have highlighted the navigational savvy that Black staff and
administrators have persistently exerted to recover from race-based harm, remain employed, and
secure job advancement in the face of such opposition. What is available does little to consider
the multiple forms of oppression endured by this group as a result of the gender, academic status,
or role type to which they belong, and how these categories intersect and factor into their
employment experience in the postsecondary workforce. Finally, not nearly enough is known
about how in their campus workplaces, these employees experience a sense of belonging; how
they matter and are affirmed; and how they encounter and manage racial stress.
Statement of the Problem
The problem on which this study is focused concerns the inequitable campus work
contexts in which Black staff and administrators are employed, and what they experience therein
as a result of their race. Despite demographic shifts (Craig & Richeson, 2014), gains and
advances in legislation (Kelly & Dobbin, 1998; Leonard, 1984), and organizational efforts to
create a more diverse workforce (McCuiston et al., 2004; McMahon, 2010), unfortunately,
racism and racial discrimination remain common experiences for Blacks in various sectors of
4

employment (Doede, 2016; Hall, Everett, & Hamilton-Mason, 2012; Opie & Roberts, 2017;
Parsons et al., 2018; Sue et al., 2009; Trenerry & Paradies, 2012; Wiecek & Hamilton, 2014)
Higher education is a unique work context in that it is one of few places where much
research concerning racial diversity, equity, and inclusion is produced. These concepts are also
woven into discourses occurring in the field and industry such that they are routinely heralded by
institutions and individuals who embrace them as principles to advance educational and
organizational progress. Yet, higher education is also unusual because despite its affinity for
these values, it is an entity that is not immune to nor exempt from the same racial challenges
affecting Black employees in other industries (Ahmed, 2012; Iverson, 2007; Smith, 2004).
Though there is research literature on the racial challenges and racialized experiences of
Black higher education employees, it is egregiously unbalanced. Definitively more has been
researched and written about Black faculty in higher education than any other postsecondary
employment category regarding those who are a part of this racial group. Consequently, little is
known about how Black staff persons and administrators experience and navigate racism in their
workplaces. In fact, one could even argue that the disproportionate focus on faculty in the
research literature reifies the professoriate in a way that it becomes the penultimate employment
marker or standard in the industry.
It is commonly held that racism is a shared experience and a frequent occurrence in
campus workplaces among Black staff, administrators, and faculty (Griffin et al., 2011; Jean-
Marie et al., 2009; Turner & Grauerholz, 2017). However, imbalanced attention on those whose
roles are primarily instructional in nature could encourage a conflation of how racism manifests
between persons who share the same race but occupy different roles in the academy. Therefore,
more nuanced inquiry is needed. Four major issues that underpin and are associated with this
5

problem will be discussed to accentuate the importance of this study: (a) the primacy of research
literature on faculty; (b) the tendency of published works to focus on problems encountered by
Black higher education employees; (c) extending the query and consequences of campus climate,
and; (d) more effectively centering Black staff and administrators in qualitative research.
Black Employees in Higher Education
Black employees in the higher education literature have been written about in numerous
ways. Consistently explored are their encounters with discrimination and racialized ill-treatment
(DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2019; Louis et al., 2016); them being underrepresented in certain roles
(Chang et al., 2013); and ways to attract or retain them in postsecondary contexts (Agguire,
2000; Jackson, 2001, 2004a, 2004b; Scott, 2016). Published research has been overwhelmingly
focused on Black faculty such that more is known about their career experiences than any other
group of Black employees in higher education. Take for example Turner et al.’s (2008)
exemplary work in which over 200 research publications on faculty of color were aggregated,
organized by theme, and synthesized with the intent of ascertaining the state of the field from
two decades of literature. Thorough, comprehensive and peerless, their work is a testament to the
collective investment that the field and industry has and continues to make in expanding what is
known about faculty in general, and Black faculty in specific as the more important employee
contingent amongst this racial group in this sector. This is not to say that Black staff and
administrators do not matter. Surely, they do, as evidenced by scholarly literature being written
about them as early as the 1960s (Johnson, 1969), and by researchers documenting their
experiences at colleges and universities every decade since (Bridges, 1996; Patitu & Hinton,
2003; Smith, 1978; Williams, 1989; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015). Although there has been a small
portfolio of research in which the experiences of Black staff and administrators have been
6

documented, that work has not studied the resiliency of this employment group, a gap I intended
to fill. The sheer abundance, however, of scholarship concerning Black faculty implies a
systemic preference for and bias toward inquiry related to that faction’s employment experiences
in higher education.
While research literatures on Black staff, administrators, and faculty are available, taken
together, at best they provide an incomplete rendering of the state of affairs for Black employees
in higher education, especially in light of contemporary developments in the field. Many of the
studies on Black staff, administrators, and faculty only account for these employees’ experiences
in the context of two institutional types (i.e., HBCU and PWI) (Butner et al., 2000; Gardner et
al., 2014; Jean-Marie, 2004, 2005; Louis et al., 2016; Rolle, Davies, & Banning, 2000; Weems,
2003). Notably absent from the literature are Black staff, administrator, and faculty experiences
as employees in for-profit institutions, community colleges, and Hispanic Serving Institutions.
As it stands, the available literature on Black employees at postsecondary institutions is
insufficient to comprehend and explain how Black staff and administrators experience racism in
their workplaces. For example, racial discrimination, microaggressions, and bias are common
occurrences for Black employees (DeCuir-Gunby & Gunby, 2016; Garrison-Wade, Diggs,
Estrada, & Galindo, 2012) but it is not known whether Black staff and administrators experience
these phenomena differently than Black faculty. Though Black faculty employment insights are
in some ways helpful, they are also limited in their applicability to other roles in the academy.
Thus, more research is needed in order to add to the literature on Black employees to explain and
make known their racialized experiences broadly speaking and as they vary by specific instance.
Additional literature on such topics will be helpful in better understanding how Blacks in the
7

higher education workforce experience their employment in academic work sites and
environments.
Towards an Anti-Crisis Approach to Researching Black Staff, and Administrators
Research on Black staff and administrators has largely been concentrated on the problems
they face; barriers to job promotion they encounter; and systemic inequities mitigating their
career trajectories (Abney & Richey, 1991; Allen-Brown, 1998; Holmes, 2003; Patitu & Hinton,
2003; Ramey, 1995; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015). Suffice it to say, more is known about the
negatives associated with their job roles and work experiences than positive aspects. Though the
racialized impediments to career mobility and structural inequities reported in the literature are
real and deserve ongoing attention, what is to be made of those Black staff persons and
administrators who are successful in their roles despite the routine systemic racism they
encounter in their workplaces? A worthy question, sure, but aside from Bridges (1996), Gardner
et al. (2014), and Harvard (1986), little has been published about the successes of Black staff and
administrators to aid in answering such a question.
Not enough is known about how their agency, navigational skillfulness and strategies,
self-efficacy, and self-determination manifest and are brought to bear in maintaining a high
standard of excellence and achievement at work in spite of systematic inequities designed to
obstruct such outcomes. Since extant literature on Black staff and administrators is unbalanced
and mainly problem-focused, little is known about how Black staff and administrators in racially
unsupportive environments and workplaces conceptualize success. Further, what mechanisms
enable Black staff and administrators to work at and persist in campus workplaces hostile to their
racial identity? Such questions, if explored and answered, could provide asset-based ways of
8

understanding how Black staff persons and administrators navigate racism and find success in
their workplaces.
Campus Climate and Black Staff, and Administrators
The importance of campus climate in the higher education literature cannot be overstated.
It is a significant concept about which much has been researched, written, and published
(Clements, 2000; Edman & Brazil, 2009; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado & Carter, 1997;
Maramba, 2008; Museus & Jayakumar, 2012; Museus et al., 2008; Rankin & Reason, 2005,
2008). Contributing to often hostile campus racial climates are recent high-profile manifestations
of racial crises and turmoil encountered by a number of institutions (Center for American
Progress, 2019; Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2019a; 2019; 2018; 2015). Literature on
campus climates has accounted for the impact of such crises, in addition to ongoing
microaggressions, on students and faculty. These same racial stressors are also experienced by
administrators and staff of color, particularly those who identify as Black (Wolfe & Dilworth,
2015, Holmes, 2003). However, not much is known about how phenomena in the campus racial
climate, in addition to campus racial crises, affect this population and their ability to perform
their work, remain employed, and obtain promotions. Further, research in this category has not
explored the economic, social, organizational, and psychological consequences of phenomena
such as climate-driven departure (Davis & Christian, Forthcoming) and attrition resulting from
racism for this population. These are indeed critical areas about which more needs to be known
and written, especially in light of demographic shifts occurring on college campuses (Clauss ‐
Ehlers & Parham, 2014).
9

Centering Black Staff, and Administrators
Qualitative research on Black staff and administrators in higher education is not as robust
as compared to other areas of inquiry in the discipline. What does exist that is recent has relied
on previously collected data (Patitu & Hinton, 2003), a single-case-study approach (Lloyd-Jones,
2009), and literature reviews (Scott, 2016; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015) to discuss what Black staff
and administrators experience in their academic workplaces. Other qualitative studies focused on
this population have explored subsets of and groupings within this category (e.g., student affairs
professionals and executive-level leaders) (Gardner et. al, 2014; Flowers, 2003; Freeman &
Gasman, 2014; Gardner et al., 2008; Holmes, 2003; Jackson, 2004a). Not many qualitative
studies over the past five years have explicitly examined racism and race-related stressors
experienced by Black higher education professionals and administrators in their workplaces. One
example is DeCuir-Gunby et al. (2019), which was a study of 15 Black employees at
predominantly White two-year and four-year institutions, and Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) across the Southeastern region of the United States. While this scholarly
work is quite useful, relevant, and much needed, not all of the participants included in DeCuir-
Gunby et al.’s sample were classified as staff or administrators. In fact, five of those whom they
interviewed were professors. This is all to say extant qualitative literature on Black staff and
administrators has fallen short in its scope and coverage of the various roles Black non-academic
employees occupy, even to the degree that published works have not substantively included the
realities of persons in under-discussed roles (e.g., food service staff, custodians, groundskeepers,
and maintenance workers). This is also to highlight the failure of qualitative research to
unambiguously center the narratives of Black staff and administrators absent faculty data.
Undoubtedly, organizations, institutions, and the field could benefit immensely from learning
10

more about the views, voices, understandings, navigational savvy, and intelligences of Black
staff and administrators. What is more, research could be broadened to discover the uniqueness
of their pathways into and preparation for such roles. And, other questions could be addressed,
namely, what makes work meaningful for them in spite of the racism they consistently
experience? Not to mention, given their repeated encounters with microaggressions,
discrimination, and exclusion in their places of work, they deserve a more substantive place in
the higher education literature. It is a matter of doing them justice and providing dignity to their
personhood, telling their stories so they are not forgotten, and validating their experiences with
and successes in spite of racism. It is only right to do so.
Purpose of the Study
This study is a response to the paucity of research concerning Black staff and
administrators in higher education. The intent of this scholarly work is to add to what can be
known about how those identifying as Black and who are employed as staff persons or
administrators experience and navigate racism in their campus workplaces. Specifically, this
study has been undertaken to understand more about the realities of Black administrators and
staff who have endured such oppression; to discover the mechanisms and philosophies they have
used to sustain and advance their employment; and to provide insights leading to more accurate
and nuanced portrayals of their varied narratives in the research literature.
Guiding Questions
Taken together, the previously cited literature overwhelmingly suggests that Black higher
education administrators and staff experience racism in their places of work. However, it is not
known how they persevere in the face of such mistreatment. To that end, the central question
guiding this study was, “How do Black staff and administrators experience and navigate racially
11

hostile campus workplaces?” In addition, four other questions were explored: (a) What strategies
do Black administrators and staff employ to excel in a racially hostile campus workplace; (b)
How do Black staff and administrators in racially unsupportive work environments conceptualize
success; (c) How do they experience their Blackness in such contexts; and (d) What makes Black
staff and administrators in these kinds of workplaces stay?
Significance of the Study
The history of Black labor in the United States goes further than the founding of our
country. Indeed, when the first Africans arrived at Jamestown settlement in Virginia in 1619, the
conditions under which they would work would soon come to be racialized. Not too long after,
Africans would be captured en masse to become and fuel an economy based on slave labor. As
the slave trade in the Americas would continue to grow, Africans (as they were then known)
would become “Negroes”, then later on “Black”, at once racializing their personhood and
destinies. These same slaves would be conscripted into building America’s formative institutions
of higher learning (Wilder, 2014). Ironically, once the bricks were laid, the paint had dried, and
the doors were flung open, they were not allowed to attend because of their race.
This example is but one of many early transactions that would effectively embed racism
into the fabric of American higher education. In his 1988 book, James D. Anderson brilliantly
notes that Blacks in the United States have exhibited a consistent and historical desire to partake
in and make much of education. This includes but is not limited to obtaining employment in and
working with excellence at postsecondary institutions. It cannot be said that many American
institutions, however, have reciprocated a similar desire for them, one that, at the very least,
would want to see their unique gifts, talents, and intelligences welcomed, valued, and stewarded
well in campus workplaces.
12

Though higher education workplaces have come a long way, few would agree that the
realities of Black people employed therein match the equity statements of the institutions on
which such work sites are located. Indeed, for staff, there exist considerably deep inequities in
college and university workplaces (Selingo, 2020). No doubt there remains much work to be
done and pursuant to that endeavor is seeking to learn more about phenomena with which higher
education has long grappled: race and racism. Despite the dilemmas they pose, Black staff and
administrators, though routinely encountering racial challenges where they work, find ways to be
successful. This study was conducted to find out more about their resilience, inner-strength, and
savvy.
There is not much literature in which the effects of the campus workplace for Black
administrators and staff are seriously considered. My dissertation adds to this body of knowledge
and can be used to increase their visibility and make known their experiences in such contexts. In
addition, insights from this study can be used to initiate conversations with campus leaders about
inequities. Institutional and workplace characteristics, how they are racially experienced, and the
effects of inequitable distributions of power in college settings can be better understood through
my research. Such insights can be used by institutional actors looking to disrupt harmful systems,
and inform policy and practice.
Assumptions
In conducting this research, the following was assumed:
1. The participants in this study experienced forms of racial hostility, racial mistreatment,
racism, and/or microaggressions in their places of work.
2. Participants answered the interview questions sincerely, honestly, and to the best of their
ability.
13

Organization of the Dissertation
Provided in the next chapter is a review and discussion of the literature related to the
topic of study. Published works are sourced from disciplines such as management, sociology,
economics, and organizational behavior to inform the labor relations category. Higher education
literatures related to workforce management and campus climate are then expounded upon. In
the following section, literature on race is used to discuss the racialized employment experiences
of those occupying different roles within the higher education workforce. Included in Chapter
three is a description of the methodological approach, as well as data collection and analysis
procedures. Presented in Chapter four are vignettes of the participants, as well as findings and
interpretations of the data. Concluding the dissertation is Chapter five, where a summary,
discussion, and implications for practice and future research are provided.

14

Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature
In this chapter I synthesize published literature regarding race, workforce management,
and academic workplaces. This review of related literature is helpful in considering how Black
staff and administrators experience racial hostility in their places of work and how they navigate
such encounters. In the research reviewed herein, I first begin with a broad conversation on labor
relations and race, and move to discuss employee management in higher education, followed by
more focused considerations of race and the higher education workforce. Following, a treatment
of research on faculty of color is provided to preempt a review of scholarly works on Black staff
and administrators in higher education. Literatures in this chapter have been arranged to bring
into conversation how race, labor, and workplaces are broadly understood, to narrow in on work
and workforce management as they pertain to higher education. In the latter category, campus
climate, race and employment, and specific research on faculty of color, Black faculty, and
finally, Black administrators and staff are discussed to provide a groundwork for the topic of
study. The reasons for fashioning the literature review in this way are to: (a) provide a point of
departure to enter into a robust conversation on race, work, and higher education; (b) to
demonstrate that more research has been published about faculty of color and Black faculty in
comparison to Black administrators and staff; and (c) to provide readers with a sense of gaps and
overlap between and among the different research that brings the subject of my study into
sharper focus as a consequence of the ideas I unpack from extant literatures.
15

Race, Labor, and Workplace Contexts
Implications of Race as a Social Identity in Labor, and Workplace Contexts
Race
Research on the implications of race, labor, and workplace contexts has tended to focus
on ways in which discrimination occurs and how it is experienced by people of color (Birzer &
Smith ‐Mahdi, 2006; Deitch et al., 2003; Goldman et al., 2006; Heldrich Center for Workforce
Development, 2002; Triana et al., 2015). Studying this phenomenon, Goldman et al. (2006) note
that race seems to affect an applicant’s employment attractiveness to an organization.
Substantiating this claim, they cite Huffcutt and Roth’s (1998) study where Blacks and Latinos
were rated less favorably than Whites in less structured interviews. Other studies provide similar
results. For example, Brief et al. (2000) showed that White interviewers who scored higher on
the modern racism scale (McConahay, 1986) were found to discriminate against Blacks in the
interview process so long as the justification could be rationalized as business-related. Triana,
Jayasinghe, and Pieper (2015) note that perceiving racial discrimination in one’s place of work
can negatively affect job satisfaction, commitment, and workplace integration. What is more,
using the interactional model of cultural diversity (Cox, 1994), their analysis of workplace
discrimination also reveals that it is negatively related to job attitudes as well as physical and
psychological health.
Also documented in labor, management, and workplace literature is how race affects rate
of employment, its impact on one’s career trajectory, and how it is connected to labor
stratification (Collins, 1997; Freeman, 2012; Lowe & Wallace, 2017; Maume, 1999; Paulin &
Mellor, 1996; Reskin, 1999; Wilson et al., 1995). Using Critical Race Theory to advance the
notion of occupational race segregation - the differential allocation of Black and White workers
16

into different occupations - Lowe and Wallace (2017) attribute racial discrepancies in
employment to White advantage. Rooting this concept in literature that speaks to how Whiteness
intersects with, “...historical and contemporary institutional practices in education, housing,
employment, and the criminal justice system [to] create durable, society-wide patterns of racial
inequality” (p. 354), they understand this idea as being the structural and economic component of
White privilege. Originating out of labor market theories, Lowe and Wallace (2017) view White
advantage as the aggregate measure of inequality affecting the life chances of individual workers
of different races. Their research is focused on occupational segregation as opposed to job
segregation in order to draw attention to macro-level sorting mechanisms, such as institutional
racism, that operate on a societal scale to funnel racial groups into certain professions.
While Lowe and Wallace’s (2017) work considers race differentials in employment,
James (2000) attempts to understand relationships between race and work-related experiences
and outcomes, including occupational mobility and promotion. Analyzing the results of her 127
survey respondents who occupied managerial positions in a Fortune 500 company, 55 of whom
were women and 44 of whom were Black, James (2000) indicates that Blacks reported
significantly slower promotion rates than did Whites. This is also in addition to them denoting
receiving significantly less psychological support (i.e., emotional support and gaining trust from
colleagues enabling greater organizational navigation) than their White counterparts. James’
(2000) research is important because she ties the idea of treatment discrimination, defined by
Levitin et al. (1971) as the, “... denial of rewards, resources, or opportunities on the job that one
legitimately deserves as a result of his or her subgroup membership” (p. 494), which in the case
of the study is race, to occupational mobility. For instance, even when Blacks and Whites receive
the same training, it leads to greater payoffs regarding career advancement for White managers
17

than for Blacks. She suggests that because Blacks do not report receiving the same benefits as
Whites (i.e., increased rates of promotion) when there is equivalent human capital investment,
that there is a form of treatment discrimination in operation.
Similarly, McBrier and Wilson (2004) investigate the role of race in the occupational
lives of Black White-collar professionals. They argue that race continues to be significant
because it contributes to unstable career trajectories and lower career ceilings for this group.
Studying the “new economy” of the 1990s, their findings indicate that Blacks suffered more of a
gap in downward mobility in managerial, administrative, professional, and technical occupations
than did similarly situated Whites. Particularly revealing is their finding that the traditional
predictors and protectors of upward employment mobility (e.g., employees’ education, job
commitment, union membership, mother’s education level, being male) did not insulate Blacks
from experiencing difficult setbacks in climbing the occupational ladder. In fact, they invoke the
minority vulnerability thesis - the notion that, “...African American White-collar workers are
more vulnerable to downward mobility, suffer from more diffuse processes of downward
mobility, and fall further from their high-level White-collar occupational origins than their White
peers” (p. 289), which occurs from, “African Americans’ lower average rank in the White-collar
labor queue, their relegation to racialized White-collar job functions, the segregated nature of
professional network ties, and their susceptibility to evaluation and attribution bias” (p. 291), to
explain such extremes in occupation destinations. In addition to these incidences, it can be
argued that racial experiences and phenomena in labor and work contexts are also gendered.
Gender
One example that scholars often point to is inequities in hireability, promotion, and career
mobility that exist for women and men within and between different racial groups (McGuire &
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Reskin, 1993; Paulin & Mellor, 1996; Wilson & Lagae, 2017). Examining the idea of “glass
ceilings” (Collins, 1989; Irons & Moore, 1985) McGuire and Reskin (1993) found that for Black
women, the positions of authority to which they would be promoted and the resulting earnings
are not offered to them consistent with the rate they are for Black men and White women. The
authors surmise that this is due to employers failing to reward the credentials of Black women in
the same fashion as White men. Accordingly, their study nullifies the myth that Black women
benefit from a “dual-minority status”, advancing at the detriment of White women and Black
men (p. 500). There is also empirical evidence suggesting women and men enter and exit the
workforce for different reasons and that even these patterns are racialized. Marital status, class,
and racial/ethnic community to which women belong often contribute to decisions around
workforce participation (Becker, 1991; Burbridge, 1997; Drobnic, 2000; Tienda & Stier, 1996).
Taniguchi and Rosenfeld (2002) found that children and pregnancy are important factors in
Black, Latina, and White women’s employment exits. Using data from their research they show
that White women in late pregnancy leave the workforce about four times as fast as those not
pregnant. Black and Latina women leave twice and three times as fast respectively (p. 451). They
also state that children are not as much a constraint for Latina and White women’s’ employment
as they are for Black women. In fact, they suggest that having children factors more into Black
women’s decisions to depart the workforce than the other two groups, especially Whites (p. 454).
Though useful, their article lacks substantive discussion on institutional and systemic
factors contributing to the racialized differentials they present. On the contrary, in investigating
trajectories of Black and White men who move from working class jobs to managerial positions,
Wilson and Lagae (2017) employ a perspective positing that race structures the rate of job
mobility, the process by which it occurs, and the speed at which it happens (p. 235). Particularly
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insightful, though, is their use of the particularistic mobility thesis to analyze job level movement
between these two groups. This is the idea that racialized, “…promotion practices regarding
similarly situated workers cannot be understood apart from the workplace milieu in which they
are embedded” (p. 235). The work environment, they contend, is governed by an ideology of
meritocracy, which is akin to modern racism (Pettigrew, 1985) and takes on a non-racial
character; includes race-based allocation practices and racialized evaluation histories (Kalleberg,
2011) delimiting opportunities to certain types of positions within firms (Tomaskovic-Devey &
Stainback, 2007); and promotes a financial bottom-line climate (Wilson & Roscigno, 2010),
which precipitates decisions being made in the interest of perceived business necessity (Wilson
et al. 1999) (Wilson & Lagae, 2017, pp. 235). Not surprisingly, they find that White men
experience higher entry to managerial positions from blue collar roles than Black men. This they
attribute to inequities in accumulation of social and human capital, limited opportunities to
obtain competitive informal characteristics, and reliance on formal routes to management, which
are often laden with stratifying mechanisms. Wilson and Lagae (2017) also understand that there
are discriminatory obstacles impeding the acquisition of social capital often used in the formal
routes to management Black men disproportionately seek out. That is to say, that such paths are
inherently inequitable because of differential access to those kinds of assets. A limitation of their
work, however, is that they do not explain how gender factors uniquely into these findings and
contributes either directly or indirectly to differences in managerial role acquisition.
Scholars have routinely interrogated the intersection of race and gender in the labor
market and have attempted to better understand how these categories are valued in terms of
human capital and contributions to productivity as well (Aldridge, 1975, 1989; Browne, 1999,
Browne & Misra, 2003; Reid, 1998). For example, demonstrated in Benditt’s (2015) research on
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public sector employees are ways in which value orientations differ by race and sex, and
influence job type and sector to which one is drawn. Citing the work of previous scholars (Boyd,
1994; Eisinger, 1982; Greene & Rogers, 1994; O’Brien, 1994; Zagoria, 1972), she posits that
structural differences existing within and between labor categories make public sector work more
appealing for groups who have been historically discriminated against or marginalized. Mears
(2014) highlights and explains the way gender and race combine to inform the idea of aesthetic
labor, “the practice of screening, managing, and controlling workers on the basis of their
physical appearance” (p. 1330). Exploring the value of employees’ looks in the contexts of
organizations, freelance labor, and the market, Mears (2014) suggests that aesthetic labor: (a) is a
useful mechanism for exploring unequal outcomes and job segregation on the basis of race; (b)
reproduces intersectional hierarchies in workplaces because it marks and unequally values
gender and race; and (c) contributes to ongoing discriminatory attitudes that go on to impact the
labor market.
Since women and men are valued differently, the ways in which they are could lead to
over or under representation in certain roles and categories of work. This is the concept of
stratification, which has implications for one’s earnings, career trajectory and mobility, and
livelihood. Approaching earning inequalities from an intersectional feminist lens, Nawyn and
Gjokaj (2014) use nativity (being either an immigrant or native-born to a society) to address
shortcomings in this line of research. They surmise that labor flows into the United States are
structured in ways such that Black African immigrant women receive opportunities and are
advantaged in the labor market while the same system reproduces racial stratification for Black
African immigrant men. Guachat et al.’s (2012) research is also relevant to this discussion given
their work on occupational segregation. They conclude that occupational segregation sustains
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gender inequality and that different combinations of gendered and racialized occupational
segregation have varying effects on certain racial and gender groups. Their article is also
important because its findings lend support for contemporarily understanding racialized and
gendered occupational stratification through an intersectional lens.
Discourse on gender and race in labor and workplace contexts includes how
discrimination for women is uniquely racialized, especially for Black women (Ortiz & Roscigno,
2009). Values such as meritocracy often animate such exclusion, as they allow organizations to
develop colorblind and race averse policies and practices perpetuating inequitable gender and
racial workplace compositions (Castilla, 2008; Embrick, 2008). In addition, according to Pager et
al. (2009), racial bias is also to blame for how Black and Latino men are discriminated against
even when they represent the best-case scenario for the position they seek.
Other Racialized Workplace Phenomena
The politics of gender and race in labor and workplace contexts shape how people of
color experience employment. Power, an often-mitigating factor in the job realities of
marginalized groups, has historically been associated with job role and/or type within an
organizational hierarchy (Elliott & Smith, 2004; Wilson, 1997). Elliot and Smith (2004) assert
that homosocial reproduction, the, “tendency of people to select incumbents who are socially
similar to themselves” (Rivera, 2013, p. 2), plays a part in the frequency with which White males
ascend to higher positions in workplace power hierarchies over others. Focusing on how
ethnicity, race, and gender affect the probability of attaining higher levels of such positions, they
proffer that at least one dimension of workplace power includes the ability to have authority and
control over others in the workplace (p. 367). Chrobot-Mason and Thomas (2002) also highlight
racialized power differentials between organizations and racially minoritized employees, but yet
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focus on how racial identity development, both of individuals and organizations, informs
relationships between these two entities. They highlight several negative consequences of
mismatches between individuals with highly developed senses of racial identity and
organizations with low views or understandings of racial diversity. Characterizations of such
firms include limited efforts in diversifying the workplaces; expected assimilation; little initiative
in changing structure; and employee attrition. As thought on the significance of social identity in
the workplace has broadened, scholars have progressed from investigating compositional
dynamics in organizations (Brewer, 1995) to attempting to understand how multiple social
categories intersect to influence labor and workplace outcomes (Rosette et al., 2019). This idea is
known as intersectionality and has origins in several social science disciplines. Rosette et al.
(2019) use this paradigm to articulate the distinct ways in which women of color in the
workforce, as a result of differentiated combinations of their gender and race, experience
occupational support and segregation, gender bias, gendered stereotypes, sexual harassment, and
the motherhood penalty. Documented in the literature also is the racialized nature of stereotypes
and how they affect people of color in workplace contexts (Gilbert et al., 2003; MacNab &
Worthley, 2013; Pager & Karafin, 2009; Roberson et al., 2003), and how they can be used to
predict and disrupt racialized and gendered occupational segregation (He et al., 2019).
Job Performance, and Advancement
A discussion on the landscape for career advancement for people of color begins with
understanding mechanisms, obstacles, and processes by which job promotion occurs. McDonald
et al. (2009) suggest that one’s access to employment leads is dependent on one’s social network,
a function of a person's social capital. They contend that race and gender provide the basis for
one’s social network membership and that, “social networks influence the amount of job
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information that people receive, which in turn, helps to shape their opportunities in the labor
market” (p. 388). Their findings indicate that networks with higher quantities of White males
yield more job leads than female and minority-based networks (p. 397). Ultimately, their
research points to gross inequities in neighborhood segregation, the composition of high
influence labor market positions, and network proximity that structure women and minorities'
participation in networks that are often resource deficient, low influence, and homogenous.
Therefore, since race and gender act as mediating factors for employment information distributed
through such organizations, distinct labor market experiences for these groups such as
stratification is reproduced. Essentially, McDonald et al. (2009) suggest that even before racial or
gendered networks are formed, inequitable social structures are already at work, providing the
means by which they take shape and whose effects are borne out in employment outcomes.
There are other researchers who highlight racialized structural barriers to labor
opportunities and job promotions. Koh et al.’s (2016) article, though focused on Black and White
job satisfaction, is helpful because they use cultural and structural theories to contextualize
differentials in employee experiences. Citing Kashefi (2011), they understand the structural piece
as the attribution of group differences to differential treatment or experiences of Black and White
employees in the employment context (p. 132). Thus, it is that there are mechanisms providing
dissimilar sets of experiences for Black and White employees. Examples of such include the
notion that Blacks are perceived to be of a lower status than other ethnic/racial minority groups
(Leslie, 2017) and their heightened susceptibility and vulnerability to discrimination and
occupational practices limiting upward mobility (O’Connell, 2012; Whitaker, 2019). It is no
surprise then that people of color and Blacks in particular perceive such issues as being real
barriers to their career trajectories (Briggs et al., 2012), manifesting in such ways as being
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intentionally groomed for lower-level advancement opportunities than Whites (Khosrvani &
Ward, 2011). In addition, as Cook and Glass (2013) suggest, there are racial hierarchies inherent
to organizations that structure professional mobility and are shaped via the race of the person
promoted. Thus, it is not without merit that Sloan and Unnever (2016) articulate the ways in
which race acts as a subordinating status and social position for Blacks in the workplace, limiting
job promotion and advancement. Other factors such as racially-induced workplace attrition
(Jones et al., 2009) and racial harassment at work (Chrobot-Mason et al., 2013) can negatively
influence job performance, acting as additional barriers to promotion and advancement for
people of color.
Organizational Dynamics and Race
Explored also in the literature are ways in which organizations function, their
demographic composition, and what happens to people employed therein, which may be
attributable to race. Poignant for his reconsideration of organizational theory, Ray (2019)
provides a contemporary approach to understanding organizational formation, hierarchies, and
processes. His work is most relevant for: (a) emphatically stating the inherent racialized nature of
organizations; and (b) for explaining how in relying on schemas, criteria, and patterns of
inclusion that are racialized, they shape the agency, interactions, and dynamics of the people
(who are also racialized) they employ. Pointing to how time for people of color is managed and
apportioned, the limited range of emotions they are allowed to express in the workplace, and the
unequal distribution of resources that befall them, he argues that these and other issues “script”
ways people of color interact with one another, clients, and supervisors. While work has been
done to counteract these issues, research suggests that race-forward employment policies and
practices intended to level the playing field for certain groups can engender resistance as well as
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a rationalization and a stronger demarcation of racial boundaries among White managers towards
employees of color in the workplace (Collins, 2011). Indeed, scholars have provided historical
commentary on how the management and production of labor itself in the United States has been
racialized (Roediger & Esch, 2012). That is to suggest that race and the practices upon which
organizations contemporarily rely to manage employees are intertwined with and have a
common history in inequity.
Occupational Demographics
While some researchers have explored ways in which organizations function, others have
queried effects of the 2008 Great Recession on labor force participation rates (LFPR) for
different racial and ethnic groups (Finnagan & Hunter, 2018; Masterton, 2018). Notable findings
from Masterton’s (2018) work includes identifying the unusual pattern of an increase in Black
employment since 2010 to 2017 while that of Whites had remained flat during this period. While
positive on one hand, his research also posits that in 2007, 2010, and 2016, Black men were
8.2%, 15%, and 6.2%, respectively, less likely to be employed than White men. Gaps between
other racial groups (e.g., Latinos and Asian American men) were significantly smaller,
suggesting the recession did not impact them to the degree it did Black men (p. 261). With
respect to occupational composition, Finnigan and Hunter (2012) found that on average, Whites
tend to be aggregated in employment scenarios that are more than 70% White. A similar pattern
holds true for Blacks and Latinos at 24% and 35% respectively. These and other findings from
their research are presented in light of the 2008 Recession and are connected to variance in work
hours. Most strikingly, Finnigan and Hunter (2012) assert that Latino and Black workers are
racialized differently, which creates, “... degrees and patterns of occupational segregation for
each group” (p. 185). Bell et al. (2014) suggest that organizational and occupational stratification
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occurs along the lines of a tri-racial hierarchy, with ethnic and racial groupings for Whites, Non-
Whites and Non-Blacks, and Blacks. Citing 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics data and also
analysis from Mason and Austin (2011), they contend that employers preferred non-Blacks, as,
“Black immigrants had the highest unemployment among foreign-born workers, at 12.4%,
compared with 11.3%, 7.4% and 7.3 %, respectively, for Hispanic, White, and Asian
immigrants” (p. 293).
Scholars have also written about what people of color experience in organizations and the
broader workforce. For example, Wingfield’s (2010) article is incredibly insightful because it
includes a rigorous yet nuanced understanding of emotional labor expended by people of color in
their workplaces. She offers that Blacks may perform emotion work or play into stereotypes in
organizations as a means of asserting themselves and navigating their employment context (p.
254). In workplaces, she also contends that managing emotions differs by race as to what
emotions are deemed appropriate or not. And for people of color especially, she observes that
race informs how and what they can emote. In the work environment, she posits that people of
color calculate the implications of their race and that of others with whom they interact, to
determine ways in which they should display emotion. Finally, she asserts that for Blacks, the
emotional labor expended is connected to the tokenism they experience in professional
environments. She describes this phenomenon as Whites or others relating to or interacting with
Blacks on the basis of Whites’ negative stereotypes or myopic understandings of them.
Relatedly, other scholars have studied racial stereotypes and people of color in the workplace,
noting its riskiness and relation to cognitive platforms (MacNab & Worthley, 2013) and its role
in the labor acquisition and management process (Pager & Karfin, 2009). Explored in the next
section is the higher education workforce and how scholars have thought about labor in this
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industry. How Black administrators and staff do and experience labor, and how they are situated
within the higher education industry landscape is critically important to understanding more
about their workplace experiences.
Labor Relations and Workforce Management in Higher Education
Academic Labor and the Higher Education Workforce
Making sense of the corporatization of American higher education, Gilbert (2013) places
academic labor in the context of the current era of increased neoliberalism. In so doing, he
unpacks the influence of the marketplace on university teaching and learning such that they and
other academic products have been privatized and appropriated for corporate purposes. Against
this backdrop, Gilbert (2013) discusses how the different working factions and communities
within the university are situated within the broader academic labor movement. Highlighting
examples involving graduate employees, clerical, technical and maintenance workers, Gilbert
(2013) documents what happens when these classifications of workers on campus come together
for better benefits and pay. Though doubtless involved in university operations, he does not
classify them under the banner of academic work. He reserves that designation, however, for
graduate students and faculty responsible for the production of intellectual work. He asserts that
the casualization of academic work, a symptom of market influence, disrupts job security for the
academic workforce, and enables contingent faculty in the contemporary academy.
Relatedly, juxtaposing data from 1969 to 2009, Kezar and Maxey (2013) explain that the
higher education industry’s reliance on non-tenure track faculty has increased from 21.7% in
1969 to 66.5% in 2009. This growth, they assert, has implications for working conditions, equal-
employment opportunities and non-discrimination, and risk management of and for non-tenure
track faculty and institutions. They contextualize the increased reliance on this group as a, “quick
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and easy fix” (p. 200) and a way for board members and administrators to decrease expenditures
amidst declining state and endowment revenues and tighter budgetary constraints given
economic recession pressures.
Though elaborating on the adjunctification of the academic workforce, Ovetz (2015) also
asserts that the corporatization of higher education is changing the very nature of academic work.
Commenting on the over-reliance on data and need for both efficiency and expediency, he
observes the reduction occurring in food service workers, groundskeepers, and office staff
person’s job responsibilities as indicative of a trend to deskill campus workers. This reduction,
he maintains, is occurring throughout the campus workforce and will result in a continued
erosion of skill and a further reconstituting of the higher education workforce. Ovetz’s (2015)
central argument is that this restructuring has occurred because of higher education’s adoption of
scientific management techniques in teaching and learning, which have resulted in a dissembling
of these processes into discrete parts to be quantified. In this frame, administrators, therefore,
support, manage, or provide accountability to faculty who teach. Using real-time data, contingent
faculty are acquired to allow institutions to better respond to market demands (e.g., class size,
new course offerings, scheduling).
Both Ovetz (2015) and Gilbert (2013) provide commentary on the academic workforce.
However, Ovetz (2015) understands academic work as being distinct from academic labor, the
former being the domain of those who teach, the latter seemingly more encompassing. Allmer
(2019) pushes in a different direction, however, adding that these two classifications must be
understood through higher education’s association with capitalism. As such, he comments that
work is germane to every society. Labor, however, only occurs in capitalism. Thus, “academic
labour is a specific historical form of academic work” (p. 605).
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Staffing and Composition
Desrochers and Kirschstein’s (2014) composition is helpful in understanding staffing
patterns in the makeup of the higher education workforce. For example, revealed in their findings
is explosive hiring growth in administrative, non-instructional roles during the 2000-2012 period.
Positions such as human resources and admissions staff, business analysts, health workers,
computer administrators, counselors, and athletic staff, whom they classify as professional
employees, grew on average by two-and-a-half to five percent per year. Growth in this arena was
only outpaced by new part-time faculty hiring, hinting at adjunctification trends (Gilbert, 2013;
Kezar & Maxey, 2013; Ott & Cisneros, 2015; Ovetz, 2015). Desrochers and Kirschstein (2014)
observe a decrease in the share of nonprofessional, middle-skilled jobs on campus (e.g., clerical,
technical, skilled craft, and service/maintenance services), 25% in 2012 versus 30-35% more
than a decade earlier (p. 11).
Concerning managerial personnel and support staff in academic institutions, scholars
have written about their varied job scope (Bray, 2010) and the challenges experienced working
in a post-recession environment (Delgado, 2011; Kuo, 2009). Facets within this group respond
differently to furloughs given their varied motivations for organizational participation (Horne et
al., 2016). This is important considering the volatile and precarious economic landscape and the
implications for employee retention.
Considered also in Rutherford and Van Der Voet’s (2018) research is institutional
staffing during periods of financial decrease. Suggested in their findings is that during periods of
fiscal turbulence, four-year schools curtail the ratio of administrators hired while increasing the
number of full-time faculty roles. At two-year colleges, full-time faculty roles are reduced when
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financial scarcity is encountered. This is followed by an initial decrease in the number of
administrators that becomes moderated after time.
Though finances are critical to hiring and staffing, so too are the mechanisms by which
personnel are employed and retained to work in postsecondary education. This is what Jackson
(2008) argues for in explaining how inequitable hiring practices result in too few African
American men being hired by colleges and universities. He suggests that factors such as bias in
screening, lack of support, and tokenism are serious challenges perpetuating such inequities.
More specifically, Jackson details the myriad issues under the umbrella of discrimination faced
by Blacks and people of color in the higher education workforce. These occur once gainfully
employed and include but are not limited to: revolving door syndrome, typecasting, one-
minority-per-pot rule, and brown-on-brown taboo. His study is also useful for the data he
provides on Black men in the academic workforce and the racialized ways job segregation
unfolds in the academy. According to Jackson (2008), this population is most principally
employed in two-year and public colleges, 38.6% and 69.10% respectively, the majority of
whom hold degrees in the natural sciences, 17.80%. At the time of this study, Black men were
least employed in Doctoral and Liberal arts colleges, 7.40% and 14.30% respectively.
Employee Management in Higher Education
Not often discussed in the literature are ways in which academic employees are managed
and evaluated for performance. Despite this dearth, however, there is some research covering
such topics. Though primarily international in scope, Decramer et al., in their (2012a; 2012b)
work, discussed ways in which external and internal influences affect higher education employee
performance management. Provided in their 2013 article, however, are cogent ideas about how
specific human resource management (HRM) practices affect different groups within the
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academic workforce. For example, they find that for non-tenured employees, higher levels of
formalization and tighter control (i.e., extensive, detailed, and continuous flows of information)
are correlated with high levels of employee performance management satisfaction. For tenured
employees, however, they do not find higher levels of vertical alignment (i.e., personal
objectives aligning with organizational or departmental mission, goals) leading to employee
management satisfaction. Though counterintuitive, an explanation offered by the authors is that
for this group, motivation and allegiance occur through their discipline or field, whereas
institutional alignment is secondary. Other literature speaks to how the organizational complexity
of campus libraries begat different personnel management strategies, workflows, and policies for
their staff, who are often underutilized beyond immediate or generalized conceptions of their
workplace contexts (Pritchard, 2011). While personnel management concepts are helpful in
thinking about the higher education workforce, so too is literature concerning campus climate.
Campus Climate
Campus climate is a topic in higher education literature that has been studied extensively
(Baird, 1990; Griffin et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2000). As such, various definitions abound,
though most concern stock-taking and meaning-making of the psychological, social, and
experiential realities of different people groups on a campus. For example, some scholars
understand campus climate as, “a combination of psychological climate, behavioral climate,
structural diversity, and institutional history” (Hurtado et al., 1998; Vaccaro, 2010, p. 202).
Others, however, have suggested that it is a summation of perceived and felt climates measured
objectively (Peterson & Spencer, 1990), which differs from those who connect it to students’
attitudes about and the complex ways they perceive the campus environment (Tierney, 1990).
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Much of the literature on this topic can be categorized in at least one of the following
ways: (a) students and the campus environment (Ancis et al., 2000; Griffin et al., 2012; Gusa,
2010; Solórzano et al., 2000; Yosso et al., 2009;); (b) faculty experiences and perceptions
(Agguire, 2000; August & Waltman, 2004; Maranoto & Griffin, 2010; Price et al., 2005; Sandler
& Hall, 1986; Smith, 2004); or (c) institutional culture and environment (Anicha et al., 2017;
Harper & Hurtado, 2007, Vaccarro, 2010). Though these categories are helpful, there is little
research examining the effects of the campus climate on administrators and staff persons of
color, nor how they encounter this phenomenon in their workplaces. Therefore, in attempting to
understand how it may be experienced by this group, insights from extant faculty climate
literature would be most applicable considering their employment relationship with institutions.
As regards faculty and campus climate, research points to a gendered connection. The
underrepresentation of women professors in postsecondary education has been linked with a
negative campus climate (Aguirre, 2000; Greene et al., 2010). For instance, Agguire (2000)
suggests that academic workplaces be further examined as a means to increase representation
among racially minoritized and women faculty. Identifying such contexts as “chilly” and
alienating for women and minority faculty, he situates their labor spaces in the context of,
“struggles over the definition of knowledge and about what it means to be a knowledgeable
person” (Aguirre, 2000, p. 3). Commenting on their heavy teaching and service loads, being used
as pawns for institutional diversity, and being assigned to the periphery, he implores readers to
contend with the social forces that shape professional socialization of these groups occurring
within and beyond their employment contexts. His work is useful not only for its commentary on
gender and what is experienced in the academic environment, but also because it connects
climate to job satisfaction, a theme referenced in other literature as well (Greene et al., 2010;
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Maranto & Griffin, 2010). Reported in other research on gender and faculty climate is the higher
likelihood of women to report negative climate experiences than men, and their perceptions of
the work climate as being problematic and unwelcoming (Greene et al., 2010). Of note, however,
is the notion advanced by Greene et al. (2010) that negative climate experiences for women
faculty may have a “weathering” or “cascading” effect impacting women’s career aspirations at
the graduate level, further exacerbating gender underrepresentation (p. 381). Adding to this is
Maranto and Griffin’s (2010) understanding that departmental and work climate affect work
outcomes for women faculty, which is tied to job satisfaction.
Institutional climate has also been studied in the literature. Researchers have sought to
understand different aspects of campus culture and how it affects the environment of those
employed or enrolled therein. In fact, Anicha et al. (2017) suggest that the campus climate is
integral to supporting an institution's diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. They assert that a
successful marker of achieving such progress are campus workplace climates in which openness
to diverse beliefs and sociocultural praxes are actively fostered. Such an idea is similar to what
Wolfe and Dilworth (2015) promote. That is, being able to maximize higher education work
environments to supposedly strengthen institutions, which increases their likelihood of continued
success (p. 672).
Gusa’s (2010) work takes into account the situated nature of climate at PWIs. In so
doing, he unpacks how White cultural ideology is embedded into the language, culture, practices,
traditions, and perception of knowledge at PWIs. As such, he argues that these mechanisms
allow these kinds of institutions to remain racialized in ways perpetuating a hostile campus
climate. Ideas in this work are helpful in understanding ways in which institutional practices at
34

organizational and departmental levels are racialized and steeped in White supremacy, and how
they contribute to institutional climate.
While campus climate literature has undoubtedly been focused on students and faculty,
there are some studies in which the voices of other employees are more prominently featured. In
their seminal piece, Harper and Hurtado (2007) use findings from staff and students to
thematically group institutional climate perceptions. Their work is useful in seeing the detailed
ways institutional stakeholders and group members observe affairs on their campus and interpret
their racialized implications. Their research is notable for how participants clearly identified
institutional gaps with respect to actions, practices, and behaviors contributing to inequities and
negative campus climate. In like fashion, Vaccarro’s (2010) article also amplifies and centers
staff voices as they relate to institutional climate. Going beyond seemingly positive surface-level
climate data, he uncovers sexism, racism, and gendered hostility towards equity initiatives in his
data pointing to institution-wide undercurrents. This work is useful for contending with how
campus actors’ resistance to diversity and equity contribute to institutional climate. His finding
that campus climate affects women and men differently is also worth noting as it is corroborated
by other research.
Insights from campus climate literature for students could also be illuminating despite
this group holding a different classification in the university ecosystem than staff and
administrators. One notion is that students are “canaries in the coal mine” (Gusa, 2010), often
experiencing symptoms of the campus climate before staff and faculty. That is, what students
experience in the climate will undoubtedly affect others who work on the campus. Another idea
is that institutional microaggressions (Solórzano et al., 2000) (i.e., recurring structural
35

invalidations) provide a foundation for more explicit campus racial crises to occur (Davis &
Harris, 2015).
While campus climate literature is a vast depth to be explored and from which future
research can be generated, more clear delineation of terms in the research is needed. For
example, scholars refer to the academic climate (Greene et al., 2010; Maranto & Griffin, 2010)
but it is not known definitively if this concept refers to the domain of faculty or instructors,
course rigor, or ways in which campus actors engage scholarly affairs. Also, worth clarifying are
differences between organizational culture and institutional climate (Schneider et al., 2013).
Perhaps in coming to more refined understandings about campus climate, readers might be able
to better make connections between such bodies of work and modern-day manifestations of
racism in campus work sites.
Race and the Higher Education Workforce
Much has been said about ways in which college campuses have grappled with race
(Ahmed, 2012; Davis & Harris, 2015; Dowd & Bensinmon, 2015; Harper & Hurtado, 2007).
While literature covering race and higher education over the last twenty-plus years has been
broad and largely focused on student and faculty experiences, quite little has covered campus
workplaces as unique sites and producers of racism and hostility. Despite this, however, Dancy
et al. (2018) provide an intellectual product linking higher education’s historical racialized
origins with contemporary manifestations of racialized labor in the academy. They posit that the
same racialized philosophies of labor germane to the settler-colonial project are embedded within
U.S. colleges and universities, specifically predominantly White institutions. As such, they
assert that these contexts are sites of anti-Blackness primarily because of how the Black body in
academe is considered “property” (p. 183). For example, “Black people erected the buildings,
36

cooked the food, and cleaned the dormitories and yet were not understood as laborers, but as
property” (p. 182). By this, they mean that Black personhood is distinguished from the Black
body, which is understood to be an instrument of labor that institutions can exploit and to which
they can lay claim. They contend that Black employees in higher education are situated as
“always-already” (p. 180). That is, in the mind of Whites, Blacks are at once already understood
as nothing more than bodies primed for labor within the higher education industrial complex and
always will be nothing more than such.
Detailing the ways colonial holdovers intermingle with Black labor on U.S.
campuses, Dancy, Edwards, and Davis (2018) cite the differential work experiences and
expectations placed on Black women, Black men, and Black athletes. Wingfield (2007) also
considers a similar phenomenon in higher education and links such patterns to historically
racialized tropes. She contends that for professional Black men and women, racism is gendered
in that in their workplaces, they are seen by others as “mammies” and “angry Black men”.
Showing how this idea manifests in academe, she includes an example of a Black woman higher
education administrator experiencing a racialized incident from a subordinate. She does this to
show that higher education work contexts are environments where Black women are expected to
comply with unreasonable demands; show unshakable loyalty to the institution; and be in
positions of susceptibility to exploitation or disparagement while sacrificing their personal lives
for the well-being of others (p. 202). The combination of these characteristics for Black women
in such contexts is what Collins (2004) and Wingfield (2007) effectively call “the modern
Mammy”. The through line between Dancy et al.’s (2018) and Wingfield’s (2007) work is that
presented within both are ways in which Blackness is policed or tightly controlled in higher
education labor contexts. In similar fashion, DeCuir-Gunby and Gunby (2016) document racism
37

in postsecondary workplaces, though focusing on microaggressions occurring therein. Using
Critical Race Theory, they explain that campus workplaces are sites of racism because of the
frequency with which microaggressions are experienced by people of color. Their work is
helpful in better understanding links between how Black higher education employees cope with
discrimination, and its impact on their racial identity and job satisfaction. Findings from their
study suggest higher education employees of color were more likely to work in predominantly
White settings. In addition, they posit that because of this, they experience more
microaggressions working in an environment that is consequently less racially diverse. At the
very least, this is owing to, “the standardization and normalization of Black people’s exclusion
from faculty, staff, and student bodies” (Mustaffa, 2017, p. 720) sustained through anti-Black
mechanisms. It is not surprising then that the intractability with which racism persists at campus
work sites could induce feelings and senses affecting one’s psyche and well-being.

Racial Stress and Racial Battle Fatigue
Studying a campus’ racial climate is an investigation into the racial realities of particular
people groups. It is a process used to diagnose the many ways systems in which they are situated
mitigate their well-being in postsecondary contexts. It is also useful in capturing psychosocial
dynamics affecting employees that other instruments fail to detect. One such example is the
concept of racial stress, a recurring sense of endangerment affecting the lives of people of color
due to overt or covert acts of racial oppression

(Pierce, 1995). Also known as race-related stress,
it is defined as, “the race-related transactions between individuals or groups and their
environment that emerge from the dynamics of racism, and that are perceived to tax or exceed
existing individual and collective resources or threaten wellbeing” (Harrell, 2000, p. 44). Harrell
38

elaborates on how these transactions, also known as stressors, occur across various domains of
life such as work (p. 45). Affecting people of color in at least five ways: physical, psychological,
functional, social, and spiritual (Clark et al., 1999; Harrell, 2000; Levy et al., 2016), the degree to
which it is experienced is correlated with the racial composition of a particular context (i.e.,
work) (Harrell, 2000). In a racially hostile work environment, when people of color decide to
suppress or speak out on racial incidents therein, ways in which they cope could have
implications for their well-being, a consequence of race-related stress (Harrell, 2000, p. 51).
Interestingly, both suppression and coping have been found by other scholars to be mechanisms
by which people of color navigate workplaces (DeCuire-Gundy & Gundy, 2016; Wingfield,
2007).
Articulated in the idea of racial stress is the unrelenting, ubiquitous, and perpetual racial
oppression experienced uniquely by employees of color on a hostile campus. A manifestation of
which is the heightened and sustained state of anxiety experienced by them when a racist act
occurs on a campus. Pierce (1995) describes this as an omnipresent feeling of oppression, often
felt when the dominant group exerts power over others. He likens this stress to the kind that is
experienced by terror and torture victims in the way that they are seemingly always on “edge”.
He classifies racial oppression as a type of public health illness characterized by stress and
violence.
The cumulative effects of racial stress also impact employees’ psychological stasis. For
example, Jones et al. (2007) observe that for Blacks, chronic exposure to race-related stressors
has an adverse effect on mental health and can cause negative emotional reactions. They also cite
links between racial discrimination (King, 2005), depression, and psychological distress among
Blacks. The amount of extant psychological literature on Blacks and race-related stress
39

synthesized in their study is valuable. Of note, however, are their insights on the ways that race-
related stress is uniquely gendered for Black women. One of their findings suggests that for this
group, attitudes about racial identity act as a moderating variable between race-related stress and
mental health. Those with a higher multicultural or racialized identity score were less depressed
than those whose were lower. This is especially important given the varying degrees of racial
awareness and identity held by higher education employees of color.
Racial battle fatigue, “the cumulative psychosocial–physiological impact of racial micro and
macroaggressions on racially marginalized targets” (Smith et al., 2016, p. 1192) is a way to
understand what faculty of color experience in their work contexts. Frequent and concomitant
with other phenomena, it is experienced on college campuses at group and individual levels with
taxing effects. Smith (2004) discusses coping mechanisms used by Black faculty when they
encounter negative incidents triggering racial stress and eventually leading to racial battle
fatigue.
Though it seems racial stress is part of the academic workplace, few, if any, studies to
date have explicitly investigated how this phenomenon affects staff and administrators of color
in postsecondary work contexts. The literature could also benefit from more research including
and centering the experiences of other racially minoritized populations (i.e., Latinx and Asian
Americans). Beyond microaggressions, it is not known how other interactions and behaviors
contribute to and sustain racial stress for people of color in postsecondary work
environments. Though more research is needed in this area, literature on faculty of color in
higher education is helpful in the overall task of learning about ways that work is racialized for
employees of color.
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Faculty of Color in Higher Education
Gender
Gender and race are topics that have consistently intersected in the faculty of color
literature. Most research in this body of knowledge, however, has tended to focus on faculty
women of color. Regarding this, much has been said about the ways in which they navigate
academic environments (Chang et al., 2013; Harley, 2008); their history in higher education
(Gregory, 2001); and barriers they have traversed creating careers for themselves in this field
(Alfred, 2001a; Alfred, 2001b; Benjamin, 1997; Kelly & McCann, 2014). Scholars investigating
how gender and race intersect for faculty of color in the academy have often concluded that the
academic environment for this population is unwelcoming and laden with racial oppression
(Cobb-Roberts, 2011; Ford, 2011; Pittman, 2010).
Additional scholarship in this topical area has revealed that identity, in particular, how it
is maintained, performed, and challenged, is of critical importance. For example, Marbley et al.
(2011) have written about the multiple identities women faculty of color bring to the academy.
These scholars explain how this group labors to balance their multifaceted ways of being in
higher education contexts, ever negotiating between the extremes of self-determination and
marginalization. Ford (2011) has written about how the physical bodies of women faculty of
color, an extension of their social identity, have been politicized, managed, and policed in higher
education by colleagues, students, and others. Writing about Latina faculty, Gonzales et al.
(2013) have explored the ongoing ethnic and racial identity construction in which some in this
group engage in an attempt to perform their roles in the context of a Hispanic serving institution.
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Black Faculty
There is a wealth of information available regarding Black faculty in higher education.
Literature in this category follows discernible patterns of being grouped by what they experience
in higher education contexts broadly and how they navigate specific institutional environments
(i.e., PWIs). Also present is research about the underrepresentation of this community in the
postsecondary landscape. As far back as the late 1990s, Allen et al. (2000) argued that the low
rate at which this group has reached the professoriate is inextricably tied to higher education’s
inequitable social foundations.
Other research on Black faculty has captured what it is like for them at PWIs and in
specific academic programs. Butner et al. (2000) have articulated the dissimilar perspectives
between Black faculty and various members of such institutions. Collaboration, collegiality, and
community-building with other Black professors at PWIs are strategies offered by the authors as
ways for this group to assuage frustrations common to the context in which they are employed
and situated. Writing about PWIs, other scholars have traced the institutional incorporation of
Black faculty against regional and historical racial legacies (Weems, 2003). And scholars such as
Patton and Catching (2009) have investigated this groups’ experiences instructing in student
affairs programs. More contemporary research has accounted for microaggressions experienced
by Black faculty at PWIs (Louis et al., 2016).
Evidence also exists that mentoring is part and parcel of the Black professorial
experience. Griffin (2012) writes about the ways in which Black graduate students are socialized
and prepared to engage faculty roles vis-a-vie mentoring relationships with more senior Black
faculty. Commenting on the uniqueness of the mentoring relationships among these two groups,
she shares that Black professors are able to offer a more distinct form of support and
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encouragement to students of color given shared racialized experiences (p. 28). Tillman (2001) is
another researcher who highlights the significance of mentoring as it pertains to Black faculty.
What differentiates her work for other scholars in this area is her emphasis on faculty-to-faculty
mentoring as it occurs in a PWI context. Explicated in other research on this group is what they
experience in the classroom (McGowan, 2000) and how they cope with racial battle fatigue in
postsecondary contexts (Smith, 2004).
Latinx Faculty
Similar to the work on Black faculty, literature on Latino faculty is voluminous in its
repertoire. Barriers to the profession, how students perceive them, and tenure are recurring
themes in this category of research. What follows is a brief synthesis of research on this group.
Saldaña et al.’s (2013) work on Latina junior faculty is insightful because of their use of
Chicana feminist and critical race theories to investigate emergent scholarly identities. They add
to the literature by, “documenting the different experiences of Latina junior faculty across
institutional settings” (p. 46), a perspective that hitherto had not been well researched. In
addition, they also argue that gender gaps in the academy will continue to persist because of,
“expectations and policies that are odds with societal and cultural female norms” (p. 46).
Considered also in literature on Latino faculty are means by which this group can be
better recruited into the professoriate. Ideas around this theme are often discussed against the
demographic increase of this racial group in the United States. Examples of this include articles
from De Luca and Escoto (2012) and Delgado-Romero et al. (2007).
Important to facilitating pathways to the professoriate for Latinos is mentoring. Similar to
research on Black faculty, it is not surprising that this theme is apparent given inequities in the
professional pipeline and culturally inhospitable campuses. Using distinct cultural terms, Suriel
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and Martinez (2016) elaborate on how mentoring assists with aiding Latina/o faculty balance
personal and professional lives to find success in the academy. Highlighted in other research is
the importance and necessity of Latino faculty serving as mentors for Latino/a and other students
of color (Figueroa & Rodriguez, 2015).
Provided in texts such as Castellanos and Jones’ (2003) seminal work are ways to better
understand challenges Latino faculty have encountered. Murakami and Nuñez (2014) offer that
Latino/a faculty members still face significant barriers to professional advancement, not the least
of which include invisibility, isolation, and overt and covert racism, sexism, and classism (p.
285). Similarly, Urrieta et al. (2015) point to institutional and ideological structures (e.g., norms
of confidentiality/secrecy regarding scholarly rank and promotion) that marginalize and
frequently result in the denial of tenure for Latino/a faculty. Far from isolated events, these
scholars argue that the “chilly”, alienating, and often hostile academic climates in which Latino/a
faculty work routinely precipitate racial microaggressions and devaluations of their intellectual
labor.
Asian American and Native American Faculty
Though there is literature concerning the careers and experiences of Asian American
faculty, it is not as robust as research on Black and Latino faculty in U.S. postsecondary
contexts. While not as extensive, there are themes in this knowledge body and for this group that
differentiate it from others that have been previously studied. For example, visibility/invisibility
is a challenge often associated with Asian American faculty. This is likely due to the “model
minority” stereotype cast onto Asian American faculty, and the ways in which cultural biases
reinforce perceptions of this group as perpetual “outsiders” (Hune, 1998). Attempts have been
made by scholars to disaggregate and distinguish between faculty experiences of Asian, Asian
44

American and other ethnic subgroups related to this racial category (Sands et al., 1991) and the
degree to which acculturation between and among these groups is experienced in the
professoriate (Nguyen et al., 2007). Scholarship on Asian American faculty has included
studying pipelines into the professoriate (Chen & Hune, 2011) as well as “glass ceilings” they
may encounter once they arrive (Lee, 2002). Other ways scholars have discussed Asian
American faculty are how they experience students’ perceptions of their instructional ability and
how they have achieved success as pedagogues in spite of (Hune, 2011).
Sadly, much less research exists concerning Native American faculty in higher education.
Those who have written about this group have discussed the importance of their roles in
supporting Native American student success (Tippeconnic Fox, 2005) and joys, challenges, and
achievements experienced in their higher education careers (Elliott et al., 2010; Tippeconnic
Fox, 2008). Other works, however, have attempted to document the distribution of Native
American women faculty in STEM disciplines (Towns, 2010). Though scant, there is some
literature in which the roles, research development, and issues of Native American faculty at
tribal colleges and mainstream institutions is reviewed (Tippeconnic & McKinney, 2003).
Though literature bodies for these groups are small, there seems to be a tendency for scholars to
focus on the gendered experiences, particularly women, of Asian American and Native American
faculty (Chen & Hune, 2011; Elliott et al., 2010; Hune, 1998, 2011; Li & Beckett, 2006;
Tippeconnic Fox, 2008; Towns, 2010).
Hiring Faculty of Color
Given the sustained underrepresentation of faculty of color on many campuses, scholars
have also attempted to understand hiring for this group. Several mechanisms are involved in the
faculty employment process; one is outreach and recruitment. Thompson (2008) suggests that to
45

diversify the pool of applicants for faculty positions, institutions actively promote the programs
and measures they have taken to attract racially diverse candidates to the professoriate.
Accordingly, she continues, this requires institutions to create recruitment committees tasked
with outreach to people of color. Revealed, however, in a review of racial minority faculty
recruitment literature by Turner and Myers (2000) is that often, the cause of failed efforts to
directly market to this group comes from a lack of committed leadership at multiple levels.
Explored in other literature are strategic means by which racially diverse faculty hiring is
enacted. One example is Tuitt et al.’s (2007) writing, in which they draw upon job-market
signaling from economics (Spence, 1973; 2002), management, sociology, and higher education
literatures to develop a model for racially diverse faculty hiring. In light of their research on the
topic, Smith et al. (2004) provide a handful of suggestions to aid colleges and universities in
successfully hiring faculty of color. These include but are not limited to understanding
organizational processes for success; questioning the usual in terms of how regular search and
hiring processes are conducted; and evaluating and monitoring successful departmental and
campus practices. Notwithstanding, in more contemporary research from Muñoz et al. (2017),
the authors use CRT to question the integrity and effectiveness of faculty diversification methods
such as cluster hires.
Tenure, Retention, and Job Satisfaction
Explored also in research literature concerning faculty of color in higher education are
issues related to tenure and promotion, as well as retention and job satisfaction. One example is
Whitaker et al.’s (2015) article, in which they explicate the significant implications of racialized
minority faculty underrepresentation and the lack of deliberate institutional retention efforts.
Suggested in their work is that institutions do not retain this population because they have failed
46

to adequately engage URMs (Underrepresented Minorities) and place value on their skills and
contributions. In addition, a host of other factors such as being repeatedly subjected to
stereotypes, which reduces self-efficacy; continuous questioning of their scholarly relevance and
productivity; and being made to survive in an academic climate in which they are not well
supported or resourced make faculty of color feel devalued and lose confidence, and, “often
instill[s] a sense of powerlessness among URM faculty that routinely hastens their departure
from the academy” (p. 138). In such roles, being retained a precarious affair, but so also is the
path to obtain tenure. Numerous scholars have chronicled the persistent challenges and obstacles
faced by faculty of color in securing what amounts to a limited quantity of tenured
professorships (Kezar & Maxey, 2013) in the postsecondary landscape (Aldridge, 2001; Essien
2003; Gregory, 2001; McGowan, 2000; Niemann, 1999; Solórzano, 1998; Solórzano, et al.,
2000; Smith & Anderson, 2005; Stanley, 2006; Turner, 2002, 2003; Turner & Myers, 2000;
Turner et al., 1999; Vargas 2002). Common among them are experiences with racism and bias,
and an often-discriminatory culture permeating the academy (Garrison-Wade et al.,
2012). There is also research in which the job satisfaction of faculty has been investigated
(Bozeman & Gaughan, 2011; Chung & Kowalski, 2012; Waltman et al., 2012). Few articles,
however, have explicitly considered differences in this measure as they occur by race. Though
nascent, an example of this is scholarship from Ali (2009), whose findings indicate that Asian
American faculty in particular derive significant intrinsic satisfaction from their academic
careers. More research is needed in this area to better understand factors contributing to some
racial groups being more satisfied in their academic careers, and how inequities in distribution of
labor connect to an overwhelming proportion of different raced faculty not being “very satisfied”
with their workload (p. 299).
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Contemporary Research and Seminal Contributions
The cannon of research on faculty of color in higher education is quite comprehensive.
Though not everything that can be known has been researched about this group, much can be
understood about their experiences in postsecondary contexts. More contemporary scholarship,
however, has been focused on ways in which this population interacts with students of diverse
backgrounds. Examples include Cole and Griffin’s (2013) extensive literature review in which
student and faculty of color interaction scholarship is specifically highlighted. Similar work by
Newman (2015) points to the educational benefits and importance of faculty of color engaging
with students of color in STEM disciplines. There is perhaps no other more comprehensive work
in which the literature on faculty of color is amassed and synthesized than Turner et al.’s (2008)
article in which 252 publications were analyzed. Covering national, institutional, and
departmental contexts, the authors organize and present themes by grouping literature according
to love for teaching; service; research; job satisfaction; teaching challenges; isolation and
marginalization; bias in hiring; and unjust work expectations, among many others. Unique in
their contribution to the field, Turner et al. (2008) provide readers one of the most, if not, clearest
distillations of what has been researched about this group over the last 20 years. What is known
about faculty of color is broad and well-documented despite there being more than enough room
for additional areas of inquiry. However, given the scope project, research on administrators of
color in higher education provides a more immediate context for the topic of study. Indeed, such
literature gives credence to the notion that Black administrators and staff experience racial
hostility in their workplaces, leaving open the opportunity to better explore how they navigate
such encounters.
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Administrators of Color in Higher Education
Racial Challenges at Work
Scholarship on administrators of color in higher education has been written about the
institutional types at which they work and what they experience in those contexts. For those
employed at PWIs, research makes known that the organizational culture of such institutions has
a marginalizing effect on racially minoritized administrators (Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015). In fact,
Wolfe and Dilworth (2015) posit that race, culture, and history come together in such a way as to
frame institutional landscapes promoting the normalization of White privilege (p. 670). This in
part, explains the various “isms” administrators of color experience leading to often early role
departures (Holmes, 2003, 2004). Wolfe and Dilworth (2015) suggest that for Black
administrators at PWIs, contending with, “…inhospitable campus environments, isolation,
alienation, marginalization, unrealistic role expectations, limited advancement opportunities,
feelings of powerlessness, tokenism, and the lack of mentoring and sponsorship” (p. 676) have
all indeed contributed to attrition. In fact, documented in the literature is a mass exodus of this
demographic from such roles throughout the 1990s (Holmes, 2004; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015).
Though stable in some ways, such roles provide limited career security and reprieve. For
even the ways in which Black and other administrators of color can exert and express leadership
is curtailed both by force of structure and environment. Examples Wolfe and Dilworth (2015)
cite of institutions intentionally diminishing their capacity by such means include: institutional
justification for consolidating and cutting staffing costs in affirmation and equal employment
opportunity offices on campus; tokenism- using demographics to co-opt and placate appeals for
organizational racial diversity; and enacting color-blind practices and policies masking the
social, economic, political advantage of Whites (p. 682). Other scholars have linked what staff
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and administrators of color experience on campus with institutional culture. Otherness from
tokenism; stress from negotiating a campus culture that contrasts with held values; burn-out from
over-proving; professional isolation; questioning of judgement and decision-making; and
enduring a caste system based on role type are all realities named by staff of color who have
worked at PWIs (Gomez et al., 2015). Indeed, racial microaggressions are also among the
negative behaviors that befall student affairs staff and administrators on such campuses (Ricks,
2017). Such experiences, however, are not just relegated to entry or mid-level staff persons, but
also occur amongst more seasoned higher education leaders of color. For example, even after
maneuvering through an inequitable education pipeline, even if people of color do persist to
senior leadership opportunities, they have to navigate and negotiate historical legacies, prejudice,
and racism that persists across PWIs (Gasman et al., 2015). Other scholars have documented
well the work experiences of racially minoritized administrators and how they have navigated
patterns of racism, sexism, and other systems of power in the academy (Chun & Evans, 2015).
Composition and Hiring
Described also in the research literature is the uneven composition and distribution of
administrators of color in higher education. For example, according to 2016 data, people of color
held only just 17% of all college presidencies in U.S. postsecondary education (Gagliardi et al.,
2017). In the realm of student affairs staffing, the picture for people of color hired in such
positions is quite dismal despite higher education’s increasing racial diversification at the
undergraduate level. For instance, Pritchard and McChesney (2018) report that eight percent of
student affairs professionals are Latino and only three percent of them are Asian. Compared
against student enrollment projections for these populations, the inequity becomes starker.
Obviously, this is a missed opportunity for colleges and universities given the unique ways these
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professionals support and work with diverse groups of students of color (Luedke, 2017). Often
also underrepresented in deanships, chairs, and directorships, the small quantity of academic
leaders of color holding such roles is, “mitigated by several factors, including poor and failed job
searches, as well as diminishing and erratic interest in diversifying the administrative ranks in
higher education” (Flowers & Moore, 2008, p. 72). This issue, however, has persisted for quite
some time, being documented as early as the late 1980s (Collins, 1990). The complexity of
increasing representation for professionals of color in these roles is often confounded by cultural
biases in the search and hiring process (Kayes, 2006), among other historic, systemic, and
structural barriers.
Latino Administrators in Higher Education
While underrepresented in positions of influence on campus, much literature exists
concerning Latino administrators in postsecondary education. For nearly 20 years, scholars have
documented the experiences and trajectories of this racial group in college leadership,
management, and staff capacities (Castellaños & Jones, 2003; Haro & Lara, 2003; Hernandez,
2017; Montas-Hunter, 2012; Silva, 2007). This broad literature includes challenges and
triumphs, as well discussions on ways in which they have navigated personal and cultural values
alignment in being hired into such roles (Canul, 2003). Recorded in the research on this
population is their ascendancy to executive roles and presidencies in diverse institutional types,
such as community colleges (de los Santos & Vega, 2008; Léon & Neverez, 2007; Muñoz,
2009), and also their preparation in the pipeline to assume such positions (Rodríguez et al.,
2016). While an overwhelming amount of higher education literature has been written about
Latino students and faculty, it would not be surprising if more current research is produced
51

concerning Latino staff and administrators, especially as the population of this racial
demographic continues to increase.
By comparison, it is quite difficult to ascertain research centering the experiences,
trajectories, and narratives of Asian American and Native American higher education
administrators. This is surprising considering that there are well over 100 Asian American and
Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions and more than twenty tribal colleges
comprising the U.S. postsecondary education landscape (Rutgers Center for Minority Serving
Institutions, 2018). In addition, gender seems to be a category under discussed in the
administrator of color literature. Though passing references to what women of color as
administrators are challenged with (Harley, 2008), there is little research on how their roles are
experienced through the prism of their gender and race. Despite these gaps, there does seem to be
an increase in recent research on the role of Chief Diversity Officer and people of color who
assume that position (Arnold, & Kowalski-Braun, 2012; Leon, 2014; Wilson, 2013; Worthington
et al., 2014). Research literature on administrators of color provides a body of work from which
insights might be gleaned to better comprehend the racialized workplace experiences of Black
administrators and staff. Still, I maintain, however, that Black staff and administrators experience
racially hostile workplaces and that not enough is known about how they navigate such
encounters. Therefore, while my research study has been conducted to pursue this goal, a helpful
initial step is extracting from the most relevant literature sources. Thus, research on Black staff
and administrators is reviewed in the next section.
Black Staff and Administrators in Higher Education
While research has been conducted in which the racialized experiences of Black staff
persons and administrators have been centered, it is comparatively less than what has been
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written about faculty of color in general and Black faculty in particular. One of the earliest
attempts to understand college employees holding non-academic rank was Moore’s (1982)
national of study college administrators. Largely focused on women and racialized minorities,
her findings provide data points and context for a host of issues that have and continue to plague
higher education. She found that racially minoritized persons made up just slightly over eight
percent of her sample of 2,896 respondents. According to her data, staff positions occupied most
frequently by persons of color included registrar, librarian, and director of financial aid. She also
found that more than half of administrators of color were employed in public colleges and
universities. While notable for its data analysis and the picture provided of people of color in
staff and administrator roles, the work is also important because it lays a foundation to more
effectively study Black staff and administrators as a distinct category. This is a group who
hitherto had been discussed as, “window dressing” given their limited power and scope at PWIs
(Johnson, 1969) and who were also found to be concentrated at HBCUs and in low-level
positions at PWIs (Hoskins, 1978; Jones, 1977). Other works prior to the 1990s included
scholars making sense of hiring Black staff and administrators in light of Affirmative Action
policies (Sudarkasa, 1987) and contending with such employment as a means to, “pacify the
Black community and/or to demonstrate that the hiring institution is an "equal opportunity
employer” (Smith, 1978, p. 325). Researchers would continue to discuss the appearance of Black
administrators with little or no corresponding institutional power (Cunningham, 1992).
In the decade to follow, scholars would begin to more deliberately study the experiences
of Black administrators in higher education. An example of this is Bridges’ (1996) research on
the characteristics enabling career achievement and success of African American college
administrators. Analyzing the survey results from 245 Black administrators drawn from public
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land -grant institutions, Bridges’ (1996) results indicate that this group considers mentorship,
written and oral communication, and educational preparation as integral to their career success.
With regard to Black deans at schools of social work, House et al.’s (2007) research also
examined professional traits of this administrative group while also presenting their personal and
demographic characteristics, as well as challenges and success in their roles. Other literature
during the 2000s was focused on the rate at which and how institutional equity has been achieved
for Black administrators in the South (Perna et al., 2007) and the progress of Blacks in the higher
education administrative workforce (Jackson & Daniels, 2007). More contemporary research has
considered the low rates at which Blacks obtain top administrative roles as being illustrative of
biased institutional and structural barriers that continue to impede their career trajectory (Banks
et al., 2018) and how, sadly, such impediments have become embedded organizational norms
deeply impacting this group (Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015). Indeed, even media outlets, such as
reported by Whitford (2020), have commented on pipeline issues, inequitable valuations of
labor, and poor institutional fit as attendant issues related to the dearth of Black administrators in
the top ranks of the higher education ecosystem.
Gender
As with much population-specific research, the literature concerning Black staff and
administrators accounts for different gendered experiences in their roles. A considerable amount
of what has been written is, however, focused on Black women, going as far back as the 1980s
(Harvard, 1986; Mosley, 1980; Williams, 1989). Addressed in the scholarship on Black women
administrators in higher education are the difficulties they face compared to White women in
obtaining higher positions (Smith, 1985); career choices leading to current and future roles
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(Williams, 1990); and the combination of sexism and racism they experience in performing their
duties (Singh et al., 1995).
Other scholars have extensively studied and added to the body of work concerning the
barriers encountered by Black women in administrative roles (Allen-Brown, 1998; Benjamin,
1997; Jean-Marie, 2003; Patitu & Hinton, 2003; Ramey, 1995), which include inequities
resulting from their intersecting identities (Jean-Marie et al., 2009; Lloyd-Jones, 2009), and
occurring even in functional areas supposedly more tolerant (i.e., student affairs) (Holmes,
2003). Qualitative in nature, other literature has explored not often discussed functional areas
such as college sports and the racial realties of Black female athletic administrators in such
contexts (Abney & Richey, 1991; McDowell & Cunningham, 2009).
There are few studies in which Black male higher education staff persons or
administrators are centered (Scott, 2016). What is available suggests, “that in order to increase
the representation of African-American males in academic administrative positions at colleges
and universities, additional attention must be placed on each phase of the educational pipeline to
increase the pool of eligible candidates” (Jackson, 2003, p. 43). Overall, the literature on gender
for Black staff and administrators has largely been problem-focused. Indeed, there is a place for
assessing and better understanding issues related to this population. However, this body of work
could stand to be broadened by the inclusion of more asset-based scholarship on the successes of
both Black women and men who navigate perilous workplace contexts in higher education staff
and administrator roles.
Black Staff and Administrators at HBCUs and PWIs
Research on Black staff and administrators has also taken into account the types of
institutions at which they are employed. Earlier writings observed that this group was
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concentrated largely at HBCUs and quite minimally at PWIs (Hoskins, 1978; Jones, 1977). As
research in this category continued to bloom, scholars began asking different questions about
Black staff and administrators at HBCUs and PWIs. For example, Swann and Witty (1980) asked
if Black women administrators at traditionally Black colleges faced less discrimination, societal
pressures, or ambivalence about their success. One scholar, in particular, has written extensively
about Black administrators at HBCUs. Explored in Gaetane Jean-Marie’s research portfolio at
length are Black women administrators at HBCUs and their experiences in such leadership roles
(2002; 2004; 2005; 2006; 2008; Jean-Marie & Normore, 2006; Jean-Marie & Tickles, 2017).
Student affairs professionals are also part of the conversation on Black administrators at HBCUs
(Hirt et al., 2008). Other scholars studying Black administrators at PWIs have concentrated on
ways they navigate their roles in such schools (Rolle et al., 2000) and retention strategies focused
on professional growth (Jackson, 2001) and engagement (Jackson, 2004b). An example is
research from Gardner et al. (2014), who find that mentoring, healthy self-image and motivation,
as well as social networks and family support enable adjustment of Black administrators at
PWIs. Conversely, factors mitigating adjustment included barriers such as perceptions of
prejudice; feelings of separateness or difference; and institutional discrimination. Studying Black
administrators at both HBCUs and PWIs, DeCuir-Gunby et al. (2019) cite instances of race-
related stress experienced in the workplace and how their participants used adaptive and
maladaptive strategies to cope.
Position Type
In addition to institutional type, scholars have also written about experiences, challenges,
and realities germane to Black administrators serving in student affairs roles. More recent
examples include scholarly works by West (2015, 2017), who has studied Black women in such
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capacities. Others such as Jackson and Flowers (2003) have researched retention for Black
student affairs administrators; patterns of staffing for this group at HBCUs (Harper &
Kimbrough, 2005); and the degree to which they are represented in the postsecondary landscape
(Flowers, 2003). Senior-level roles and Black administrators has also been a topic explored in the
literature. Related works include Jackson’s (2004a) descriptive analysis of retention and
advancement trends and Gamble and Turner’s (2015) article on Black women’s executive-level
career ascension. Suggested in recent scholarship on presidents at HBCUs, is that such offices
would benefit from more systematic and intentional succession plans (Freeman & Gasman,
2014).
Conclusion
Themes from Wolfe and Dilworth (2015) are applicable in summarizing the literature and
state of affairs concerning Black staff and administrators in higher education: (a) Blacks have
struggled to achieve equitable participation in education, especially as it pertains to
representation in the administrative workforce; (b) institutions mirror racial inequities of larger
society, reflected in practices and operations, and even in the composition and selection of Black
staff and administrators; and finally, (c) research literature on the underrepresentation of Black
administrators and staff has overwhelmingly been focused on the strategic dimensions of policies
and processes but less so on the career experiences and sociocultural development of this group
(p. 670). Other ways this body of work could be improved is through the addition of more
research explicitly considering staff and other underdiscussed positions (e.g., food service
workers, groundskeepers), as most is about administrators. More scholarship is needed on Black
male administrators and their experiences, as well as research in which data on Black
administrators and staff is disaggregated into ethnic subgroups.
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Chapter Three: Research Methods
The purpose of this chapter is to present the methodology used to conduct research on
how Black staff and administrators experience racism in their higher education workplaces. This
work is a qualitative study that uses a portraiture approach (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997),
as it allows experiences to be explored and understood from the point of view of the participants.
This chapter is organized to commence with a discussion on phenomenological philosophy and
qualitative inquiry, and is then proceeded by an explanation of the suitability of portraiture
methods for this study. Sections concerning data collection, participant criteria, data analysis,
trustworthiness of the researcher, ethical issues, and limitations then follow.
Research Questions
The goal of this study is to better understand race-based harm and discrimination that
Black staff and administrators incur in their places of employment. To this end, the research is
centered around the following questions:
1. How do Black staff and administrators experience and navigate racially hostile campus
workplaces?
2. What strategies do Black administrators and staff employ to excel in a racially hostile
campus workplace?
3. How do Black staff and administrators in racially unsupportive work environments
conceptualize success?
4. What makes Black staff and administrators in racially hostile workplaces stay?
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Methodological Approach: Portraiture
Philosophical Foundation: Phenomenology
Understanding phenomenology as a research methodology is best complimented by first
considering its historical development as a twentieth-century paradigm. Its philosophical bent
informs how this method of research is operationalized. For it assumes there is an essential
perceived reality shared by people with common features (Starks & Trinidad, 2007). Further,
within this notion is the idea that human beings’ subjective understandings and apprehensions of
what they experience as realities in their worlds can be ascertained such that essences or
universals of said experiences are distilled (Katsirikou & Lin, 2017).
From the Greek phaenesthai, which means to flare up, to show itself, or to appear
(Moustakas, 1994), this way of thinking and interpreting emerged in Germany prior to World
War I. Dowling (2007) citing Moran (2000), however, notes that reference to this term was made
as early as the eighteenth century by philosophers such as Kant and Hegal, the latter featuring it
in the title of his 1807 text (Moran, 2000). Other thinkers, such as Franz Brentano, would
continue to shape this idea into and beyond the 1800s. In fact, it is he who would provide the
intellectual motivation and lay the groundwork for Husserl, who is often credited with initiating
a coherent philosophy of phenomenology.
Fundamental to Husserl’s approach is the principle of intentionality, which suggests that
all mental acts are related to some object (Moran, 2000), and supposes that all perceptions have
meaning (Owen, 1996). In this way, intentionality is, therefore, the, “internal experience of being
conscious of something” (Dowling, 2007, p. 132). The aim of phenomenological philosophy
some would argue, is primarily epistemological (Racher & Robinson, 2003). That is, its chief
end is to understand things as they are, hence its motto ‘‘Zu den Sachen’’, meaning both ‘‘to the
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things themselves’’ and ‘‘let’s get down to what matters!’’ (van Manen, 1990, p. 184). In
Husserl's philosophy, the thing/s mattering most is the lived experience and one’s consciousness
of it. So critical is this notion that Husserl developed several tools to both assist one arrive at an
unbiased comprehension of the things as they are, and to facilitate the emergence of the essence
of the phenomenon itself (Racher & Robinson, 2003). This includes the idea of
phenomenological reduction, an epistemological strategy (Dowling, 2007) used to capture
individuals’ experiences in their most raw or naive state. That is, as they are immediate to the
consciousness (Crotty, 1996, p. 95), and before they can be critically reflected upon (Caelli,
2000; Moran, 2000). Another principle in his phenomenological philosophy is phenomenological
intuiting. This is best described by Parse (2001) as, ‘‘the process of coming to know the
phenomenon as it shows itself as described by the participants’’ (p. 79). Required by this is the
ability to discern the phenomenon in question in the same ways and to as similar a degree as
possible as expressed by the participants. Inherent in this is the phenomenologist's attempt to,
“meet the phenomenon as free and as unprejudiced as possible in order that the phenomenon
present itself as free and as unprejudiced way as possible so that it can be precisely described and
understood” (Dowling, 2007, p. 132).
Interpreting Husserl, Polkinghorne (1984) suggests that phenomenological reduction is
operationalized via a two-step process of imaginative variation, leading to the essential
structures, or essence of the phenomena. The former is a type of mental exercise in which the
researcher engages to discover characteristics, qualities, and aspects of a phenomenon that make
it what it is and without which it could not be. It involves the researcher asking themselves, “if
certain pieces or themes were changed or deleted would the phenomenon still be the same”?
Once the researcher has distilled a concrete description of the phenomenon it should be publicly
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verifiable (Polkinghorne, 1989), such that it is recognized as an experience that others could
have. And once this has been achieved, one will come to the essential structures or essence of the
phenomena.
Phenomenology is considerably different from other philosophies and research methods.
For example, it is not a tool for empirical scientific analysis but rather, it is human science-
focused, in which the “‘‘object’’ can be defined and defined through the medium of ‘‘subject’’
and its relationships” (Dowling, 2007, p. 133; Rapport, 2002). Beyond Huesserl, there are others
who have attempted to refine a phenomenological philosophy, one of which is Heidegger, who
understood experience as being ontological as opposed to pure, cerebral consciousness
(Polkinghorne, 1984). Other ways Hedigger differed from Husserl is his use of hermeneutics and
the hermeneutic circle, which he described as occupying the space between preunderstanding
and understanding, and which were the means by which experience could be interpreted.
Gadamer extends Heidegger by advancing the notion that the researcher’s understanding of the
phenomenon is evinced by their personal involvement in a reciprocal process of interpretation.
This he claims, is indistinguishably linked to how one is and goes about being in the world
(Spence, 2001). In this way, the hermeneutic is dialogical, speaking back to the researcher at
every turn, allowing interpretation across broader categories to consider gendered, social, and
cultural implications (Koch, 1999).
Portraiture as a Research Method
As important as it is to better understand how racism functions as a phenomenon in a
particular context, it is arguably more urgent that the employment narratives of Black staff and
administrators be disclosed. Their complex, multifaceted lives need to be explored in ways that
magnify the dignity they are owed while effectively tending to the racism they experience. This
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is not an “either or” scenario, but rather a “both and”: How does one both meaningfully explore
the individual work worlds of Black staff and administrators while also learning more about how
racism functions and is experienced by them in their employment contexts?
Portraiture is a suitable research method for this task since it positions researchers to
obtain rich information about study participants relative to the phenomenon in question.
Portraiture is a qualitative research method seeking to extract from participants meaning they
make of phenomena they encounter in their lived worlds (Crewsell, 2007). Researchers using
this technique are known as portraitists; they examine how people get together and negotiate and
conquer challenges (Dixon et al., 2005; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1983), and do so with a particular
lens toward the positive and personal capacity for resilience in participants (Cope et al., 2016).
Portraiture is connected to and builds on the phenomenological tradition. Lawrence-Lightfoot
and Davis (1997) state:
Portraiture is a method of qualitative research that blurs the boundaries of aesthetics and
empiricism in an effort to capture the complexity, dynamics, and subtlety of human
experience and organizational life. Portraitists seek to record and interpret the
perspectives and experiences of the people they are studying, documenting their voices
and their visions—their authority, knowledge, and wisdom (p. xv).
At least five components comprise the portraiture approach. The first is an intentional focus on
the individual narratives of participants. As part of the narrative branch in the qualitative
research tradition (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), portraitists seek to have participants reveal the
idiosyncratic nuances of the worlds they traverse. The idea here is for them to capture the depth,
texture, and richness of participants stories, and interpret for readers meaning they make thereof
(Sauer, 2012). As further elaborated by Lawrence-Lightfoot:
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The portraits are designed to capture the richness, complexity, and dimensionality of
human experience in social and cultural context, conveying the perspectives of the people
who are negotiating those experiences. The portraits are shaped through dialogue
between the portraitist and the subject, each one participating in the drawing of the image
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p.3).
Second, this approach demands that portraitists listen well. In fact, they must attend to
participants in ways allowing them to hear stories within the stories participants tell. Portraitists
reject passive listening and instead take on an active listening posture (Lawrence – Lightfoot &
Davis, 1997). It is suggested that the checking and rechecking of researcher interpretations, and
the sharing of conclusions, findings, and data throughout the process (all often done real-time in
interviews) is a form of active listening to participants (McCarthy, 2017). Nonetheless,
portraitists are responsible for identifying, shaping, even co-creating these stories with
participants (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997).
Third, the portraiture method assumes, affirms and is oriented toward the health, success,
and overall goodness of participants (Cope et al., 2016; McCarthy, 2017; Sauer, 2012). It is a
promising method for researchers looking to move past studying dysfunction and pathology to
exploring and highlighting the resiliency, agency, strength, and triumphs of those who have been
marginalized. This is a view that, “… recognizes the myriad ways in which goodness gets
expressed in various settings; that admits imperfection as an inevitable ingredient of goodness…
that reveals goodness as a holistic concept, a complex mixture of variables whose expression can
only be recognized through a detailed narrative of institutional and interpersonal processes”
(Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1983, p. 25).
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A fourth component of portraiture is the way in which power is shared between
participants and the researcher. This methodology assumes equal status between the two parties
(Sauer, 2012), even going so far as to position the portraitist as “supplicant learner” (McCarthy,
2017) alongside the participant. This dynamic enables a safe and trusting environment where an
authentic relationship between participant and portraitist can be sustained. It is in these
conditions that simultaneously, both groups co-labor to negotiate and construct meaning as
stories and narratives are unpacked, pointing towards a constructivist paradigm.
The fifth component is the importance of context, which is the, “physical, geographic,
temporal, historical, cultural, aesthetic— within which the action takes place” (Lawrence-
Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p. 41). Portraitists are tasked with gathering meticulously rich
descriptions of the social, historical, and cultural influences and backgrounds of participants’
lives and the spaces in which they exist. This is often done by including but also moving beyond
mere interviews to collecting artifacts, making observations, and using other data collection
strategies. Context is critical to informing how participants are understood and what matters to
them. It is also what the portraitist uses to frame their analysis of the participants.
A critical way that portraiture differs from other methodologies is that it is characterized
as a blend of art and science (McCarthy, 2017; Sauer, 2012). This suggests that there is a kind of
systematicity and precision that portraitists employ in data aggregation and narrative shaping (the
science). And on the other hand, this approach is balanced by negotiations of meaning between
participant and researcher; intuitive decisions portraitists make about key word and theme
selection extracted from participant narratives; and the unscripted, non-schematic ways they
synthesize, arrive at, and blend data to make interpretations and an aesthetically pleasing
rendering of the empirical data (the art). Lawrence-Lightfoot (2005) explains that, "The process
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of creating narrative portraits requires a difficult (sometimes paradoxical) vigilance to empirical
description and aesthetic expression" (p. 10). Both McCarthy (2017) and Sauer (2012) are
careful to caution that phenomenology and portraiture are different, though there is considerable
overlap between the two, especially in how both work to achieve an essence. McCarthy (2017)
asserts, “Portraiture is not phenomenology in the purest sense, but the portraitist works to
achieve something like an essence or at the very least a resonant expression of participants’
experience” (p. 54).
Portraiture derives its name from the use of a verbal rather than visual medium to create a
portrait. It is an in-depth study of, “what people do, how they feel about themselves, and who
they think they are” (McCarthy, 2017 p. 40) in a particular context. Since identity is shaped and
developed in social, historical, psychological, economic, and cultural contexts, McCarthy (2017)
suggests that these contexts come to bear in participants’ storytelling and thus move portraitists
beyond merely obtaining participants’ life stories to gaining something that is more robust. In the
same way, she argues that the identical contexts are present for the researcher, being embedded
throughout the study in the way they choose phrasing, emphasize, interpret, make commentary,
and so on.
Based on Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis’ (1997) work, Jones (2015) suggests a five-fold
methodological approach to doing portraiture that includes: context, voice, relationship,
emergent themes, and an aesthetic whole.
As previously discussed, context is critically important to the work of portraiture. It is a
sensemaking mechanism for both researcher and reader. In fact, Jones (2015) suggests that
participants are more apt to naturally share and interpret their experiences when they are in their
own contexts.
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Voice is also significant in the portraiture enterprise. McCarthy’s (2017) understanding of
voice, particularly that of participants, as a means and lens through which data are examined and
interpreted is relevant. She recommends portraitists be aware of, support, and reveal participant
voices. This is done by allowing them to represent themselves as the experts on their own
experiences as they contribute to the co-creation of their portraits (Josselson, 2004). Though
significantly present and threaded throughout the study, Jones (2015) warns that the portraitist’s
voice should not overwhelm that of the participants.
Relationship is the threshold through which participant and researcher enter into
authentic sharing with one another. Both Jones (2015) and McCarthy (2017) agree that
relationship between the two parties must be trustworthy, meaningful, and caring. The emphasis
on relationship in this methodology is underscored by the equal footing on which participant and
researcher are placed.
Emergent themes are derived from the data collected. They surface and materialize out of
and are confirmed amongst the multiple forms of data amassed (e.g., interviews, observations,
artifacts). Once the researcher has a grasp on them, they are used to construct a thematic
framework enabling a multidimensional portrait of participants to be developed.
The aesthetic whole is the over-arching narrative that comes forth once every factor and
detail are pieced together. It is a mosaic-like picture that manifests when patterns and data have
been clarified and fit together. It is the unified whole of, amongst, and between narratives
comprised of experiences, emotions, and behaviors that tell a coherent story (Jones, 2015).
Rationale for Portraiture
Portraiture is appropriate for the design of this study because it is useful for
understanding complex ecologies in educational contexts (Sauer, 2012). Thus, it is suited for
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capturing the realities of Black employees enmeshed in the oppressive circumstances of their
employment, and yet relying on it for their livelihood. I use portraiture because it offers depth
into the varied and idiosyncratic work worlds of Black staff and administrators. The
methodological focus on individual and composite narratives is useful to increased
understandings of how racism is experienced and manifests for different roles in an employment
hierarchy and at diverse institutional types. Obtaining this level of depth is critical because
hitherto, little about Black staff and administrators has been written in the research literature.
Indeed, by adding to this body of work, I want to ensure this population is not represented in a
one-dimensional fashion. In this regard, the promise of a robust rendering through portraiture is
appealing. Portraiture also provides a way not only to bring this population from the margins of
society (Sauer, 2012) but also the margins of social science research. In so doing, I am seeking to
do them justice by providing more equitable treatment and valuation of their experiences.
Additional arguments for my use of this methodology are less empirical and epistemological
though no less substantial. A positionality that proffers opportunities to learn with and from a
population to which I belong; creating and sustaining authentic relationships enabling trust; and a
methodology that is committed to and assumes the goodness, expertise, and success of Black
people are further reasons that portraiture has been sought.
Data Collection
I used nonprobabalistic (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) purposeful sampling (Patton, 2015) in
my study for a few reasons. One is that it allowed me to engage directly with and select
individuals who have experienced the phenomenon I studied (Creswell, 2009). In addition, I used
it because I wanted to discover, understand, and gain insight on a phenomenon and needed to,
“… select a sample from which the most [could] be learned” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p. 96).
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There was a richness and complexity that I sought in determining my sample. This became the
guiding motivation and therefore the “purpose” in selecting the sample for this type of research.
I used criterion-based sampling to obtain a purposeful sample. According to LeCompte
and Schensul (2010), this is when the researcher determines preemptively what criteria are
essential in choosing participants. The fundamental conditions were for participants to racially
identify as Black and be employed at a postsecondary institution in California. The criteria for
this study’s sample are further elaborated on and argued for in the participant section. Prior to
participant recruitment, approval from the University of Southern California IRB was
ascertained. I then pursued people for my study who aligned with or matched the criterion.
Black staff and administrators were recruited using social, professional, and personal
networks. A call for participants was distributed via these means and included a short description
of the study and a link to a Google Questionnaire, which was used to capture participant
information. This study was focused on Black administrators and staff in California. As such,
networks and outlets in which the participant call was posted were chosen correspondingly.
I then reached out to the Black administrator and staff persons who completed the Google
Questionnaire to extend an invitation to participate in my study. Each participant was contacted
via the method they denoted in the “best way to contact” section of the questionnaire.
Once participants agreed, they were asked to complete an eligibility profile. The purpose
of this form was to determine if they met the criteria for study participation as outlined in
participant section. On this form participants reported the institution where they are employed; in
what capacity; if they are full or part-time status; and their role type. CVs or resumes were also
requested but not mandatory for participation. Participants were assured throughout that the
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information they share was confidential, only to be seen or accessed by me. CVs, resumes, and
form submissions were screened to determine eligibility for the study.
Each of the participants was asked to a virtual face-to-face interview in a location where
they felt most comfortable. Interviews lasted between 60-120 minutes. Prior to the interviews,
participants were given a sheet on which my study was more fully described. During this phase,
participants dialogued with me about any questions or concerns with the study they had. After
initial interviews were completed, I followed up with them via individual emails, member
checks, phone calls, or text messages.
A semi-structured interview technique was used in online interviews with Black staff and
administrators. This approach was implemented so that participants would more candidly express
their experiences with racism in their workplaces (Birzer & Smith-Mahdi, 2006). Given the
nature of the content being discussed, this technique provided latitude for me to probe for details
during the interview to explore relevant themes as they arose (Galletta, 2013). Further, it allowed
the discussions to take on a less rigid form as it elicited a more conversational exchange between
the two parties (Knapik, 2006). Though some questions were needed for guidance and
grounding, this approach enabled participants to more deeply reflect and me to more intimately
listen as they expounded upon their experiences with the phenomenon (Rabionet, 2011).
Interviews were recorded electronically and transcribed by a professional transcription
agency. Once completed, copies of the transcripts were sent to participants for confirmation.
Other data collection techniques such as observations of their interview sites, artifacts (e.g.,
emails, texts, CVs and resumes), and field notes were organized and accompanied the data
analysis.
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Participants
Twenty-nine people who racially identified as Black or African American were included
in this study. The identifying prerequisite was necessary given that this is the racial population I
intended to study. To qualify, they had to be currently employed full-time at a postsecondary
not-for-profit educational institution in California at the time of my study. This included but was
not limited to bachelor's and associates degree granting schools. Not-for-profit postsecondary
institutions were desired because they vary in prestige, demographic makeup, outcomes, and
mission focus. Participants were employed full-time in non-instructional staff roles classified
and/or described by their institutions as administrators, professionals, or non-exempt staff
(CUPA-HR, 2019). Full-time was understood to mean between 37.5-42 hours per week of work.
To be selected for this study, participants needed to indicate on the Google Questionnaire that
within the last five to ten years, they had experienced race-based harm or mistreatment, racial
discrimination, or racism while employed in their role as a staff person or administrator. Sixteen
of the participants were women and 13 were men. Fourteen participants were employed in
various roles in functional areas spanning institutional administration, information technology
services, human resources, academic personnel office, external affairs (i.e., development and
fundraising, office of strategic communications), and different schools within colleges (i.e., law
school, school of education, school of engineering, college of global education, and school of
public policy). The 15 other participants were employed in various roles in student affairs
divisions. These areas included academic affairs, academic success, student support and/or
engagement, career counseling, admissions and recruiting, Title IX, and residence life. Nine
administrators and 20 staff persons were included in my sample. Five of my participants were
deans (two interim deans, two associate deans, one assistant dean). Ten of them were directors
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(one senior director, three directors, two associate directors, four assistant directors). Two were
coordinators. Three worked as HR specialists and/or analysts. One was an academic advisor,
another an academic specialist, and one a project manager of student engagement. The remaining
six held the following role titles and/or worked in these capacities: data collection, business
operations and finance, program development, program specialist, administrative assistant, and
one was the special assistant to the vice president. The participants represented 13 different
postsecondary institutions throughout the state of California. Of which, according to the
Carnegie Classification System: Two were liberal arts or baccalaureate colleges; one was a two-
year community college; three were masters colleges; and seven were doctoral universities (one
high research, six very high research). Six of these institutions were HSIs, and seven were PWIs.
Colleges as far north as Sacramento, as far east as Claremont, and as far south as San Diego were
represented in this study. Participant names and the institutions at which they work were
anonymized.
Data Analysis
Creswell (2009) notes that data analysis is an ongoing procedure lasting throughout the
duration of the scholarly project. Portraiture research involves several steps in the analytic
enterprise. For quality analysis, portraiture studies suggest that the researcher read their notes
after each participant engagement and attempt to make sense of what it is they have witnessed,
felt, intuited, and learned from both the participant and the environment they have visited or that
has been described. In general, this strategy of inquiry involves five modes of analysis as
articulated by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997).
Listening plays a central role in portraiture and the researcher does so with an ear towards
hearing and/or seeing what are termed repetitive refrains. These are oft repeated cues by
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participants (either audible or visible) that might provide insight into what they believe and how
they perceive themselves. It is recommended that the portraitist listen for that which seems most
important to the participants, which include but are not limited to their values or concerns.
Resonant metaphors are the things described by participants that carry meaning and
symbolism. Portraitists must listen for these words and phrases as they give texture to stories
(Jones, 2015). In addition, institutional and cultural rituals give rise to emergent themes. By
cuing in on participants’ hints at or allusions to culturally significant rites of passages, markers,
or priorities, researchers can arrive at emergent themes. Institutional rituals can also be
ascertained through campus visits where one discerns important points of reference or interest
and contact (work spaces, areas on campus, pictures on walls). Institutional rituals can also be
divined by listening for milestones (e.g., promotion, convocation, commencement) related to and
occurring within campus workplaces.
To secure the emergence of other themes, triangulation from other data sources is
suggested. Refinement and analysis of the interview data occur through a broader incorporation
of additional data (e.g., observations, artifacts) reconciled against initial inferences, assumptions,
and findings. Part of this kind of analysis also happens by the real-time and ongoing checking
and rechecking of researcher conclusions by participants. Finally, dissonant strains are stories,
responses, and narratives that seemingly have no direction and do not fit neatly into themes.
Portraitists must note when this occurs and must also be diligent to develop a pattern from such
strains, as they can give light to non-discussed themes or those referenced elsewhere.
As the literature on portraiture suggests, I began the analytic process during data
collection (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005). My data analysis process had two parts. For part one, I
began each interview with a set of existential questions that informed me about who and what
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shaped each storyteller. This helped me better understand their perspectives to frame,
contextualize, and make connections within and to their stories. I kept notes on separate
interview protocols that I printed for each participant interview. It was in this phase that I
captured resonant refrains, picking up on visible and audible clues like body language, tone, and
repeated words. Here I also noted interesting phrases and details, key events and people, and
additional facets of participants’ stories about which they spoke.
While listening to each participant and taking notes, I was able to home in on resonant
metaphors, such as narratives, allegories, or other symbols to which they referred that added
texture and depth to stories. Through actively attending to each conversation and taking notes, I
wrote down emergent themes that I suspected given what was shared. Cultural and institutional
rituals are important aspects of the portraiture methodology as well. Though I did not visit the
campuses on which my participants worked, I was able to key in on these dynamics through
critical and close readings of each transcript. I listened and read for their references to particular
instances that occurred in their campus workplaces that specifically referenced time, space, and
objects therein. Examples included recurring recruiting and admissions events, fall move-in,
commencement, convocation, and other programs that held special significance to them.
Participants also referenced sites and symbols on their campus that revealed clues about the
institutional culture. Triangulation was achieved through exploring websites they mentioned and
reviewing the resumes they submitted. Though dissonant strains did occur, I was able to weave
together seemingly vague strands through the second part of the analytic procedure. After each
interview was complete, I took about 30 minutes to reflect on what was shared, elaborate on
notes I had taken in the interview, and memo about my experience concerning each person with
whom I met.
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For part two, I read through each interview transcript and denoted initial themes that
stood out. These themes were separate and apart from the emergent themes in part one, and were
largely informed by familiarity with the research literature. I set these themes aside and read
through each transcript a second time to specifically highlight and isolate references related to
race, employment success, or situational navigation. Each separate highlight was accompanied
by a name, description, or title of that instance. For each participant transcript, I numbered and
coded each highlight and listed them out for each participant, indicating where they occurred in
each transcript. I refined the initial themes by merging them with emergent themes in part one of
the analytic process. After these themes were derived, I plotted and mapped each participants’
codes to the themes. The themes that had a significant amount of codes corresponding to them
are what I have included in my dissertation.
Trustworthiness
Qualitative and quantitative inquiry differ in their aims and goals. Though this is true, a
fundamental concern amongst both schools of research is a desire for trust in the researcher’s
methodology and subsequent interpretation of the data collected. This is a shared regard;
however, ideas related to trustworthiness and credibility do not translate neatly between the two
categories of research, especially given their differing ends. Add to this the fact that consensus
has not exactly been reached on the means by which this should be ascertained in qualitative or
phenomenological inquiry. This is also in addition to the more recent notion that within these
paradigms, there exists myriad ways for these ideas to take form (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Taken together, this makes ensuring trustworthiness a fraught task. This is not to imply that to do
so is beyond the ability or scope of the researcher. It is to say, though, that intentionality and
thoughtful deliberation need to be employed in doing so. This is because the means that the
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researcher has chosen for such an exercise speak to assumptions undergirding and relating to the
purpose of the study. As such, appropriate strategies denoting credibility should be consistent
with the arc and nature of the scholarly enterprise at hand. To this end, I used a fourfold strategy
to ensure trustworthiness in the study and ensuing data. Reasons for the choice of each are
explained in the following section.
Triangulation is a method used in qualitative research to mitigate bias (Fusch et al., 2018;
Jonsen & Jehn, 2009). Simplistically, it is the aggregation of different data points in the study of
a specific phenomenon (Kern, 2018). It is relied upon to enhance data consistency because the
research instrument (in this case, me, the researcher) is expected to, “elicit a response that
remains constant over time” (Fusch et al., 2018, p. 22; Golafshani, 2003). Triangulating multiple
data points enable the researcher and those consuming the data to see patterns amongst and
across sub-groups of people, time, and space. For this reason, Denzin’s (1989, 2009) data
triangulation type was used as it encompasses the interrelatedness and ongoing nature of those
three data points, allowing commonalities to be observed within dissimilar contexts and settings
(Fusch et al., 2018). In addition, follow-up conversations and interviews of my study population
representing different institutional types was helpful in this regard.
Respondent validation or member checks is a way for the researcher to ensure that their
findings are accurate depictions of the realities participants have articulated (Thomas, 2017).
This method is often used in analytic strategies where findings will be utilized to convey key
features of participants’ experiences in ways recognizable, understandable, and true to them
(Thomas, 2017). This is done so that the bias of the researcher is remediated, and that accuracy,
integrity, and authenticity in recording participants’ statements and the interpretations thereof,
are ensured (Birt et al., 2016; Koelsch, 2013). This is needed in qualitative research because the
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nature of such inquiry requires one to understand a phenomenon from the point of view of the
participants. Since racism affects people differently and because there could be multiple ways
participants describe their experience with this phenomenon, it was therefore critically important
for me to faithfully capture the diverse ways they articulated their expressions and statements. I
did this by providing data transcriptions to my participants for them to review, provide feedback,
and make corrections.
Adequate engagement and saturation are related concepts that speak to the extent to
which the researcher is immersed in the data (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
That is, they should be so engaged with and enveloped by the data that repeated themes emerge
out of the interviews as they observe and hear the same ideas expressed over and over again by
participants (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This familiarity helps the researcher to better and more
intimately know how the participants are experiencing the phenomenon from their point of view.
While these notions get at a prolonged absorption in the data, it is done so with a mind and eye
towards seeking variation in understanding the phenomenon of study. In fact, Patton (2015)
argues that in enacting this procedure, researchers should even seek out alternative explanations
supported by and within the data that contradict or refute emergent findings. He emphasizes that
if no strong evidence can be found contrary to one’s initial findings, then it imbues them with an
increased degree of confidence. This means that conclusions and explanations can be more
readily trusted. This was achieved through the number of participants I interviewed for my study,
the amount of data I collected, and time spent with each participant and their corresponding data.
Finally, reflexivity was enacted as a means of transparency and to ensure quality control.
The reason for this is to forthrightly share my assumptions, understandings, and experiences as
they relate to the phenomenon so that readers can be informed about how I affect and am
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affected by the research process (Probst & Berenson, 2014). This is especially important
considering that as the researcher, I share several facets in common with my participants and
have much familiarity with the topic of study. While some argue that this positions me as an
“insider” with several advantages (Berger, 2015; Kacen & Chaitin, 2006; Padgett, 2008), it is
best for the veracity of the data to discuss, clarify, and explain how my perceptual lens,
worldview, values, and prior knowledge influence the study, and the corresponding conclusions.
I achieved this throughout my study through extensive memoing and notetaking.
Ethical Issues
In the study, ethical issues were minimal. Nonetheless, I was aware of some common
concerns that typically arise in this line of inquiry. I address them here and explain how they
were navigated.
Informed consent refers to notifying participants about confidentiality regarding what
they disclose in the study, and them giving their permission for what they share to be
disseminated in the study in ways protecting their identity. Given the sensitive nature of the topic
being studied and to ensure participants felt comfortable, explanations of intent and
conversations around confidentiality were discussed with participants from the outset of the
research. This was in addition to obtaining consent forms. Kaiser (2009) suggests that consent be
ongoing; this was done throughout multiple points in the study. In fact, due to the nature of the
topic I studied, one participant decided to retract the entirety of their data, thus dropping my
participant count from 30 to 29.
Privacy and data protection were also maintained. In the study, participants’ names were
changed or replaced. I also shared with them how I stored, managed, and safeguarded their
interviews so they were only accessed by me. I explained step-by-step how I used their
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interviews; how were analyzed and interpreted; and what happens with them after the study has
been completed.
I also discussed with participants how I address conflicts of interests if they implicate
their self, their employer, and other employees on my home campus. Prior to enacting the study,
I sought consultation from experienced others (e.g., my doctoral advisor, HR professionals, IRB)
regarding mandatory reporting should such an issue arise. In addition to such discussions, such
concerns were addressed on the consent form for participants. While it was important to secure a
substantive number of interviews, I was aware of them being voluntary. That coupled with the
sensitive nature of the topic resulted in one participant vacillating initially and then later on
between wanting to proceed with the interview. I did not pressure them to continue given they
felt uncomfortable.
Limitations
Critiques of qualitative inquiry often include the inability of conclusions and findings
from this type of research to be generally applied. Generalizability, however, is not a limitation
of this study as this concept does not necessarily fit into a qualitative research paradigm. In fact,
the methodological approach chosen suggests that emphasis be placed on understanding and
explicating how a phenomenon is experienced rather than it being generalized to broader
samples of the population. Therefore, the sampling techniques selected are to generate more
nuanced and varied understandings, not so that inferences can be made. A limitation, however, is
that though participants discussed and occasionally alluded to the campus climate, this study was
not an investigation of that area or dynamic. Therefore, with findings from this study alone, one
cannot neatly or confidently draw strong conclusions between what participants experience in
their workplaces, though part of the campus ecosystem, and a campus’ racial climate. To do so,
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more sophisticated research instruments are needed. In addition, my data are limited to non-
classified employees, as classified employees were not included in this study. Lastly, findings
from these data are not conclusive for all employees on a campus who share the same race or
employment status, or who are racially minoritized. Even for those sharing the same race, there
is considerable variation amongst their experience, awareness, and description of the
phenomenon.
Researcher Statement
It is not lost on me that I am a Black professional who has worked at a handful of well-
known postsecondary institutions. Working at these schools, I would often catch myself
wondering how did I, a Black man from an obscure small in southern Virginia, make it here?
Having been employed in higher education for over eight years, not a day has passed that I did
not consider my race, my employment status, and the institution for which I worked at that point
in time. There were instances when these three considerations collided in starks ways, like when
I recognized I was the token Black hired for a department. Or, like when I expressed to my friend
that said tokenism felt as if I was drowning in a sea of pervasive Whiteness.
Perhaps it was such feelings that animated my excitement to work at research centers
focused on racial equity. There, I thought, I would find some reprieve. What I gained in personal
peace was offset by the cold reality of Black employee inequities that still existed despite what
semblance of satisfaction I had found. I falsely believed that Ivy-League association worked out
favorably and, in many instances, it did. However, I wondered about what my work experience
would look like if I was not surrounded by people of color from when I clocked in to when I
clocked out.
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This question still looms large for me, as for the second time in my career, I work for a
research center largely staffed by people of color doing racial equity work. In many ways, I have
worked in a bubble: I have been able to study and do racial equity work while being somewhat
seemingly protected from racial inequities. Or is that the case? What I have studied about racial
inequities suggests the opposite: that at some level, I, too, have been affected. This is my
position. I am a Black higher education professional and researcher learning more about how
racial inequities in higher education work environments have affected me and others through my
participants.
Doing research for a dissertation is an interesting thing: You have this idea of how it is
going to go and what will happen, or how you will be when interacting with folks during the
interviews. That was me. I had a picture in my mind of a clean-cut process, start to finish, with
no hiccups or interruptions. I had a crystal clear of idea of how I wanted things to go, a timeline
for when I wanted things to happen, and ideas about who I would meet and connect with for my
research. I was riding the high of having successfully defended my dissertation proposal in the
late Fall of 2019. If the dissertation were a marathon I was halfway done. My “graduation date”
of May 2020 was in sight. I had vivid dreams of what that day would be like, donning my cap
and gown, being hooded, and making good on the promise I had made to my dad over fifteen
years ago, that someday I would become a doctor.
2020 came in with little fanfare. After a much-needed holiday break, I was locked in and
focused to run the last leg of my dissertation. There were a couple anticipated hurdles to
overcome: clarifying my proposed methodology for my study; submitting and getting through
IRB; recruiting participants; and getting this whole study done by the end of the spring semester.
A tall order, sure, but truth be told, I was not worried. Perhaps it was my hubris, or the amazing
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support, genius, and flexibility of my committee. Or maybe it was the confidence my family and
my people placed in me. It was likely attributable to my faith in God’s sovereignty over all
things, even things unforeseeable or unimaginable to human cognition, and His working all
things (the good, bad, and in between) for my good and His glory. For this is often what I fall
back on to make sense of phenomena that are incomprehensible.
As I made progress on my study throughout the first few months of 2020, the world was
hit with a pandemic in early March. COVID-19 stopped the world in its tracks. Organizations
had to make abrupt shifts and adapt to the crisis. Universities had to find new ways to support
students and employees while figuring out how to function. Needless to say, the plans I had for
my research and graduation were upended. Since the research priorities of the university had
shifted to studies looking at COVID-19, my research was placed farther back in the IRB
approval que. All of this happened around my birthday and that of my grandmother’s, who
passed away a month prior from unanticipated circumstances. While 2020 came in in a non-
descript, understated fashion, it surely made its presence known a couple months later. The high
hopes I had for the year were being crushed and I felt the weight of it. I knew I needed to keep
going but it was hard to know what keep going should look like in this new landscape. And
while I did, it was with this nagging sense of “I’m not really feeling this at all”.
Eventually, I gained IRB approval and was able to begin my study, but I had to develop a
new game plan for how I would conduct my research since I could not meet with participants
face-to-face. Virtual interviews became the way forward and though they were not something I
initially set out to do, I was okay with it for the most part. I started to gain traction with
recruiting participants and that put me in a better mood. I was excited to be doing something for
Black folks and that they found value in my study.
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Prior to participating in my study, I had never met the vast majority of my participants.
As I began to conduct interviews online, a strange thing started to happen- I actually felt like I
bonded with them and knew them. I fully did not expect that to happen, especially since our
connections were remote. I am not sure if it is because we shared commonalities such as being
Black or working in the higher education industry, but there was something there. They shared
their hearts with me and I with them. While I did not know many of them, it was uncanny the
things we had in common, such as being members of Black Greek Letter Organizations,
connections to certain cities or parts of the nation, or similar stories about being Black and
working in higher education that connected us. They took me into their work worlds; and though
we were separated by countless miles, somehow, I was able to walk with them as they unpacked
their work lives and the realities of existing on the various California campuses on which they
were employed. In all honesty, it is hard to just refer to them as “participants”. They are so much
more than that and to bluntly refer to them as participants is kind of demeaning. They are like
friends, cousins, homies, brothers, aunties, and sisters. They are storytellers and going forward,
that is that how I refer to them in this study. Often, Black people relate to each other in a familial
way and that is what I felt occurred through this study. As much as I heard the refrain from them
that our time together was healing, therapeutic, or a much-needed space of respite and reflection,
they provided me with a salve of which I knew not I was in need. Their stories and voices were
strength and comfort that echoed the words from the song of one of my family’s favorite artists,
PJ Morton: “Everything’s gonna be alright”.
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Chapter Four: Findings
Included in this chapter are the stories of 29 Black employees and their racialized
workplace experiences. It is divided into two segments. Part one is about the racialized
experiences of Black employees. In it I discuss findings related to their racial encounters at work.
Part two includes findings about ways in which they found success and navigated places where
they were employed despite the racial mistreatment, microaggressions, and other negative
experiences they encountered.
Part One: What They Went Through - Racialized Workplace Experiences
Conceptualization and Sensemaking of Blackness Within Work Contexts
Storytellers often talked about being conscious of being Black in their places of
employment. Race, and more specifically, Blackness, was the most salient lens through which
they framed and discussed work, job duties, or what occurred in such environments. For them it
seemed that to be to be a Black staff person or administrator was to be constantly aware of one’s
Blackness. As this theme began to emerge and was later confirmed in subsequent interviews,
DuBoisian notions of Double Consciousness (Du Bois, 2008) came to mind. This became
especially resonant given the way they painted parallel pictures of simultaneously knowing they
were Black in a context and how others, namely non-Blacks, perceived their Blackness.
An Experiential Portrait of Conceptualizations and Sensemaking of Blackness Within
Work Contexts
At the top of our interview Kanicka talked about racialized perceptions in her line of
work. Shedding light on how her gender and race were front and center for others in her field she
remarked, “…and I am very aware of perception and how [people] may perceive me coming in
to talk to them about their money, being a Black woman.” She and others were not aloof about
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the implications of their Blackness in their workplaces. For many of them there existed an acute
sense in which they were aware of their race and how others perceived it. Logan, a director of
career counseling originally from the Chicago area, reflected on the pressure that comes with
negotiating his own sense of Blackness against racial perceptions in the workplace. He noted:
So, there’s definitely a great sense of pressure that I feel as a Black man because there’s a
stigma of we’re not professional enough or I got my management position because of
affirmative action or because, yeah, of course I’m gonna be a director at Plain Valley
because Plain Valley has the most liberal campus in the world. There’s a lot of stigma
associated with just being a Black man that’s a successful professional.
Logan’s story was unique. He described his own Blackness as “square” or not fitting in. He even
mentioned that he felt some folks where he worked treated him differently because of this. He
recalled, “…But I still had some challenges with that because some people who I engage with
professionally don’t see me as Black enough because of who I am and how I’m wired.” My talk
with Logan was one of my first interviews but a theme was quickly emerging: Black people were
quite aware of being Black and the multiple ways one could be Black in their workplaces. For
Black people who acknowledge their Blackness, this conclusion was a no brainer of sorts but
listening to others made this fact more blatant.
Damarius and Tamir confirmed this for me when they talked about modifying their
behavior in light of being Black at work. Both of them were sincere and laid-back Black men
who worked at two different Los Angeles colleges, one as an advisor and the other in
admissions. Tamir, responding to questions about working and interacting with non-Black peers,
framed it this way, “We always have to be cognizant of the spaces that we're working in and we
always have to be cognizant of how we are being received. I mean, everything from the clothes
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that we wear to how we speak to even the pace that we walk at.” Similarly, Damarius brought up
a kind of “proofreading”, which informed ways in which he had to conform to make himself
“acceptable”. He shared:
I feel like the hardest thing is just the constant proofreading that you have to do of your
behavior. At least that’s what I feel and experience. I feel like when I'm in the office I'm
always on edge. I'm always thinking, "Okay. How am I acting right now? How am I
speaking right now? Am I being too loud? Am I in their space? Do they feel threatened?
Am I being – taking stuff personal?" It's just constantly having to think and proofread
your actions and your words to fit what is acceptable in your office.
For others, being Black at work came with figuring out how to maintain a sense of racial
integrity, which involved questioning the degree to which they could be their full Black selves.
Tim, a dean at a local community college north of Los Angeles, stated outright that his
“authentic” Blackness was not welcomed. This was difficult to hear coming from Tim because
he is someone who many people know and hold in high esteem. I have known Tim for quite a
while and he has a professional savvy that is amazing. If Tim, who has what it takes to go quite
far as a higher education professional and someone who has made quite the impression on
people, says this about where he works, what does this mean for other Black professionals who
do not have the latitude that being a dean supposedly grants?
Breonna mentioned something similar in our talk. After trying to reach each other over a
couple days our schedules finally aligned. I did not expect our conversation to last as long as it
did, but what she shared was so vivid and interesting that I was arrested by her stories. Breonna
and Tim were from the same area and I could not help but wonder if they knew each other,
because Tim tends to know every Black person from that area and every Black person from that
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area tends to know Tim. Breonna clearly knew what it meant to be Black- she was part of a
BGLO sorority, a director of a Black cultural center at the University of California Honda, and
someone who could make distinctions between different kinds of Blackness within the African
diaspora. In addition, she held a doctorate, had studied higher education, and had worked at and
attended more than a few postsecondary institutions. She told me that Blackness generally is not
celebrated in the higher education industry and had the stories to back up how she and others
experienced this truth.
Kaneef and Cyrus, who both worked in student affairs at separate schools, suggested they
had to turn off their Blackness or determine ahead of time how Black they could show up to
successfully endure work. Cyrus said, “… and I think that as a Black person who navigates this
space, I think is one of the hardest things is just to try to be completely who I am and I try to
bring that to the table.”
Other narratives of Black staff and administrators making sense of their Blackness at
work consisted of some of them figuring out how to stand in the gap as a racial representative in
spaces where Blacks were underrepresented and also what to do about being perceived as a
threat because their Blackness was coupled with advanced academic credentials and intelligence.
The latter is a comment Breonna and Michael, director of male initiatives, both made to me
about what they have experienced as Black administrators who have doctorates and work with
non-Black people.
Storyteller Snapshot: Kanicka
When Kanicka’s tea kettle went off in our interview, I thought about making a light-
hearted comment about converting her to drinking coffee. I was introduced to her on LinkedIn
through her sister who was not able to participate in my study. Kanicka, who works as a
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development officer, was born and raised in the Bay Area, loves learning, and is all about her
personal peace. She is a self-described non-material person. She is very together, about her
business, shrewd even. She is the kind of person one would love to have on their team because
she is deliberate. In fact, our interview was only scheduled for one hour and she did not allow us
to go over by one minute, though I had more questions for Kanicka than time allowed. After we
exchanged pleasantries we got right into our conversation. She informed me that work was an
extension of her and that she was quite deliberate in where, how, and why she works. One of the
major points she shared with me is that she worked on her own terms. She stated, “I’m not going
to let anyone force me out; I’m going to leave when I’m ready.” Kanicka’s journey into a career
in higher education started in undergrad, where she desired to be a be professor.
Age, Race, and Gender
Storytellers described how phenomena they experienced in their workplaces was
attributed to a confluence of their gender and race, or gender, race, and age. They talked me
through comments directed at them that would otherwise not occur if they were of the opposite
gender. Many of them talked about what it was like to work in higher education as a Black
woman or man, and how there were double standards because of this. Age seemed to be an issue
or show up more often for Black women in my study than Black men. They shared examples of
how being a “young, Black woman” complicated things for them in the workplace.
An Experiential Portrait of Age, Race, and Gender
Despite his unassailable passion for doing good work, Cyrus felt the difficulty that
accompanied being a Black man working in higher education. “I have a different lens because in
this role I have several examples where I felt like my race as a Black man has been under attack
by students, faculty and other staff, more so than any other place that I’ve been,” he noted. Cyrus
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was not alone in describing a type of gendered racial mistreatment. George, an academic advisor
confident in his abilities to do good work and connect with students, articulated this sentiment as
well, wondering if it had anything to do with him being outspoken about the inequities or
injustices he saw occurring in his office and department. He shared:
So, at first, I wanted to not necessarily look at it as being me or my race, but it
became very clear from talking with a few of the African American faculty members, and
it was very clear with how I was treated, that me being the only Black man in the office
was not gonna work to my advantage. And then, me being the Black man in the office
who was outspoken about the inequality, about the unfairness of how staff were being
treated, it was all, in my opinion, being held against me.
George put a premium on being authentic and true to himself in his line of work but also
recognized that doing so came with some challenges and opportunity costs. He stated:
I haven’t changed – but it has been a problem at some universities, some colleges, and
some positions. This is who I am. I don’t switch it up for anyone. And maybe that has
cost me positions, or that has cost me different types of opportunities because when I
code-switch, I don’t necessarily code-switch to something that is so refined or so proper
or try to be someone who over articulates to prove that he is an educated Black man, or,
excuse me, African American.
It was clear to me from my interactions with George and Cyrus that they were both two Black
men who were passionate, confident, secure in their identity, and brought much to their work.
The undertone of their conversation with me was a sense of disappointment and disbelief that
regardless of being overachievers, their passion and sense of equity were not seen as assets but
were held against them in unfavorable lights. They were frustrated Black men whose work
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environments did little to recognize, support, or reward the range of individualism and talent they
offered, and as a Black man, I was frustrated for them. In fact, in my exchanges with them, I
remember offering confirmatory commentary like “Dag!” or “Dang, man!”, and rolling my eyes,
clicking my teeth, or saying “uh, uh, uh” to express my contempt at what they went through.
Kaneef was another Black male who worked in student affairs. He was easy-going and a
deep thinker, and tended to process workplace interactions and phenomena through the prism of
empathy. An example of this is when he said to me, “And I'm so grateful that my empathy not
only has inspired me to recognize that there are things that are encouraging that I need to think
about, but also taking that extra step of thinking for myself. And so, I'm always big on different
perspectives, even if they're different from own.” The principle of empathy for others was so
strong for Kaneef, that he believed it allowed him to hold space for people different from
himself. He shared:
You have to be willing to have that patience or that empathy or whatever you want to call
it, maybe even tolerant for some situations, to be able to see it that way and perceive it
that way. So, I like to believe when you can connect with individuals and you're willing
to see things in their lens, you don’t have to agree with it, but see things in their lens, it
helps build relationships to move forward and help work towards the same common
goals. And so, I apply that same logic to my students, to my peers that I work with, to my
supervisors, regardless whether we agree or disagree on any of the policies and things
that are implemented.
This notwithstanding, working in an environment where he was one of few heterosexual,
cisgendered, Black men was an experience wrought with let downs, disappointments, and
feelings that few people at work “get him.” In his work context, Kaneef experienced
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discrepancies in treatment by supervisors on account of his race, gender, and sexuality. He
shared with me how factors such as different or common identities played into work and
management dynamics. Telling me about a specific work scenario he recalled:
My peer made similar mistakes, if not the same mistakes I did. Everything was fine with
him. Comparing it to his situation, along with other peer’s conversations, it was like a
multitude of identity. So, I don't want to say specifically it's because I identity as Black.
But I will say, identities of your supervisor, as well as whether it's like your sexual
orientation, gender orientation, race, all those things play a factor. So, I won't specifically
say it's just my Black identity, but I will say it's the culture of the department, as well as
your relationship with your supervisor based on your identities. So, I can say that his
supervisor, him being a heterosexual White male, his supervisor's a heterosexual White
female. My supervisor is a homosexual Asian Pacific American male. And I identify as a
heterosexual Black male. So, going into other peers, like I said, we all talk.
Regarding Tim, for whom admittedly race and gender were the two biggest lenses through which
he saw and walked through world, it was not surprising that he disclosed gendered racial
phenomena in his workplace. Notably, on his campus, according to him, if you were a Black
male and not an administrator you were rendered invisible. He confirmed, “And, if you are not
an administrator, you’re almost invisible – as a Black man.” Further discussing dynamics
resulting from being a Black man in a position of power, he stated:
There aren’t that many African American men in leadership positions and so … And, I
would think is a phenomenon. I don’t have the data in front of me, but I mean in the state
of California and especially in higher ed in California, there aren’t as many cisgendered
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African American men who are in leadership positions. And so, when you encounter that
it may the first Black man that has told you no or that has some semblance of control.
Black women also experienced gendered racial encounters in their workplaces. Denise
personified excellence and I could tell people liked working with her. She was just together. In
her words, she always sought to be prepared, competent, and confident. It made sense that she
would be attuned to gendered dynamics in the workplace, especially given her interest in
supporting women in leadership roles, which she confirmed by saying, “… and I like helping
people figure out what they wanna do and I encourage the seminars, and working with women in
leadership; it really is my passion, so…” When asked about who helped her navigate racial
mistreatment she experienced in her workplaces, she credited the four Black women with whom
she worked. Though Denise is for and about the advancement of women in the workplace, she
recognized that being both Black and a woman came with unique challenges. She stated, “I’m a
Black woman, so I’ve got the woman thing to deal with. Sometimes you deal with the
mansplaining. And then, you're a Black person on top of it. So, just existing is exhausting…”
Storyteller Snapshot: Cyrus
Cyrus typified the heart and soul of student affairs. He remarked, “I engage them from
the lens like my heart and my soul is in what we’re doing right now because I feel like I’m called
to do this.” In my notes from his interview, I gave him the name and title “The Advocate”; he
clearly had no hang ups with advocating on behalf of others, himself, and new professionals, and
he expected others to do the same for him. He always knew he wanted to be in education as he
recalled childhood memories of playing school. He recalled, “As early as I can remember I knew
I wanted to be in the field of education, and if my brother and my sister were here, I’m the eldest,
they would tell you that’s the truth because we would play school all the time you know.” It was
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clear from our conversation that he desired for people to be on the same page as him and be just
as dedicated to the work as he was. He and I both attended HBCUs. In fact, one of his mentors
was on the faculty at my undergraduate alma mater. Cyrus spoke often about the honor and
privilege of wearing his name badge and how that tied to his family history. It was interesting
that early on in our interview he mentioned that most of the racial challenges he has experienced
at his current place of employment had been from non-Black people of color. As he went on, it
became clearer why.
Racialized Expectations
This category of experience concerns expectations others have of Black employees that
are related to job performance or existing in a work environment. These are others’ projections
of who storytellers were expected to be; how they should comport their selves or enact their
Blackness; or what they would do on the job. These were expectations held exclusively for them
as Blacks. These ideas were often about the quality of work, perfectionism, or type of work that
people wanted them do because they were Black.
An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Expectations
Little Grace
Michael was a scholar administrator who was quite familiar with the experiences of
persons with marginalized identities. We talked about his research and work, and journey to his
current role as director of male success. The sense I got from our conversation was that he was
balancing a “tight rope.” Part of that balancing act for him included how to proceed in the wake
of expectations others had of him. He shared:
I feel like one of the hardest parts about being a Black person in my job is trying to keep
up with the expectations of being a Black person. You don’t have any leeway to fail. It’s
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like you have to exist in this pool of idealism, this pool of perfection, and you still have to
be excellent.
He recalled ways that others at his job demanded him to be perfect all the time. He was
somewhat of a newer fulltime professional, and was attempting to juggle being the ideal
archetype of what a Black person at work should be. He was clearly in a high stakes role that
engendered much stress due to being locked into a prefabricated mold of unrealistic production
expectations. Work seemed hard for him and was complicated even more by the slim ledge on
which he was allowed to exist as a Black professional. He said:
There are expectations of being Black at a place like Phillips in roles like mine,
so that’s the caveat, in roles like mine. You can handle anything that comes to you. There
are Black people in other roles that are higher than mine, but they have been there 20
years. They have this established life I’m assuming outside of work that allows them to
really zone in and separate the two. I don’t really have that quite yet, and so I get little
grace if I mess up. I get little understanding if I need more time. That’s what it means
being a manager at a place like that and a Black manager. There’s this level of
expectation that you have to produce. You have to be on time. If you don’t produce and
it’s not on time it’s a reflection of you and your team, so you need to make it happen. It’s
like having this make it happen mentality, but then just the expectation of being Black.
I’ve still got to show up for my Black students.
He seemed burdened by these expectations and our chat provided reprieve as evidenced by him
referring to our conversation being like “therapy” for him. He was finally able to talk freely
about this particular weight.
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No Off Days
Tillman was together and confident in a way that I could see offending people. He was
relaxed and self-assured throughout the interview. The setting where he took my call was nicely
arranged; it was outdoors. In fact, I could not determine whether he was using a virtual
background or if his backyard was just that picturesque. How he thought about his Black identity
gave him insights into situations that I appreciated. He was familiar with the psychosocial
landscape of the campus on which he worked. He shared about the limitations that accompany
feeling like one is always on call to fix everything, especially if it concerns Black students or
students of color. He stated:
Everybody is looking at me to fix this or make it better. On one end you take pride in that
sort of thing, but also, on the other end, you know that there's only so much you can do. I
think that that can be very difficult to always be seen as a person that can fix it.
He also spoke about rules that he likened to invisible codes. He mentioned the unevenness of the
rules. By this he meant norms that governed how to be and do at work. For Blacks, he expressed
these norms were not fair. He noted:
So, I think that also just knowing that the bar and the rules don't apply equally to us as
Black people. You know what I mean? I can't have off days. There's times where I'm
really upset and that's why I just take off a lot of times on those days because if I'm
drained or I'm dealing with this, they still expect the same guy that's got the big, bright
smile, the one that's super engaging and outgoing. You know what I mean? It's like I
don't get an off day, so I think those are the things that can feel so exhausting.
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The Happy Negro and Obama Complex
Cornell discussed how it was thought of him that he should be grateful for being given a
promotion he deserved. The term he used, “Happy Negro,” resonated with me. He did not have
to do much explaining to get his metaphor across. What Cornell brought up is a caricaturization
some people hold of Blacks where they are supposed to consistently, and often in subservient
ways, display immediately recognizable demonstrations of thankfulness. He shared:
I think what pisses me off to this day is that I’m supposed to then act grateful. I
told my boss. I was like, you want me to play the happy negro. I said I’m not gonna do it.
I’m not gonna sit here and go, thank you, you, sir for this promotion.
“Happy Negro” was the trope he used to express a kind of racialized expectation of Black
people’s emotional comportment. The “Happy Negro” is used to describe the idea that Black
people are supposed to always be gleeful and joyful in the presence of Whites despite their
internal emotional state. Such caricaturizations are related to ways White people thought Blacks
should respond and relate to them during and after slavery. He shared:
I remember this one time my boss told me, “You know I notice in meetings you don’t
smile and joke anymore.” I looked at him and I was just like, “Excuse me?” He goes,
“Well, you know you used to be very happy. You would joke and kind of rib off people,
and now you just sit in staff meetings with a very sort of cold look on your face. You give
very one or two-word answers. You’re not engaging with people, and I think that’s
having an effect on the rest of the team.” I was just like, “Are we doing this right now?”
I’m not your happy negro anymore, and now you’ve got a problem with it?
He also mentioned expectations other Black people on his campus held of him. My sense from
our interview was that these kinds of racialized expectations limited who he could truly be in his
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role. Though these were not articulated in a list of demands, he had enough interactions to know
that such ideas were present in more than a few people’s minds. He termed it the “Obama
Complex”, where because he was a Black face and Black man in position of power, he was
expected to correct and fix everything for Black people. He recalled:
I went through a bit of what I felt like was sort of the Obama complex. I think certain
people made a narrative of who I was, what I would do at the college, what I would
change and those type of things and then put that on me without really knowing who I
was or what I was here at the college to do.
Low Expectations
When asked about the hardest thing about being Black where she worked, Nia replied
with the following:
I feel like – just that people don’t expect for you to do as well as other people. Or they
come in – or at least – and again, my identity is being Black and young, and I’m a mom.
It’s a couple of different layers. But I feel like people expect for you to not be good. Or
they have low expectations. That is so insulting. We literally built this country. And for
people to expect little or whatever is a conversation in itself.
From what I knew of Nia, it was hard to believe others would expect less of her. As she sat there
unpacking the boxes of the new house she had just moved into, on the eve of being installed in
her new interim dean role, I was frustrated by this truth she shared that was commonly held
about Black people. I knew low expectations were often held of Black people, but it is always
hard hearing it from someone who looks like they could be your sister.
Tillman and Logan were both from Chicago. Both of them went to private universities in
the Midwest. Though I doubt they knew each other, they both mentioned differentials in what
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was expected of their work quality, again painting the picture of a slim ledge. This came up in
how they said they were not allowed to make mistakes, as articulated by Tillman:
So, again, expectations just come up sort of in interactions. Like I said, where if there's
any sort of mistake, there's sort of an underlying expectation that if it does fall short, they
think, “I don't know if he can quite do this.” It's sort of hard to fully describe, but it's just
this sort of low bar expectation. Sometimes I'll see this with White folks where it will be,
they think, for whatever reason, that you're not quite on their level intellectually,
capability wise, or this or that. And they sort of expect for you not to hit at that part. And
then when that doesn't happen, it's sort of like you have folks that are waiting around or
just expecting you not to fully be able to deliver in a way. Some of those aren't realistic
expectations to begin with, you know what I mean? And we're all going to make mistakes
along the way…
This was also interpreted by Logan as being the most difficult thing about being Black in his field
of work. He stated:
That’s an easy answer. I’m so visible that I know everyone’s looking for me to
fail. I think what’s so difficult is that – I call it the Obama Syndrome – that I have to be
perfect in order to still hold credibility. So, the margin of failure – sorry, not the margin
but the idea of failure is almost something that paralyzes me because I know that there’s
at least one person, maybe even a handful, maybe more, out there waiting for me to [eff]
up.
Being a Black administrator or staff person in higher education came with the automatic
assumption that one would be the expert on all things Black. Storytellers told tales of how their
peers and others with whom they worked reflexively and unnecessarily deferred to them on
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matters seemingly or tangentially related to Blackness or Black people. Earlier, Tillman
mentioned this sentiment. In his role, if any “Black issues” came up he and other Black
employees were, “expected to be the firefighters that save the day.” Carla, speaking about how
people do not have nuanced approaches to supporting Black employees brought up the idea of
being the “Black expert”. She said:
People are always expecting you to want to go to the Black events. Even if you do want
to go, but it’s that kind of automatic thing being like, “Well, Carla’s Black, just assign her
that. She’ll want to do that because she’s Black.” And sometimes I do, but it’s just I don’t
want that to be the automatic assumption. Don’t automatically assign it to me. Ask me if I
want to go.
Unpacking this more, she said:
It’s just interesting because I think when you’re a Black person in higher ed, you become
the expert on all things Black even if you’re not. You could have very much grown up in
an all-White neighborhood and went to private schools and basically been a White
person, but because your skin is Black, you are the expert on everything Black and it’s
just very interesting.
Expectations are difficult because of what they suggest or bely. They lay bare and subtly
communicate what people hold true and think will come to pass. They are especially pernicious
when racialized.
Storyteller Snapshot: Cydni
Cydni is proud of her working-class roots. That is what she shared almost immediately
when we talked. She was born in the Bay area to a mom who was in the military. They moved
around often and for her she remembers, “… school being a place kind of that was constant.” I
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knew Cydni as we worked together at a college on the East Coast. I learned much more about her
during our interview and saw her in a new light. The locked twists and reading glasses she
sported that day gave her an erudite look. I did not expect to talk for as long as we did, but our
dialogue was quite substantive. Cydni works as the Director of Student Support and
Achievement at California State University, Swamp Creek. It was fascinating learning about her
former career at ESPN and how that led to graduate school and eventually to working in higher
education. We ended our conversation that day on a personal note, brainstorming ways we could
be professionally helpful to each other in advancing our careers.
Intraracial Distrust and Conflict
Intraracial distrust and conflict speaks to friction, clashes, or disagreements that occur
amongst same-race peers and colleagues within a work environment. This often happened when
expectations around supposed intraracial support, mutual equity, respect, uplift, solidarity, or
advocacy were transgressed. Storytellers described how they were surprised to encounter
pushback from same-race peers that felt competitive. Euphemisms like “all skinfolk ain’t
kinfolk” were used to articulate ways they had been let down by or experienced distrust from
other Blacks in the workplace. These instances disrupted pictures storytellers held for the mutual
advancement of Blacks in a particular context.
An Experiential Portrait of Intraracial Distrust and Conflict
Caught Off Guard
Every time someone unpacked an experience with intraracial distrust it stung. I felt let
down that my storytellers had been let down by Black people- my people, their people, our
people. Angela began our interview by talking about her midwestern upbringing. She clued me
in that even though she grew up in a Black family, growing up in a predominately White town
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was not easy for her. She expressed excitement in attending a majority Black secondary school,
but was rejected there also because they deemed she was not Black enough. Here is how she
talked about being enthusiastic about the potential of working with Black women on her campus:
The treatment from the Black women… I was so excited to have Black women on
campus. I thought that their presence was going to lean more toward building a
community than it was of this idea expressed toward me that, “You’ve been doing what
you’ve been doing for so long, you’re not capable of doing what we need to have done.
You’re not like us. You’re just a…”
Unfortunately, she, “felt a level of harshness” that she did not see coming from them. She was
caught off guard by a number of Black women in leadership who thought she had been on her job
too long. They tried to move her out.
Competition and Threat
Lydia, who I knew to be quite kind, described Black people on her team as “rude.” The
more storytellers began to express similar sentiments around intraracial distrust and conflict, the
more I wanted to disbelieve it. It cut against ideas about being Black that I long held true: Black
people are supposed to support one another. And while that has been overwhelmingly true in my
experience, I had to allow for other Black people to tell me about their experiences with same-
race peers, despite how difficult they were to hear. As I listened, more storytellers painted a
picture of a hostile workplace to which their same-race peers were contributing.
Crabs in the barrel was the metaphor Kyndra used to describe this phenomenon. She
shared about how some Black people did not help her ascend in previous roles or mentor her.
She mentioned it feeling like a competition. “It's just like, almost like a competition or
something. It's like, "There's no competition. Shoot. We should be helping each other,” she
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recalled. She said this was likely to occur where there were few Black people employed in an
organization or department.
Brittanie recalled this idea as she was searching for headphones to give her daughter for
Zoom. She shared that generally, she felt supported by Black people in the different roles
she has held. However, she did highlight some unfavorable experiences with Black managers
that she linked to competition and threat. Sharing how those dynamics combined in
intraracial distrust she noted:
I have had some supervisors that were Black that – how do I say this? How do I
talk about this? I have one particular supervisor who was a Black woman who I think felt
very threatened by me. So, it was always competition. She threw me under the bus a lot.
So, that was a – that was a difficult thing. I've also had a Black male supervisor that I felt
like wasn't as much of an ally for Black women as he was for everybody else.
Shots Fired
Michael described how intraracial conflict manifested as a zinger from someone he
respected. No doubt it caught him off guard in his meeting. It reminded both he and I of the
colloquial term “shots fired”. He shared:
Another example came up, and this was from a Black woman. I was kind of
shocked because I also respected her. I still do. She is a great mentor, but she’s said to me
in a room of all Black administrators about my own performance because we had not
spoken about it yet. I don’t know what I asked, but in so many words she was like, “I am
tired of seeing Black men who get PhDs just advance in this field without being tested or
without being challenged.”
He was animated in the moment he told this story, putting his hand over his heart like he had
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been struck by an arrow. “It just stung different,” he said. He seemed to take it in stride, and
concluded that she was just projecting.
Garry, who worked in at a Los Angeles research one university, reflected on how
racism connected to intraracial distrust and conflict in the workplace. He did not say he had
experienced this directly, but his comments suggested a familiarity with it. In our interview, he
was wise and sage-like as he shared a particular truth regarding Black-on-Black distrust. He
framed it like this:
But we’re trained and conditioned to look at each other as competition. And,
some of that is based on ego, some of that is based on other things that’s going on. But
we should never get in the way of each other. To me, racism has played that effect on us
the most. It’s like us feeling we can’t trust each other. That, to me, that’s the greatest
weapon of racism. To me. It’s not the overt stuff, it’s the conditioning of us to where we
don’t want to support each other.
Storyteller Snapshot: Logan
“We really can’t wait to see where you go,” is what past supervisors said of Logan as he
left one position to seek other career opportunities. Logan is a positive person with an optimistic
attitude. He approaches life and people with the mindset that the glass is half full, but that people
have people also have their baggage. He said, “that everyone deserves to be known” and his
openness with me in the interview proved that to be true of him. He is originally from Chicago
and works at University of California Plain Valley as the Associate Director of Counseling and
Programs in the career center. He often talked about how he was deemed to be atypically
“Black” and how that showed up in his life and career. He wore a Black polo shirt buttoned to
the top, which reminded me of wearing a style like that while in college. Chicago winters are
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what brought he and his wife to California. None of the introvertedness he mentioned from his
childhood appeared in the interview. Of his hostile workplace experience he said, “As a Black
man, this is germane to my entire experience.” That quote stuck with me for a while.
Second-guessing Experiences with Racial Mistreatment
This concerns doubting whether encounters with racism, microaggressions, or racial
mistreatment at work actually happened or were attributable to race. This occurred as storytellers
recalled incidents of mistreatment and tried to make sense of them. This caused many of them to
question whether they were being too sensitive. This set of experiences is also about how they
did not fully trust their instincts when these racialized incidents raised clear red flags for them.
An Experiential Portrait of Second-guessing Experiences with Racial Mistreatment
Carmen’s move from North Carolina to Northern California played in the back of my
mind as we talked. I pictured her highlighting California on a Rand McNally map, throwing her
luggage in her car, and driving across country. Much of how Carmen attempted to sort out racial
encounters at her new job was framed through her relocation from North Carolina to Northern
California. She noted, “Again, some of those things that I've experienced when I got here, it’s me
doubting myself and is this racial, is this not, no.” She made this statement after telling me about
how she vacillated over a racialized dilemma on her team. In this instance, answers on a team
exercise differed from the other White women in her group. As they inquired about this, she felt,
but could not express to them, that they believed her answers and how she arrived at them,
should match theirs. To her, something about the encounter, “had underlying racial tones”.
Though she could not definitively state whether or not it was racialized, afterwards she knew she
felt “yucky” and was, “…very frustrated after the meeting. But [she] couldn't, really put it into
words.”
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Tamir did not rely on inside or outside connections to get jobs. In his words, putting his
best foot forward was all he knew how to do. For most of his career, the formula of doing good
work was favorable for him. However, when he experienced nepotism in one of his roles, it was
not surprising that he would think twice about his racialized experience as it pertained to career
advancement. Describing being passed over for promotion because he was Black by someone
who was less accomplished, he remarked:
And so, it's situations like that, that have occurred time after time where I've always had
to second guess, "Okay. Well, maybe it was because of this." And it's just like, "No. Like
I can't put myself in a position of doubting myself." I've learned that over time.
Angela’s story reminded me of people I know who have talked about inching forward despite
many barriers, only to be knocked a few steps back. Angela knew about marginalization, race,
and discrimination. In fact, she started off our interview discussing patriarchy, gender, and race.
Given that, I was surprised that she rarely attributed work discrepancies she experienced to race.
Race was often the last variable for her. She shared:
Now, see, I don’t know whether these instances if they were because I was Black, or
were these instances because I wasn’t – I didn’t have the education? So, was it justified
because I was stuck in this clerical position, or was it because they didn’t want me, as a
Black person, to do the work? And that’s – that’s what it has felt like the last five years.
And there was a suggestion that I take on the role of their support person. But that
position typically came with an additional stipend. And I took on the role, but I didn’t get
the stipend to go with it. So, was that racially motivated? I don’t know.
Kanicka did not seem like one to doubt herself. She was sure of herself and even when she was
searching for words, there was a certainty about her, like she was not aloof or lost in thought. At
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the beginning of our time together, she stated that most if not all of her interactions at work were
racialized. She recalled, “…in my mind, they are related to race but in the White person’s mind
that I had those interactions with, they would never say any challenges in our interactions had
anything to do with race.” In the same line of thought, she also questioned whether those same
racial encounters were valid. She asked, “So, the hard thing about that is you second guess
yourself, and you begin to question whether or not, “Is this a race thing? Is this really what I
thought? Is it what I’m feeling it is? Maybe it’s not. Maybe that’s me putting that on them.”
Storytellers helped me understand how second-guessing experiences with racial
mistreatment was a frequent occurrence. When I interviewed them, I could see many of them
making a mental checklist of trying to make sense of certain situations, determining whether race
was a small or significant factor in their calculations. Nia reflected on how second-guessing or this
process of thinking through whether or not one has been racially impacted can make one feel like
they are being too sensitive. She explained, “I think that’s the thing about racism or
microaggressions. It causes you to question it and it caused “Is this me? Am I being unreasonable?
Am I being too sensitive?””
Storyteller Snapshot: Carla
I knew Carla from my time in graduate school. I am still sort of surprised that we have
been able to maintain our friendship for so long. I am glad I was able to interview her, though.
Significant events related to health have occurred in her life since my time in graduate school. I
listened as she took me through the Black and White divide of Pittsburgh and brought me up to
speed on how it is gentrifying. She also took me through the office politics of her job, which she
had to navigate as a young, Black, woman, three identities that were quite significant for her. In
her current role as Assistant Director of Freshmen Recruiting at University of California Pico,
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she discussed how the outlook for her and similarly situated peers was like, “being on a hamster
wheel”, as she and they tried to figure out staying long-term or collecting skills to go elsewhere.
It hit home when she said that she endures at work because, “sometimes it’s for the health
insurance.”
Racialized Resilience
Storytellers closely tethered making it, getting through, or surviving in their workplaces
to discourses and narratives about ways Blacks have historically overcome hard situations. They
situated their trauma on the job within common collectively held notions about Black life in
America. They articulated an internalized stamina and ability to endure inequitable work
conditions that was coupled with navigating the injustices that Black people have historically
lived through.
An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Resilience
Family was one of Nia’s core values. She often oriented herself and made sense of her
circumstances through her parents and family. She frequently recalled her Jamaican roots in
telling her story. She shared about her father and how he deserved to be promoted more than he
was. His endurance was helpful to her navigating persistent racial mistreatment at work and she
recalled:
But he endured – my father should have been sergeant. He took the sergeant exam a few
times. I think he, at one point, was top three, a top-three score getter and they only took
two from that class that year. This is, unfortunately, part of what it’s like being Black in
America. Adversity is built into it and resilience is in our blood. Should it have to be?
Should that have to be the experience that we have? No. But until we get to this liberated
space where there is equity in everything and people are held to account and accountable
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for micro aggressions and the implicit bias and racism that happens in the day to day.
You just put your armor on. It’s not about what these people have to say.
Everywhere Collette has worked or interviewed in higher education had its own unique quirks
that contributed to an inhospitable workplace: HBCUs, mid-sized schools, postsecondary
institutions on the East and West Coasts. In fact, one of the colleges where she interviewed on
the East Coast was where my dad and I often visited for church conferences. The place where
she has been for the last few years, though, has been exceptionally hellish. Collette also
recounted enduring and working through racism at her most recent place of employment. She
framed her resilience as survival:
You know, sometimes people experience racism for maybe a couple of months. A year or
so. But I've been in the thick of this thing since 2017. And so, years of nonstop dealing
with racial battle fatigue. All of those things. I think the success that I've seen is that I've–
I'm surviving and I'm overcoming it.
It is interesting that she used the words survive and overcome in the present participle to indicate
that it is a process, that it is continuous. As she further elaborated on this she said, “But I think
that's every Black person's story.” In so doing she tied the continuous battling, overcoming, and
enduring of racism largely present in Black narratives to her account of persisting through racial
mistreatment at work.
Tim discussed the hardest thing about being Black at work as having to ensure that
everything was intact. He said, “You’ve got to keep your [stuff] together. Not losing your
[stuff].” In blunt terms he shared how as a Black administrator he has to not give any indication
whatsoever that any proverbial threads were loose despite the pains and stings of racial
mistreatment. Showing anything less than that, he indicated, would jeopardize his employment.
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He talked about the learned coping mechanism of, “not melting down and keeping things close to
the chest”. This reminded me of what I read about Black men, work, and the idea of John
Henryism (Fisher, 2020; Hudson et al., 2016), the theory of Black endurance of racial
mistreatment and its deleterious effects on Black health. I was concerned for him, but he later
shared he had a healthy way to process such work stresses.
Having switched from corporate work to higher education, Sandra shared an early
experience at her place of employment with a verbally abusive boss with whom she shared
membership in several affinity originations. Reflecting on her work history at her current
institution she has, “had both good experiences with people of color and good experiences with
White, non-minorities.” In summarizing inequitable treatment from both parties, like a number
of storytellers, she considered perseverance as something related to experiences with being
Black. She noted, “But I think throughout both experiences, what people of color, Black people
do, is we persevere.”
Like Sandra, Tamir described making it through tough situations on his job in ways that
made it seem that the resilience he exhibited was innate to being Black. He ruminated on how he
was set up for failure when he took his current position initially and how he, “had to be
resourceful with having no resources.” He explained his workplace inequity in this way:
The Black experience is like persevering through things. Being in positions, being in
circumstances where you have to persevere and still find a way to come out on top, and
it's like we as Black people we experience so much and it's kind of like it kind of comes
with the territory unfortunately. I hate saying that. But we’re so used to carrying this
burden, experiencing these things, it's just – I don't know. You just carry on.
Storytellers painted a picture of a resilience that enabled them to live in between the “now” of
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racial mistreatment on their jobs and the “not yet” of a more equitable future. They called to
mind a type of perseverance that seemed to be connected to the DNA of being Black in America
and the “Black experience”. On one hand, this kind of resilience appeared useful to them. On the
other hand, I was frustrated by it. My frustration was not directed at them, but at the implication
that they and others were resigned to “suck it up” and keep going.
Storyteller Snapshot: Breonna
After a few schedule misalignments, we were finally able to connect. At the beginning of
our interview, Breonna told me that she considered herself the, “Harriett Tubman of education.”
I laughed, cheered, and affirmed that heartily. Her being unapologetic about her Blackness set
the tone for our chat. That was one of the many high points of our time together. Breonna was
clearly comfortable in her own skin, as she did the interview draped in a blanket while
responding to shouts from her parents about what she wanted for dinner. Breonna was born and
raised in Los Angeles and did her undergrad in the South East. She returned to two Los Angeles
schools for her master’s and doctoral degrees. Everywhere she went academically or
professionally, her eye for equity was sharp. She cared deeply about the well-being of Black
people, both students and employees. In her current role as Assistant Director of Black Student
Success, she took me through more nuanced understandings of phenomena Black students in the
African diaspora experience. What stood out to me about her story was how she, as an obviously
talented person, was subjected to negative campus experiences, which often made her look for
opportunities elsewhere. I left the call with a deeper sense of wanting her and those like her to
thrive at any place they are employed.
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Isolation, Onlyness, Fewness
This section is about experiences related to the inequitable distribution of Black
employees on a campus. Isolation, onlyness, and fewness is an attempt to capture and describe
feelings and realities that accompany being the only Black person and having few Black people
who share similar racialized experiences in a work context. Storytellers discussed how being one
of few Blacks affected them and made them think about employment opportunities available to
Blacks wanting to work or advance their career in higher education.
An Experiential Portrait of Isolation, Onlyness, Fewness
It was late morning and Carmen and I had already been talking for a while. I yawned
when I asked her about the hardest thing about being Black in higher education. He response was
that, “I think the higher up you go, the higher up you look, you don't always see a lot of people
that look like you.” For her, since there were few Black leaders in positions of power, she
coupled that reality with the notion of “carefully navigate[ing]”. For her that meant difficulty in
knowing who her allies were, and how that locked her into a mode of, “always [having to] be
thinking about your responses or your interactions or your involvement or your everything.” “I'm
the only Black person in my unit”, she said, “And I actually replaced a Black woman”, she told
me as she detailed the racial demographics of her workplace. For Carmen, though she
increasingly came in contact with more people of color in her new workplace, being the only
Black person came with attendant political consequences.
Similarly, Gavin expounded on the lack of Black leadership in his work context. He, also,
brought up how because of this, had to delicately navigate interactions. He stated:
I don’t have any other Black leaders at the levels that I interact with. Like at the director
level, senior director, and above, in the group I work in, there aren’t any Black
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individuals, so there’s nobody that always understands where I’m coming from. Or who
understands what a certain look I’m giving says. Or how if I shift certain words, or how
things that they say come across to me. And so, these are things where I have to work
extra hard at to translate what I’m saying or to make sure I’m presenting things in a way
to them to get them to understand it. And I feel like sometimes I actually have to hide my
emotions because I don’t want to come across as too emotional for them, or too charged,
or too angry, or hostile, or too anything.
The human resources department where Gavin worked was not on the central campus area of his
institution. He did not interact with many Black people in his role until January when he began
working with a new team member, a Black woman. When he mentioned that, “I used to go times
without actually seeing Black people for days and days, even weeks…,” I wondered if this was
owing to campus design or the small number of Black employees on his campus. Perhaps it was
both.
Eric often talked about his “voice”. Being heard and taken seriously in professional
conversations and settings were big for him. He was soft spoken and it was interesting that he
linked onlyness or being the only Black person with being silenced. He recalled how he knew he
was being mistreated because of his race in a meeting at his job. He stated:
And I would know that it was something that was particular to me because I’d oftentimes
be the only Black person in the room – only Black male in the room. So, I would know
that something doesn’t feel right. Or I just would feel sort of uncomfortable at times or
just kind of silenced.
Antoinette was a Black Studies major in undergrad. In light of that, it was not surprising that she
would be attuned to particular racial discrepancies on the campus where she worked. About the
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number of Black people employed at her institution, she mentioned, “On the campus where I am
currently, this is my third CSU campus. There aren’t that many Black people on this particular
campus. I mean, they’re there, they’re just not as many as some of the other campuses that I've
worked at. As of a month ago, two months ago, I was the only Black person in my particular
college on campus.” In light of this, Antoinette commented on the recurring issues she had with
people, “trying to figure her out”. In regards to how onlyness and fewness played out in a
department in which she had previously worked, athletics, she mentioned that, “the tough part
about being Black in athletics is that there just still aren’t enough of us. I think if you look at
who’s playing on the court, you’re going to see Black and brown faces. But then the higher you
go the less you’re coming into contact with people who look like you.”
Breonna, another Black woman administrator, commented on the many times she has
been one of few Blacks. Quantifying this experience, she said, “…for 95% of my job [history],
I’ve always been the only Black person.” For her and others, fewness manifested in the number
of Black leaders they saw in positions of power. She commented on this phenomenon and how it
made her feel. She said:
We have hella Black directors but then when you start to go higher, the deans, it’s
fewer and fewer. And then we get to your associate or assistant vice president and things
like that, it’s nonexistent, basically. And then vice president’s even worse. And the
presidency, absolutely not. And so, it’s almost like, “Okay, so what you’re saying is I can
make it as high as a director, maybe a dean?” Sometimes it’s disheartening because it’s
like there’s a ceiling that is holding me from doing anything else. I think that’s the
hardest thing.
Both Tamir and Gavin, two Black men who worked at the same institution in different roles,
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noted, “there are not many people who look like” them in their work contexts. Tamir, who
worked in one of the graduate schools, brought up how the physical absence of Black people
made him feel like he was in a, “foreign space”. Gavin, a Black male with locks, related his
image and role to feelings of being an outlier due to fewness. The discomfort they expressed
with being one of few or the only Black person in their workplaces was a feeling with which I
was familiar.
Storyteller Snapshot: Garry
Garry was the first interview I conducted for this study. The metaphors and analogues he
used in the interview painted pictures of how his upbringing, current reality, and the way he
navigated workplace dynamics meshed. One example is when he talked about climbing and
lifting the weight. This was how he made sense of being a foster youth who was erroneously
placed into special education and found career success in higher education. He shared about
having a Black principal intervene and advocate on his behalf. Reflecting on that experience,
Garry said, “Looking at him I saw myself in the future.” When he said that, a sense of renewed
purpose for my study washed over me. His encouragement for Black people working in higher
education to be, “squatters” for each other to lift the burden of racism stuck with me.
Invisibility
This is about the feeling and experience of not being seen. Storytellers described senses
and situations in which they were literally over-looked or made to feel they did not exist at all.
They attributed this non-recognition to race. Invisibilization was the feeling or expression that
they had to be in certain positions as a Black person to be affirmed and recognized in their
broader campus work context.
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An Experiential Portrait of Invisibility
Fullness was a recurring them in my chat with Michael. As a Black professional, his aim
was to live in the fullness of his identity: A Black administrator with a hard-earned PhD.
Recalling an instance where he was called the name of another Black man by a White woman on
the campus where he worked, he said, “I don’t even remember her name either, but to that point
it’s like I was invisibilized because I was also like the other Black man who was on [that]
campus working that looked the same and fit the same body type.” Reflecting, he felt he was
robbed of the opportunity to set the tone for who he could be in that space.
Another instance of invisibilization in the workplace occurred when Lydia described how
a former boss came up to her and neglected to acknowledge her. According to her, “And, I was
very welcoming. Like, ‘Hey, Mark. Nice to see you. Are you gonna come? And, it wasn’t just
me, it was another coworker as well. And, it was absolutely no type of acknowledgment at all.”
This incident happened in public at a museum at a work event, such as a fundraiser or gala. Other
people were present and witnessed it. She was the only Black person there. Since I know Lydia
personally, I could vividly picture the face she made and her body language when this occurred. I
pressed a bit further for details and asked how she knew this occurred because of her race. She
answered, “Because of who he immediately went to [afterwards]. So, he immediately went to
other White males.” She was furious about it and felt it was a gross display of power. She
recalled, “And, it also sucked because it was like I could feel him knowing that he felt like he
had this power, and that’s what I didn’t like.”
George recounted how invisibilization can happen when Black employees do not hold
prestigious, highly visible positions on campus. He highlighted the apparent hypocrisy of his
campus as it pertained to rhetoric around diversity, equity, and inclusion versus on-campus
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realities. He shared a narrative about how he perceived a distinction in treatment between
himself and high-profile Black faculty. He mentioned:
With all of SSU’s talk about being so innovative and openminded and gamechangers,
they’re no different. They’re no different from any other school as far as their treatment
of Black men. And the lack of diversity, the lack of faculty members and deans and
provosts that look like me, the small number kinda proves that they don’t value us. But
I’ll tell you, the hardest thing is if you sprinkle us here and there – and I do mean
“sprinkle” – if you sprinkle us here and there, the hardest thing is – do you remember that
book, The Invisible Man? Black men are the invisible man on this campus. They are the
invisible man on most major research one and private institutions. We are invisible men.
Oh, yeah, they love us when we write books. They love us when we bring money in.
They love us when we create new programs. They wanna ride our coattails. They wanna
do all kind of photo ops. They wanna bring us in. They want us to do workshops for all
these different departments. They wanna show us off. But they don’t see us. They do not
see us.
Invisibility for Black employees looked like people “loving” Black people when they brought in
money or acclaim to the university, but not paying attention to them and their experiences
otherwise. To many, it felt like being reduced to nothing or being looked through as if they were
not there. Tim, an administrator at a Los Angeles community college, remarked that as a
Black man on his campus, “… if you are not an administrator, you’re almost invisible, as a Black
man.” Storytellers described invisibility as the reality of having a physical presence on a campus,
but not being noticed.
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Storyteller Snapshot: Tim
Tim wore a gray hoodie and had the background of his employer posted for his Zoom
setup. He was a childhood actor who grew up in Pasadena and had a deep affinity for the place
where he came of age; he informed me he was well connected there. According to Tim, in his
family, he was, “The one who took a chance.” He always had agency, he said, and race and
gender were the two biggest lenses through which he saw the world. Tim went to community
college in the Los Angeles area and then on to finish at an HBCU in the South. He has a vision to
become a dean and is currently employed as an interim dean where he works. He is also in a
BGLO fraternity. When we connected over Zoom, we talked about trying to maintain a haircut
during Coronavirus quarantine. One of the things that stood out to me the most from our
conversation was how seeing Black people in powerful leadership positions at his HBCU made
him feel like a “superhero”. “I have to be the loudest without being the noisiest,” was how he
framed moving and navigating through the higher education industry as a Black man. As we
continued to talk, a story of someone striving to be the consummate Black professional emerged.
“No One Could Ever Come for Me for My Work”: Twice as Good, Above and Beyond
Reproach
Storytellers described how their work quality had to far exceed expectations to be
accepted. This category is about feelings and experiences associated with how, as a Black
person, one cannot appear mediocre in the work they produce. Twice as good refers to the double
standard that compared to Whites or others, Black employees’ work is not met with a fair
assessment; it is greeted with a biased scrutiny that grades what they do harsher or deems it
inferior. Therefore, in order for them and their work to be accepted, it has to at least be two times
better than what is considered “quality”. This category also speaks to navigating limited
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employment opportunities as well. Storytellers expressed that in order to secure other positions,
they felt they had to be over-qualified for roles just be to be considered as a potential candidate.
An Experiential Portrait of Being Twice as Good and Going Above and Beyond
Kanicka and Denise were two women who I interviewed that were excellent in their jobs.
Both worked at major research universities, one in Northern California and the other in Southern
California. Kanicka took me through the importance of being excellent in her work and role. The
standard she set for herself was to ensure that, “the work itself that has to be excellent.” She
elaborated, “And to me, that means that the highest quality, beyond reproach, that I am thorough,
that no one can – it has to be [darn] near perfect, in my mind…”. What was interesting is that she
connected her high work standards to how Blacks in the workplace are perceived. She said:
I’m just conscious of people’s perceptions of what Black people bring to the workplace,
and that’s just something I place on myself with how I talk, what I produce. It always has
to be near perfect beyond reproach. And I don’t feel that’s just me. I feel like a lot of
people of color and Black people in particular, that’s how we present ourselves in the
workplace because you feel you have to. And even then, I could do that and still be the
one who’s laid off, so there’s – what I can tell you is that no one could ever come for me
for my work. The work is always – it always has to be the highest quality.
Denise discussed the sentiment that Black employees have to go beyond what is considered
acceptable at work. For her and others, to be Black in a higher education workplace was having
to be twice as good. She had worked at several postsecondary institutions in Southern California,
and according to her, mediocrity was not an option. She recalled:
The hardest thing is, again, you have to be twice as good. The hardest thing is to make
sure you are not only meeting expectations, you're exceeding the expectations. And
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sometimes, trying to figure out what the true expectations are [is] the hardest aspect.
That’s the hardest thing: making sure you are always on your game; you always have
your information. You don’t stop learning and dispelling the stereotypes.
Black employees who served in various institutional capacities expressed the necessity of having
to be “twice as good” to secure career mobility. Kaneef, who worked in residence life, explained,
“there's a level of you got to work twice as hard, if not harder for those opportunities and those
doors.” This is the advice he gave other similarly situated employees of color looking to move up
in his department. Other Black employees, such as Breonna who held roles in advising and
student support, mentioned having to be far better as an applicant on the higher education job
market. She made this comment as she elaborated on racial climate issues that prompted her to
seek employment at several different institutions. She told me, “I feel like when we’re applying
for a job, we have to be a million times better. You read the job descriptions, you read the
preferred qualification, but we still got to have more.” By contrast Kyndra, who worked as a
research and administrative assistant and served long tenures with several other departments at a
single institution, recalled that, “especially being the only [Black employee] in most of these
situations, I have to be not only better but almost double as qualified as anybody.” Garry spoke
about what it took for him to obtain his current position. Garry considered how having to be
twice as good as a Black man in higher education caused racial battle fatigue. He elaborated:
I think that I go into every position knowing that I’m going to have to be twice as good
just because of who I am, and what I represent. So, in efforts for me to get this position, I
have to make sure that what I represent is something so much better than the next that
you have no choice but to hire me. And that, within itself, is racial battle fatigue, you
know what I mean?
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As storytellers articulated experiences with having to be twice as good, it reminded me that this
anecdote and piece of conventional wisdom is often circulated in Black communities beginning
in childhood. It is one of the ways Black parents talk to their children about what it means to be
Black at school or in society. Other ways I have heard this idea communicated is that Black
people have to work twice as hard to get half of what White people have. It was made clear to
me from these stories and other Black employees who I interviewed that excellence was
internalized, an accepted, a given. It simply came with being Black.
Storyteller Snapshot: Denise
According to Denise, “The glass is always refilling.” Denise was a trailblazer who did not
need to announce that she was. The way she reflected, put words together, and shared her
insights was incredibly comforting to listen to. Our interview occurred a couple days after the
initial uprising over the murder of George Floyd by police. She remarked about being “tired”,
not in the sleep sense, but a psychological weariness. “Here we are again,” she said, referring to
another national public racial issue. An only child whose father was in the air force, she credited
her parents for shaping her views on education, race, and diversity through their travels around
the world. I appreciated that she shared how her parents are still her best friends. Denise is a HR
Analyst at University of California Plain Valley but was quick to share the many times in her
career that she has been either the first and/or only Black person to hold certain roles.
Proving One’s Self
This category of experiences is about how in the eyes of others, storytellers had to
consistently demonstrate that they were credible and worthy of the job they held. This
manifested in ways such as having to overexplain or show how they derived conclusions,
exercises that were not required of their other-race peers or White counterparts. They discussed
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senses in which they felt as if they were constantly on trial or that they would be given a “pop-
quiz” at any moment.
An Experiential Portrait of Proving One’s Self
Michael was a member of Black Greek Letter Organization (BGLO). He described what
it was like to be Black and prove one’s self as an administrator at a PWI. He framed his
employee experience as being similar to stages in Black Greek Letter Organization traditions and
processes. He noted:
Your probation is you getting the job, and then the excitement goes down from there
because now you have to prove yourself. It feels like being a Black professional in higher
ed and manager roles is always like proving yourself. It wasn’t until my third year in that
I was like, I don’t have to prove myself anymore. I’m where I need to be. I deserve to be
where I need to be, and I’m good.
Cyrus was also in the same BGLO fraternity as Michael. Though they are both originally from
two southern states and work at sizable PWIs in Southern California, it was not immediately
clear if they knew each other or not. I interviewed both of them several weeks apart and they
each had strong ideas about race and proving. As an administrator, Cyrus shared that the hardest
thing about being Black in his field of work was the idea of proving himself. He felt that because
he was Black, both he and his work were under a “microscope”. While this was difficult, he also
articulated how it was like motivation for him. In his words:
I feel like I always have something to prove. I think I have something to prove in that I
want to do the best work that I can. I feel like there’s a bigger microscope on me and that
people are looking at me differently because I’m Black. And that makes me go harder,
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that’s my motivation at times. Not at times, all the time. I just felt like it’s a motivation
for me to prove that like I belong here.
Elsewhere in our interview, Cyrus talked about his family history and the pride he took in
wearing his name badge at work because it was an icon of his family’s success. I could not help
but wonder if, in a subtle way, his pride in wearing his name badge connected to showing
himself and others that he was worthy of the job he was hired to do. Similarly, Kanicka, also part
of a BGLO, shared how she took a certain pleasure in aspects of her work. In fact, she was quite
intentional with the type of institution at which she chose to be employed. She was an alumnus
of a public institution in California and felt particularly connected to the mission of these kinds
of schools. She did note, however, that there were differences in how she felt about working at
public versus private institutions. She commented:
At Plain Valley, I think it was always having to prove yourself. At any public institution
where I worked, it was always having to prove yourself. I think I have that anyway,
wherever I am. I always feel I have to prove myself, which goes back to something I said
earlier about the Impostor Syndrome. I just always feel like I’m gonna have to prove
myself, more so on the public side.
Kyndra was another Black woman who worked at a large research university in Southern
California. In our talk, she frequently mentioned how she was the only or one of few Blacks who
worked in the departments in which she was employed. For her, proving was consequence of
this. She emphasized that the scarcity of Black employees in her department coupled with who
she worked for made proving a reality for her. She noted:
There was a big difference. Because again it wasn't many of us. I was the only [Black
person] in the Dean's office. So, I definitely noticed the difference. And I knew that when
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I got in there, I had to prove myself. And even when I did prove myself, it was kind of
like, "Okay." Well, sometimes you still get questioned about stuff. You had to prove,
"Okay. I got this. This is my reference. This is where I obtained the information from."
Whereas your counterpart who was not a person of color, they were not subjected to
those types of information checks. Not only that. Some of them their information wasn't
solid. So, it's kind of like, "Well, why are you over here grilling me?” Find out where
they got their information from.
Storyteller Snapshot: Gavin
Cerebral is the word that comes to mind when talking with Gavin. I could see the wheels
in his head turn and turn as he reflected deeply on his responses to my questions. I came away
from our interview knowing the he wanted to be recognized for being knowledgeable about the
subject matter germane to his profession and that he does not want this to be sabotaged by racial
bias. His astuteness for scoping the psychosocial environment made sense to me as he
highlighted the safety of his childhood being a key memory for him. His approach to thinking
about racialized experiences made me consider my work in a new light. This interview was one
in which I listened to someone deeply ponder and unpack the psychological effects of and
science behind racialized experiences. He is from Chicago and works in IT HR as a culture
specialist.
Perceptions Others Have of Their Blackness/Stereotypes
This is about ways others framed storytellers’ Blackness at work. This category of
experiences is about how people attempted to relate to them as a Black person based on biases or
misinformed perspectives. It is about how Black employees mitigated their behavior and/or felt
as a result of such ideas being projected on to them. It concerns what they as Blacks thought
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about, reacted to, or how they made sense of the perceptions people held of them at work. Words
such as “belittled”, “condescending”, or “insulting” were how storytellers described feeling
about encountering stereotypes at work.
An Experiential Portrait of Black Stereotypes and Perceptions
Angry Black Women and Men
For Carla, style was the story within a story. How she wore her hair, how she carried
herself, her shoot-straight communication with peers in her office, and how she perceived others
in her workplace thought about her all coincided with style in her narrative. She had mentioned
that the way she chose to respond to questions led to difficulty. In her words, being direct was
the way to level with her instead of one, “tiptoe[ing]” around their feelings. She recognized that
for Black women, however, doing so was complicated with stereotypes. She expounded on this
by saying:
Only because I feel like when you are a Black woman who is direct, you’re kind of
viewed as that angry Black woman and that person who is difficult and isn’t willing to
bend and go with the flow. And it’s I can do that when necessary. I just need to
understand what I’m doing.
Similar to Carla, Breonna was outspoken and rejected being placed in a box at work. She shared
an example of not accepting the “aggressive Black woman” stereotypes others placed on her,
even if the happened to come from her superior. She recalled an instance when she was in a
meeting with her supervisor:
I would definitely say at SSU, in the role that I was in. I remember one time I was having
a meeting with my associate director and she is API. In the meeting she said, “You’re
being really – I just feel like you’re being really aggressive with me right now.” And I
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was like, “This is not about to happen. No.” And I was like, “I think you’re being
condescending. So, where do we go from here?”
She prefaced this idea by saying that she has never had a boss who had a degree higher than hers,
that their credentials have either been lower than or at the same level as hers. She also discussed
how this dynamic created tension, and how her supervisors felt, “threatened by smart negroes”.
She took me through the complication of considering the consequences of pushing back against
stereotypes and maintaining employment. She noted:
A lot of times we take it because we’re like, okay, this is my boss and I don’t want to lose
my job. But it got to a point where I’m like, “absolutely not. You’re not about to play that
victim card and act like I’m an angry Black woman because that’s not fair and it’s not
true.” And they pull that card at the most random times. So, I spoke up and I was like,
“No, I think you’re being condescending and I don’t like the way you’re speaking to me
right now. So, where do we go from here?”
Other Black women described being labeled with the “Angry Black Women” stereotype at work
as well. The label was often projected when Black women raised questions. In Cydni’s case, it
happened repeatedly. She remarked, “But, throughout my career, I’ve definitely been painted as
aggressor, like the angry Black woman when I question things that don’t make sense.” For
Collette, she was framed as angry and was on the receiving end of other troubling behaviors to
delegitimize her by a White female boss for no apparent reason. Of her she said:
Like she would not tell me about meetings or cancel meetings on me, or she would –
when she would have meetings, she's just, "Why are you so angry? You seem so angry
lately." And I'm like, "I'm not angry."
Negotiating Black stereotypes also affected Black men at work. For them, the angry Black man
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image was ever present in others’ minds. Often, they explained how this mitigated them speaking
out or raising certain concerns. Eric, for whom voice was important, commented on how this
influenced what he spoke about and what he did or did not share in the workplace. He recounted:
And now that I think about it, the reason why I would keep it to myself is because I didn’t
wanna be perceived as being something else. Or I didn’t wanna be misperceived as a
stereotype. I didn’t wanna be perceived as the angry Black man.
Similarly, George brought up how the angry Black man stereotype limited the range of emotions
he could express. He was especially frustrated with how he had been treated by management at
his place of employment. According to him, those in power were expecting him, “to explode, be
the angry Black man, to snap off on them” in response to the predicament they had put him in.
For him to do so, however, would have given them a reason to fire him.
Not the Stereotype and the Hip-hop Way
Some Black employees expressed how they were considered more viable because they
supposedly did not conform to or portray stereotypical and negative notions of Blackness at
work. Since there were so few Black employees, they were given a “special” status. In some
work environments, working in a way that countered Black stereotypes provided one with more
creditability.
Kyndra, recalling an instance where this was the case for her explained:
It wasn't bad there in my experience. Because I think it is different in a medical setting.
It's more like, and again, this is based on my experience. It was more like so once they
had a confidence in you that you could be accurate, and you would produce your work.,
and that, basically you weren’t the stereotype. Right? That you weren’t lazy. You wasn't
trying to get over easy. You wasn't out a lot. That you was dependable. You were
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responsible. You were accurate. That type of thing.
I had heard of non-Black people using “Black talk” as a means to try and connect with
Black people. I was not aware that this still occurred, however. Tamir, who is also in a doctorate
of education program, was affronted by this particular stereotype by peers in the workplace. He
mentioned White peers saying things to him, “in a hip-hop way” to try and connect with him.
According to him, the problem with that was two-fold: (a) He had not given them any indication
he listened to hip-hop music; and (b) Black people do not have monolithic interests. He began
analyzing and processing that particular instance with me in our interview. Of it he said:
That's actually insulting. That's actually kind of insulting to do that. Because if I were
another color, would that be done? And Black people, we're not monolithic. So, it's not
like [we] all do the same thing. So, yeah. I'm gonna take that as an insult now.
He was definitely upset by this occurrence. But it also motivated him in a way. It pushed him to
be more, “well-rounded in other aspects” and to, “kind of [go] against what a typical Black
person in their minds might be into.” For him, that looked like, “communicating in a way that
[they] underst[ood] that [he has] expertise in this field or in a subject.” In light of being
stereotyped in this manner, he wanted them to know, “Hey, I'm more than what you may think I
am."
Storyteller Snapshot: Lydia
When unassailable hope meets the realities of race is how I would describe my takeaway
from interacting with Lydia. The hope she has for seeing people being supported well and
disparities among Black people remediated come from her beliefs as a Christian. I interviewed
Lydia as she was in her car having just driven home from running errands. Something about the
different setting made the interview feel like I was right there with her instead of interfacing via
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Zoom. Lydia is from Kansas City, Missouri and has felt uniquely drawn to California since
graduate school in Texas. She recalled an event from her childhood where, because she had two
casts on her feet, White women would erroneously ask her mom what she had done to cause such
harm to her when the two of them were in public together. She unpacked racialized incidents
from graduate school and her professional life in HR. The comparisons and contrasts she made
about fitting in at her Los Angeles workplace among Black people added a layer of complexity
to the conversation that I did not anticipate.
Racialized Promotion or Lack Thereof
This category of experiences is about how Black employees encountered and felt about
racialized promotions of other-raced peers. It is about how Black employees in my study were
also denied promotional opportunities as a result of their race, though often not done so
explicitly. It is about how they experienced racialized structures in promotion mechanisms and
reward systems, or not being afforded opportunities to position themselves as viable candidates
for advancement.
An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Promotions
For Kyndra, the college where she worked before her current position was where she felt
and experienced the most racial mistreatment. She talked about what it was like to work for a
dean there who was not particularly supportive. In fact, this dean did not afford her opportunities
to grow professionally. She termed this kind of treatment indirect racism, a racism she would go
on to say could be observed in patterns of treatment of different employees. Regarding that
experience she said:
It was just weird stuff, such as things like not being afforded certain opportunities, like as
far as training. Like other admins would have opportunities for training. And then when it
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was my turn, it was like, "Oh, well. You know we don't have the time." Now, I know
that's not a concrete example of racism or microaggressions, but it's just like, "Okay. So,
you just want me to stay in this position and not learn or grow or nothing. Right?"
Cydni and Kyndra were similar in that they were part of a handful of Black women who vividly
stated that work excellence was their only option; there was nothing they could fall back on. In
our interview, Cydni continued to detail more about her work ethic and how it was connected to
her working-class roots. Despite this characteristic, on her previous campus she experienced a
senior-level administrator conspiring to deny her a promotion. According to Cydni, in her stead
they hired another Black woman who could be controlled. She told me:
They wanted to make sure they hired a Black woman so that I couldn’t complain and sue,
but the Black woman they hired is biracial and is not the kind of Black woman that ever
speaks up about anything. She doesn’t speak up about anything. So, she’s basically a
Black woman they can manipulate, who didn’t have her doctorate. She was in the middle
of working on it. No management experience, or little management experience.
She also mentioned experiencing other racialized denials of promotion at another institution
where she worked. Here, she recalled changes in management and how they affected her. She
described a series of supervisor turnovers. This set of events led to one supervisor in particular
who did not promote her. Contextualizing the issue, she said:
The next one after her was another White woman who used to drink on the job. In fact,
she got fired, or she was allowed to resign, for drinking on the job. And, she passed me
over twice for promotion because she knew I knew my stuff and would expose that she
didn’t.
At her institution, Collette received a direct promotion that was later withdrawn. This was a mild
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episode among the many outrageously hostile events she experienced at this school. According
to her, the reason for its withdrawal was due to White employees being jealous that she, a Black
woman, was being elevated by means and systems that traditionally favored them. Collette
stated:
Well, they go to direct appoint me and some of the White employees got upset and was
like, "Why is she doing direct appointed? Why wouldn't you make her go through another
interview process? Or why doesn't she have to go through this trial-and-error period?"
And so, then the other – the current VP at the time says, "Hey, man. Sorry we had to do
it. It's just a process." But it's because the White folks started complaining, "Why is this
Black girl getting promoted direct appoint but nobody else ever got this – done it this
way?" Even though they did that for other White folks. They were mad that a Black
woman was getting promoted to NPP.
Collette also chronicled another instance involving a racialized promotion. This one occurred
closer to when she began working at her current institution. She was assured that she would be
walked into a position through a process she believed would be relatively short. In moving from
one division to another, she was not made aware that she had to apply for the position she was all
but guaranteed. According to her, this was unfair because Whites who were promoted did not
have to go through an application process. She recalled:
So, [he] approached me about this job and said, "Well, were just gonna walk you into it.
It's just gonna take a process for us to do." Well, this process went on for five months that
they did it. So, they put me in a hard situation, because they told this White woman that I
was leaving her area, but then they kept me in this hostile environment. So, then finally
they said, "Okay, well, were gonna give you the job but you now have to apply for the
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job." But they didn't do this to any other White people that they elevated. They just put
them in the position.
Black employees in my study were also denied promotions due to downsizing and restructuring.
While such occurrences are common in organizations, some storytellers experienced them in
particularly racialized ways. One example is Kanicka, who at one point in her fundraising career
encountered a new White male boss who she felt did not value diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Reflecting on his managerial outlook, she said, “I think it’s a mindset personally that I think too
many leaders in higher ed have, where there’s not value placed on the type of work that involves
equity and inclusion wherever that work is on campus.” Work was, “an extension of [her] as a
person”, and that her manager during this time did not see much relevancy in diversity, equity,
and inclusion programs was at odds with her idea of, “purpose-based work” that brought her
“personal peace”. During his tenure she noticed a pattern of successive departures of people of
color in her division in a short period of time. Eventually, she was laid off, which coincided with
his tenure and university budget cuts. Summarizing that experience she said:
I can’t say that my layoff was because he was racist toward me. I know that he had a way
– he has a way of looking at things that just don’t align with diversity, that don’t value
diversity. And, so, it was no surprise when he had to lay someone off, that his choice was
to eliminate my entire program. My entire program that’s focused on diversity and
inclusion in fundraising. So, yeah.
Other ways that lack of promotions were racialized for Black employees was through
deliberately being passed over in favor of White people with less experience. Exasperated,
Sandra described such a situation for her. I pressed her on it and for her it was not just a feeling,
she had data. She worked at a public institution where this kind of information was readily
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available with just a few clicks. About this issue she said:
Well, there’s been many instances with my boss in terms of him promoting a White male
constantly for promotions and when had moments where he could’ve have promoted me,
he didn’t. So, there’s been moments like that. You see it. I think it happens so often that
you don’t necessarily register every moment unfortunately.
Denise described a kind of “jumping through hoops” to be promoted. Even when one did so,
however, promotion was not imminent. She framed this inequity like this:
Those are – they're very subtle and it’s all based on the systemic, institutionalized kind of
racism. So, it’s not overt but it’s very subtle. Like, the way things are being said or how
you're promoted or not promoted. you can go, “It’s fine to be where you are,” but there's
always some other thing that you need to do to get to the next place. It’s like, “Come on. I
have a doctorate. I have more experience than that White man over there that you just
promoted, and I’ve been here longer. I’ve got the same experience… but I haven’t –”
there was always some reason for it that doesn’t equate to the reason that they're saying…
so …
In addition, instead of being elevated to manage projects on which she was already working, they
were taken away from her and given to someone else with less time on the job. She elaborated:
There were projects that I was put in charge of, and then, soon as another White
man came along, that had only been around maybe for literally two or three months, it
was given to him. It’s like, “Oh, well, thank you very much. We’re gonna let so-and-so
take over.” Are you kidding me? I’ve been here for six years. I set everything up, and
now that everything is set up, here comes the White savior to take over and carry this
project forward. It’s happened multiple times.
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Angela, who worked at one Southern California institution for the entirety of her career, recalled
similar situations in her workplace where she witnessed Black colleagues be “sidelined” for
promotions. She described racialized promotional and managerial decisions made by a White
female boss in particular. She also shared how one White woman employee was “propped up”
over against other qualified Black employees by the White female boss she mentioned. She said:
I’ve watched her – like, this vice president that was the White woman. I don’t know if
you talked to any of them, but if you did, they’ve got incredible stories. But she’s literally
passed them up. She’s literally passed them up for promotion. She literally sidelined
them. It was – for me it was very, very easy to see that she stripped one person of his title
and his position, and put him in a place where he should have failed, and then put a White
man in his place. And that still, that went on until the White man left campus. There was
another White woman that was promoted over a Black man, by the same person. She was
promoted, and promoted, and promoted again. She stood in one place, and they just put
building blocks underneath her and elevated her. We’re all going, “What the heck?”
Tim, an administrator with deep ties to the institution at which he worked, spoke about the
structural issues underlying promotion and employment for Blacks at his campus. For him, not
only was discrimination occurring outright, racial inequities were also present in systems and
norms at his college. Speaking about what made his institution particularly racially hostile, he
noted:
It’s hard to get promoted. It’s hard to get hired in full-time positions. There are not
adequate resources provided for programs that support African American students or
employees. Issues of African American folks are essentially swept under the rug or
treated as if they’re not a priority. There is lip service given to them, but not, not
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necessarily real attention or solutions offered.
Storyteller Snapshot: Damarius
Damarius grew up as a performer. He shared that he knew how to tap dance as a kid. In
fact, he cited his ability to perform and be in front of people as a reason he was selected for his
current role at UCP. I got a strong sense of where and how Damarius grew up, as he connected
for me how interacting with different people of color in his upbringing was instrumental in his
skill to connect across race and culture in his roles in higher education. One thing that was funny
and also fascinating to listen to him talk about, was how being around Black people and at Black
recruiting events energized him. It, too, gave me life. In his words, when winter and February
came around it was, “Black time!” During those time and in those work spaces away from
campus, he felt like he could be his most natural self. We bonded over how to care for and style
our beards.
Racialized Divisions and Valuations of Labor
This category of experiences is about ways that labor in storytellers’ places of
employment was allocated inequitably. Storytellers described patterns of how work was
accorded and what they thought about those differences in arrangement. They painted pictures of
what it felt like to experience or see discrepancies in what kinds of work was given to whom or
what kinds of labor were valued by whom.
An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Divisions and Valuations of Labor
Breonna was a storyteller I encountered who was quite comfortable stepping outside of
her immediate job description to find success in her realm of work. She shared that she was not
one to necessarily compare herself to others, but at the same time she did desire to be recognized
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for hard work. She spoke about how she would often do the same work as her other-race
colleagues, but it was not valued in the same manner. Describing this scenario, she said:
And then you just start to think, well is it me? Especially if you tend to do the same thing
that someone else is doing because you’re like, okay maybe what I’m doing is not what
they’re looking for. Let me tailor it to what they seem to approve. But when you do it and
they’re still coming for you, you’re just like okay, it has nothing to do with my work
ethic at this point because you just liked Jim’s over there, but you hate mine. I don’t
understand.
She shared another instance where her desire to work with students of all racial backgrounds was
at odds with on-campus realities. In this example she described White students coming to see her
for certain aspects of her job, but not entrusting her to take their complaints or grievances further.
She attributed this phenomenon to inbuilt racialized patterns with students’ comfort that were
foist upon her. This signaled they did not value her expertise in same light as her other-race
peers. She noted:
So, then it just makes you think and question. Once you start seeing a pattern of the
students that are coming to see you. And it’s just like, I barely saw White students in my
office. I always saw Black, I saw API, international, and Brown, like all of the Latinx
community. I cannot think of one Caucasian individual that came to my office to talk
about a complaint that was happening. Now they would come to my office to get a hold
removed. They would come to my office to have me help them figure out what classes to
take. But when it came to complaints, not a single White student at all. Not a single one.
Damarius discussed how being at Black recruiting events and talking to young Black people
about postsecondary education charged him up. As he took me through the nuances of his job
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being in student recruitment, it became clearer why such spaces would be affirming for him; he
would later tell me his office was normed around, “Eurocentricity”. He painted a picture of a
workplace that could be more thoughtful in the amount and kind of projects they assigned
employees. He noted an example:
There's been some like projects that have been given to me specifically, which
some of them make sense. But there's been others like Black History Month
Appreciation. At UCP each month we hold a – we hold kind of like a staff awareness
teaching themed type thing. And, I mean, they've been doing this I would think since
before I got here. But when I got here, they started doing it. They were already rolling.
And then, the Deputy Director was like, "Oh, we should definitely make sure Damarius is
in on this." And I was just like, "This is extra work. I don't – I don't need to be here. It's
good. Y'all got it."
In this case, Damarius felt that simply being assigned to Black History Month Appreciation and
other “awareness” projects because he was Black was extra labor. Perhaps because it was not
done with careful consideration was why Damarius took particular objection to it. Carmen, who
worked in residence life, also experienced a racialized allocation of labor due to an oblivious
management team. She and her colleagues, however, pushed back against that assignment
arrangement with data. She recalled:
Oh, it was ridiculous. They assigned all of the Black girls to – and the Latina girl to the
summer conferences team. And they assigned all the White girls to the orientation team.
Orientation team worked 7 a.m.; they had set hours 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. They were off
by 3:00 every day. The summer conferences team worked all weekends, some weekdays,
the hours were inconsistent. And so, a lot of people didn't want to work that team. So,
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what we did was we pulled some data about the racial breakdown of incoming students.
And we held a meeting with our summer operations team to talk about what we felt like
was – just inadequate staffing – just how we couldn’t believe that the leadership team
didn't take notice that they had assigned all the White girls to one team – to orientation
team. And how we have almost – I can't remember what the stats were, but we had a high
percentage of students of color come to the university. And so, we hit them with that.
And the way we presented it, they couldn't argue with it because we didn't come to them
just on the argument of this is racist, which it was. The people of color have a schedule
that's not organized, that’s not together. And you're giving all the White girls the 7:00 to
3:00 nice compact schedule that's only weekdays and they don't work weekends. We
knew if we came at them with that argument, they were gonna shoot it down and deny it.
But you can't deny that you put a hundred percent of the White, that you divided the
team's racially and how is that going to look to incoming students.
Tim, again noting the structural elements that engendered racialized management and labor
discrepancies, spoke about a Black woman who he knew on his campus who had taken on the
work of others but had not been rewarded for it. He highlighted the failures of systems where she
and he worked to remediate the inequitable distribution of work allotted to her or at least
compensate her appropriately for it. In both his and her mind, this was a problem, though the
university did not see it as so. He noted:
This woman’s been with the college six years and has not received a pay increase or a
raise in any of those times. She’s increasingly taken on more duties. She actually does
part of her boss’s job and there’s no consideration for it. She has brought this to the
attention of HR. She’s brought it to the attention of trustees. And, they have talked about
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her in a way that makes it seem like she’s unintelligent because they’ll say she’s not
actually doing her boss’s job, she’s just doing what she’s told to do. But it falls directly
outside of her classification. And, they stop short of saying it’s directly because she’s
Black or saying things are happening because she’s Black, but she’s constantly
marginalized and pushed away and her issues are not addressed.
Storyteller Snapshot: Kyndra
Kyndra was someone with whom I had frequently interacted and had often seen, but did
not know much about. The opportunity to chat with her in this way was fortuitous because I got to
learn about her, her family, and her career in higher education. She told me how she had always
been curious and that researching things on her own helped her make more informed decisions.
This made sense because her mom, a big influence on her life, was an educator. Kyndra enjoyed
long tenures in the higher education roles in which she worked. At one point she discussed how
she had to redefine what success meant and looked like. She now understands it as being happy
within herself. Her vacation-like Zoom background matched perfectly with her easy-going and
lively demeanor.
Experiences with Racialized Management Discrepancies
This category of experiences is about the racialized ways in which Black employees were
managed in a workplace. It captures how they were supported and set up or not to do their job. It
is about resources given to others that were not given to them. It is the experiences of being
managed in ways that do not assist Black employees perform well or being expected to do work
wildly unrelated to their job description.
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An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Management Discrepancies
Carla had worked in admissions for quite a while. She knew the landscape of her
profession well. In our conversation, she expressed a desire to make professional moves but ran
into “office politics”. Detailing how non-Black people have treated her there, she noted people in
managerial positions often withheld tools she needed to advance professionally. She said:
I would say in my current workspace, it comes mostly from non-Black people just
because those are mostly the people who are in positions of power, so it’s an interesting
dynamic because it’s like, “I’m trying to learn, but you’re not trying to teach me that
much.” So, it’s a weird space to navigate because it’s like, “You’re kind of
unintentionally pushing me away because you’re not necessarily giving me the tools that
I feel like I need to grow here, and that’s making me feel like you don’t want me to
grow.”
Similarly, Nia, discussed how those in managerial positions were not forthcoming with
responding to her requests and providing what she needed to be effective in her role. She
mentioned how when other-race peers asked for what they needed; they were responded to more
positively. Detailing the experience, she noted:
So, I’m asking for all this stuff and support, and they’re like, “No. Can’t do it. It’s
not in the budget. There’s no possible way we can do it.” But when this other office –
when I trained this other office to do it and this other woman, they give them everything
they asked for. They get more resources for temps. They give them – they’re able to
make the changes that they want; changes that I had been asking for and I wasn’t able to
get. That was really frustrating to see because it’s like “What’s the difference between me
asking and them asking, and they’re able to receive and have a more easeful experience?”
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So, that was super frustrating. I would just say I don’t know if it was a single instance.
But it was the handling of specific requests that was the issue. The main thing that I can
look at and say is that I was asking for support and additional resources for this one
particular task, and then as I trained and moved to a different office, as they made
requests – they’re White – as they made requests, they responded and were able to do all
these things that I was unable to get done. But I think it was about different decisions
being made based on who was asking, which to me is racism. With seeing it, training this
woman who came in, but training her to do what I did and saying, “I asked for these
things but they weren’t able to do them,” and then her – to see her and be cc’d on emails
where specific asks were made and then approved, it was super frustrating.
For Garry, defying pigeon holes and resisting barriers placed on him were important parts of
his work story. He had often mentioned, “White logic” throughout the interview. This was a term
he used to describe racialized management tactics and norms of White leaders at the institutions
where he worked. He shared an example of a barrier in the form of a management discrepancy
that White leaders attempted to put on him; he skirted it. He said:
I tell people this all that time that’s close to me, my experience at Cal State,
Phillips, when I was the coordinator for the African-American Resource Center, that was
not my real position. My real position was to spy on Black kids. That was my real
position. That’s what they wanted me to do. “Tell us what these Black children are up to
before they start protesting so that we can know.” And because I refused to do that, it
caused issues.
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Storyteller Snapshot: Brittanie
Brittanie detailed for me what it was life growing up in Southern California as someone
who is Black, Latina, and a woman. A mother, Brittanie articulated what it felt like to navigate
an incredible amount of, “pressure to be the best at everything”. The quote she said about her
dad, who remarked, “You can’t be Black and stupid”, reminded me of something one of my
uncles would say. I chuckled as I wrote that down on the side of my notes. I appreciated her kids
making appearances during our interview. It added a glimpse into what her life is like balancing
home and other priorities. Brittanie works as Director of Finance and Business Operations at
Sunshine Southern University and has eight years’ experience in higher education.
Downplaying or Undervaluing Black Employees and/or Their Contributions
This category of experiences is about Black employees not getting credit for the work
they do. It is about ways their contributions are dismissed or undermined. It is also about the
perception that their labor does not hold the same value as others. This category of experiences
includes ways that people do not value the expertise of Black people in the workplace.
An Experiential Portrait of Undervaluing Black Employees
More than a few times, storytellers recalled instances where they were not given credit
for ideas they had suggested. Literally, the words and thoughts storytellers would articulate
would be restated by someone else moments later and they would receive praise. Eric and
Kyndra shared with me how this felt and what this looked like in their workplaces. Eric stated:
Or it would be an instance where I’d say something and someone else would say exactly
the same thing that I said, but they would get the credit for it. And I’m like, “Didn’t I just
say that 5-10 minutes ago? Was anyone listening to my point?” Which is disheartening.
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Though he did not say so outright, when he discussed this with me, I wondered, was this one of
the ways he felt he had been silenced or not taken seriously? Those two issues were recurring
themes for him in workplaces and in particular as a Black man working in higher education.
Similarly, Kyndra remembered an example when this happened to her. Unpacking how she had
been treated in one of the former divisions where she was employed, she stated:
It was more like they would ask you for ideas and then don't give you credit and
stuff like that. Or say, "Well, no. I don't think that's – I don't know if that's a good idea.
Maybe you should think through that a little bit more." Or, "Oh, I don't know if that's
going to translate well." And then the next meeting they're mentioning it.
Interestingly, she and others described skepticism of their work in such environments. Gavin and
I discussed ways being a Black man complicated his credibility in the workplace, where some
took seriously his work and others did not. Regarding this skepticism, he felt that, “people feel as
if they have to know my credentials a little bit more” to buy into his expertise. For him, “They’re
more skeptical of it to where you know if somebody else says it, inherently, because of who they
are, it has more credibility.” For Kyndra, that skepticism manifested a bit differently. It showed
itself being one of few Black people working in the Dean’s office. She shared:
Well, sometimes you still get questioned about stuff. You had to prove, "Okay. I
got this. This is my reference. This is where I obtained the information from." Whereas
your counterpart who was not a person of color, they were not subjected to those types of
information checks. So, and not only that. Some of them their information wasn't solid.
So, it's kind of like, "Well, why are you over here grilling me? Find out where they got
their information from."
Other ways undervaluing occurred was when Black employees were overlooked as viable
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contributors. According to Olivia, one instance of this occurred in a division that supposedly held
diversity and equity as core values. It was here she shared that, surprisingly, she had more race-
based incidents of mistreatment than other places she had worked. Sharing an example of when
the expertise of her staff was ignored, she stated:
So, I had all of my staff were people of color. And so, I think it was challenging working
in a place where the curriculum was supposed to be around urban ed and you have a staff
that are of color who can contribute a lot to different conversations. But it’s like we don’t
care what you guys have to say about these things.
Brittanie shared how this undervaluing of Black contributions came in the form of surprise. In a
former division where she worked, they thought less of her skills and were actually shocked
when she was effective in her role. Showing quantifiable results was important for Brittanie. In
her words, “the results speak for themselves”. So, it was perturbing to her when her obvious
skills were thought less of. Regarding that scenario she said:
But I think there have been distinct individuals where there were like a lot of
microaggressions that they didn't realize were microaggressions. Like being surprised
that somebody who was in an MBA program and ran multimillion-dollar businesses
actually could do math and do finances. Like, don't insult me. That's rude as hell. Like,
that's my career. You know, so –it felt like it was definitely along the lines of like, "Well,
Black people aren’t known for being good with money. So, we're surprised that you can
actually like manage a budget and give us cost savings,” and that sort of thing.
Storyteller Snapshot: Olivia
Olivia is a colleague of mine from my doctoral program. Growing up Black and
Portuguese she experienced what she termed, “racial contrast”. I do not think we got around to
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fully unpacking that sentiment but I remember it sticking out to me for a while. Olivia talked
about her parents’ influence. She even shared the not so good role model her stepmother was and
what that taught her to stay away from. She was particularly critical of an organization where she
worked where there was incongruence between the realities of employees working there and the
diversity, equity, and inclusion it trumpeted. Olivia had held more than one position at the
university where she worked so her insights were particularly keen. Her work was so high
quality that a former division actively recruited her back for a more elevated role. What she
shared in our interview about being bullied by faculty made me incensed. Despite that, I came to
know that she was prepared to effectively navigate such encounters if they happened again.
Surprise at Communication Skills
This category is about ways that others expressed shock of disbelief that Black
employees could communicate well at work. It includes comments made to them that their
communication is a kind of exception for Black people. It is about praise they receive for this
that does not sit well with them because it is ultimately a microaggression, not a compliment.
An Experiential Portrait of Surprise at Communication Skills
Microaggressions occur when they are least expected. In the course of trying to do their
jobs well, storytellers encountered microaggressions related to written and verbal
communication. Kyndra, lively, easy-going, and a slight perfectionist, noted an encounter while
working in the Dean’s office:
We were – again, I was – I remember turning in some information that the Senior
Associate Dean had asked me for. So, spent the time. Did the research. Turned in the
information. So, I remember her saying, "Oh. Oh. Okay. This is – this is really good. I'm
kind of surprised." And I was like, "Surprised about what?” Like, “What are you
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surprised about?" And I asked her. Because I wanted to say something else. But I had to
realize where I was. I had to realize that unfortunately I'm a representative for all of us
when I'm the only one in there. So, I couldn't react the way that I initially wanted to. But I
did go, "What do you mean?" She was like, "Oh, you know, I'm just surprised that you
can write this well." I'm like, "What? What does that mean?" So, it's little slick comments
like that.
For Lydia, working in HR was no reprieve from microaggressions. In fact, she said that her non-
Black team members treated her, “…almost like a dog, kind of like a slave that just learned how
to read.” She described an instance where she received undue praise for writing an email:
So, in that process, it’s a lot of back-and-forth email exchange. So, with that it’s
like I’m sending these emails and when I do send an email, say someone is on the email,
my manager will then be like, “Oh, that was worded really nicely,” or, “Good job there.”
And, it’s like, I can write. I know when [they] say like, “Oh, good email,” or, not good
email. I know what to say, you know. I know when to say, “Good job,” or like, “Yo,
what’s up,” and when to say the correct language. Like, why? What? And, that happens a
lot. The first time it happened it was just like, “What? What do you mean good job?” But
it keeps happening. So, yeah, it’s just weird. And, it’s not just with emails. It’s with other
things too. Like, oh, I sent a recommendation for a director because we have a, it’s called
Star Player of the Month. So, I sent the recommendation for a letter, a recommendation
letter, and it was the same thing. Like, “Wow, this was done really well.” And, it’s like,
“You think I don’t know how to write a recommendation letter?”
Garry also mentioned communication-related microaggressions related to performing work in his
role. Some of his responsibilities included making presentations at different divisions and
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departments on campus. He was often credited with being articulate, a surprise to many. He
stated:
So, we get called to do different presentations or get invited to different room settings
about whether it’s retention, or whatever the case may be. But, just some of the nuanced
conversations about how articulate I sound.
Similar to Garry, Terry’s role required that she make presentations to various audiences. Her
territory was statewide so she interfaced regularly with clients from different geographies.
Recalling a microaggression in a neighboring county, she stated:
Only in Orange County did I experience people say, “Oh, you're so eloquent,” after a
presentation or something. Only in Orange County have I experienced that. In other
places, they’re like, “Thank you, for the information. Thank you, for being honest.” I’m
very honest in my presentations. I’m very honest in my outreach. I don't sugarcoat stuff.
But yeah, I've only had those experiences in Orange County where they're like, “Oh, I
was just – I'm so surprised about how you present.” And, “Oh, you’re so eloquent.”
Storyteller Snapshot: Antoinette
Antoinette often remarked that people did not know how to perceive her. I could not
discern whether this was because of her features, how she navigated circumstances, or how she
thought about things. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. Antoinette’s adoration for her
family was palpable. The impression their Black love made on her was clear and evident as she
described details of her home life, like moving from Los Angeles to Lancaster, California. Even
though Antoinette is a Program Developer in an academic college at California State University
La Vera, she also works as a life coach and brings a certain edifying outlook that shapes her
work. A self-described “lover of people”, she noted that she is guided by the philosophy of being
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a servant leader. Though she exuded a professional, thoughtful, and unassuming demeanor, she
quickly let me know that she had no qualms with checking people with a, “that’s not cool” when
she encountered racial mistreatment.
“Well, Y’all, We Need One”: Tokenism
Tokenism is about Blacks being taken advantage of in seemingly benign ways at work
because of their Blackness. It is about them being used to fulfill the interests of others on account
of their race. It is about lack of meaningful engagement and quota filling. This set of experiences
is about ways they were put into positions to be a Black face or add color to certain situations.
An Experiential Portrait of Tokenism
Cornell served as Chief Information Officer at the Southern California college where he
was employed. His preparation for that role occurred through his varied work experience. He and
I discussed his career trajectory and how he has navigated coming from different industries into
higher education. Contextualizing his journey and current workplace in terms of fewness, he
noted:
The thing is, I’ve had that my whole life. Being one of six Black officers in my Air Force
training class to being one of a handful of Black officers in my military unit, to being
always one of a few in every position I’ve ever had. You would think I’d get used to it,
but you don’t. You don’t get used to it, and here I am again at this point in my career
where I am one of a few again.
Later in our discussion he connected fewness and mentioned how it led to leaders on his campus
taking advantage of him, the lone Black person in his division. He shared a situation where he
was invited to participate in a meeting with which he had little connection to serve as the
perfunctory Black face to assuage students of color. About this experience he recalled:
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My boss said, “Hey I need you to sit in on this meeting with student leadership.” I
said, “Okay this isn’t really my role. Why am I in this meeting?” “Oh, it would just be
good for you to sit in and offer your thoughts and everything like that.” I’m like, this is
kind of weird because at the time I didn’t have any interactions with students. It was like,
why would you do that, until I got to the room and realized student leadership were Black
and Brown and IT leadership was all White except for me. It quickly dawned on me. I
wasn’t brought to this meeting because I had some profound thing to share or a way to
help solve the problem. It was all optics, so it’s stuff like that. Then, me being me, I call it
out and it’s like, no, no, no. That wasn’t the case. I just wanted you to be there because
you have good ideas. It’s like, really?
For another storyteller, Collette, it was helpful for her to understand her hostile workplace
experiences through Biblical narratives. One in particular was the Old Testament story of Joseph,
who endured a series of setups and setbacks on his way to being elevated. In our talk, she
remembered a clear instance where she had been tokenized and likened her being setup in this
way and her enduring to Joseph. What was interesting is that she shared it was
a White student who called out the tokenization on her behalf. She said:
So, it got real crazy. And so, it was a White student, actually, in about August when it got
real crazy. The President went to her – went to him and was like, "Yo, what's up with this
Collette girl?" He said, "I'm gonna be honest with you." He's like, "She's not the problem.
Student Affairs is the problem. They put her in the position because she was Black and
had a brown face to satisfy you but didn't give her any resources. And that's why she's
struggling with the staff because they never provided her with any support."
Denise experienced tokenization in a public-facing way also. A talented, intelligent, Black,
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woman employee, she felt as if leadership in her division sought to take advantage of these
intersecting identities. In her account, she believed the institution put her in a highly visible
position to affect change in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council with little support,
traction, or power. She recalled:
It really came into focus when I was put on the Diversity Council, that I was
representative for the school at the university level. So, at the Diversity Council, I’d been
there for two years, helped craft statements and things, and nothing would ever happen.
We’d take it to the dean and say, “This is the Diversity Statement. This is what needs to
happen,” and it was always put on the backburner or watered down. So then, I knew that
their talk of diversity is just that; it’s just talk. I felt like I was always the person they put
out front when they wanted to say, “Oh yeah, look, we have a Black person who’s
heading all of this.” And then, I’m like, “No, I’m not. You have my name on it but you're
not letting me do anything.” So yeah, that’s how it came down.
Storytellers experiencing tokenism also wondered about how and why they were hired into
positions they occupied. Similar to Cornell, Tamir considered fewness to be a catalyst for his
tokenization, which he related to meeting a quota. He reminisced:
They wanted to hire somebody from the outside versus candidates that they had on the
inside. And then I got to understand – I came to understand, and this is my own personal
understanding. I'm not putting any data behind this. But I'm looking throughout [the]
Jones School and I've done my research on the demographics of faculty and students and
all that kind of stuff. And I'm like, "You know maybe they just needed a Black male to
fulfill that role." So, maybe there was some type of quota needing to be met. I don't
know. I can't prove that.
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Breonna also, for much of her career in higher education, navigated fewness. And just like
Tamir, this caused her to wonder if she was a token or, “status quo” hire. According to her,
“…but for 95% of my job, I’ve always been the only Black person. And I always feel like we’re
that status quo hire. It’s just like, “Well, y’all, we need one.” Reflecting on his career in higher
education, Tillman was particularly disturbed by tokenization. In fact, when asked about the
hardest thing about being Black and working in this industry, he replied, “Probably [being]
tokenized, also pigeon holed.”
Storyteller Snapshot: Carmen
“I was aware I was Black early on,” said Carmen, born and raised in North Carolina. She
credited her grandmother with being one of her key supporters. From her she gained a savvy and
a confidence to not shrink back in the presence of White people who tried to make her feel less
than. Though she had been on the West Coast for a little under two years, I could still hear the
South in her voice. She sounded like aunts and cousins of mine. The oldest of five girls, she
emphasized autonomy and being able to take care of herself. She brought up how passive
aggressiveness she experienced from White women was a persistent annoyance. Carmen works
in residence life and is correctly pursuing a PhD. After she finishes her degree, she wants to
pursue opportunities at a liberal arts college because of their teaching emphasis.
Amy Coopers and Karens
This is a category of experiences related to a recently named racial phenomena that arose
between summer 2020 and the last two years. It is about Black employees interacting with a
certain kind of White person who poses as “woke” until they feel their privileges have been
transgressed upon. It is about having to work among White people whose White privilege was
not on immediate or obvious display, but presented itself at inopportune moments
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An Experiential Portrait of Amy Coopers and Karens
Cornell conversed extensively about working at a supposedly liberal postsecondary
institution. As we talked, he peeled back the layers of his identity, revealing the realities he
engaged as a Black man married to a Mexican woman raising Black and Latinx children. He
communicated about the complications of being Black and working in a context where
“wokeness” was only enacted up to a certain degree. Searching for a way to name this, he
referred to it as being Amy Coopered, calling to mind a high-profile racial incident between a
Black man and White woman in New York. Describing his interactions with persons like this in
his work context, he said:
I was actually talking to my wife this morning. I said I didn’t have a name before for it
until this whole thing with Amy Cooper happened and the bird watching. I work with a
bunch of Amy Coopers. Half of them are out there right now protesting. I work with as
woke as woke can be until you get out of your lane. Then, they’re very quick to remind
you of your lane. What are we doing? That’s why I call it the Amy Cooper because it’s
like, “Hey we’re woke as long as I want it to be, as long as I deem to be.” And then,
when I’m over it it’s like, “Hey, let’s get the cops in. Let’s not be as woke as we want to
be,” that kind of stuff.
Cornell recalled what it was like to work amongst “Amy Coopers”. He shared that his institution
was culpable for contributing to the Amy Cooper phenomenon due to the “woke” posturing
present in its work environments. He noted:
I think what complicates it is I guess, and I’ve explained it’s never knowing who
exactly is an Amy Cooper and who is an ally, especially in this environment where
everybody gives a façade of being woke. You let your guard down with people, and you
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want to explain your experience, and then they hit you with the Amy Cooper and you’re
like, “Oh shoot. Did I just expose myself too because you know a vulnerability about me,
or now you know what I really think about that meeting?” Then, you hit me with the
Amy Cooper and it’s like, “Shoot. Now, are you gonna tell people? What are you gonna
do?”
He also discussed how this affected him. He said:
I live with that anxiety almost every day. I think it occurs mostly amongst White
people. It can be situational-based, too. I’ve been in situations where somebody will say
something really tone-deaf and I’ll say, “God, can you believe that?” They’re like, I
know and they’re hitting all the right points and it can be a completely different scenario
and their Amy Cooper comes out.
Terry also mentioned working with White women whose privilege complicated their allyship.
The term she used for them was “Karen”. Discussing how they appropriated Black cultural
dialects, she noted:
And then I've had a couple of Karens on the job that they call people, “girl”. So,
they'll be like, “Hey, girl,” to myself, or to the other Black women in the office. And you
don't do that to other women that are not Black. “Hey, girl, how you doing, girl?” No,
that's what you're not gonna do.
She recalled an instance where the Karen phenomenon was on full display and she had to
intervene on behalf of her colleague. She explained:
And so, there was one Zoom meeting in particular just actually a couple weeks ago and a
colleague just got her master’s degree. And they were typing in the chat like,
“Congratulations, girl.” And I had to – I text her privately like, “Do you want me to
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handle this?” ‘cause she's sometimes so nice that she doesn’t do anything. And she’s
younger, too, so she doesn't want to cause any waves. But I'm not afraid and I'm like, “Do
you want me to handle this?” Because we did have a microaggression training last year
and I brought it up. I brought it up in the microaggression training. If you don't normally
use the term, “girl”, you do not call another Black women girl because in slavery, they
were called Black girl and boy and all this other stuff.
Talking with Terry, she was quite knowledgeable about this particular microaggression. So much
so, that I asked her to provide a definition of a Karen-type. She did not disappoint. She
insightfully and poignantly explained:
Who or what is the Karen. A Karen is a White woman that thinks it's her right to speak
up when it doesn't even include her, to think that she's in the know, when she knows
nothing sometimes, and to make assumptions about what she thinks she's experiencing.
That is a Karen to me. A Karen is somebody that uses their power or uses their place as a
White woman in this world to push their agenda forward or to push what they feel like
they're experiencing forward when that's not even the case. And it's not even true. A
Karen knows that they have power and they abuse it to their advantage. That is a Karen to
me.
For Terry, it seemed the problem with Karens was that their privilege prohibited them from truly
being helpful. She shared an example of how this was evident in her line of work. She shared a
story about an instance where she had to intervene so a student and their family would not be
underserved by a Karen. She noted:
And so, they are Karens because there was another experience, specifically, with a young
Black male student, who was a prospective student. He had applied and got admitted.
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And he came to an event with three of his daughters. He wasn't a single father, but his
wife was working. And he came to the event with his three young daughters. He came
late and unfortunately, at that event, we actually happened to already be at capacity. But
people were coming in and out and you can tell this brother came and had a long day. He
had to bring these girls with him. And he was just going through it. And one of the
Karens was like, “I’m sorry. We don't have any more room. We’re at capacity. You have
to go.” And I was like, “No, full stop. No, we’re going to make accommodations for him
and his family. It, obviously, took a lot for him to get here today. And the fact that he had
to bring all three of his girls means that he's a very committed student and wants to learn
more and we're going to – we're gonna make a way for him and his girls.” And the way
that she just dismissed him.
Storyteller Snapshot: Tamir
Tamir shared a heart-wrenching story about gang violence that occurred where he grew
up. Recalling such events, he said, “It made me realize what world I was living in.” Tamir’s
desire to find role models from whom he could glean wisdom and prepare for his future is found
in his statement that he, “had to find people who exemplified who I wanted to be.” Tamir is my
fraternity brother and though we had seen each other in passing on campus, we had not had a
chance to share our stories. Tamir’s rationale for working in higher education was that he wants
to be part of something bigger than himself; he wants to, “be part of history.” With his pursuit of
a doctorate and dedication to helping Black people, I am sure he will. Tamir has worked in
higher education for twelve years.
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Being Called the Name of Another Black Person
This category is about Black people at work being mistaken for other Black people. It is
about how Black people experience others not being able to make distinctions between them in a
work context. It is about how they see and experience this phenomenon at work and how this
made them feel.
An Experiential Portrait of Being Called the Name of Another Black Person
Michael recalled that he was one of few Black men on campus. Though he was part of
this small group on a PWI, he was nonetheless proud of the position he held there as an
employee. He had high expectations for his position there; he wanted to be creative and
innovative in his role. And though he found success, he was also microagressed by “White folks”
in the process, being called the name of another Black man with whom he only had a similar
complexion in common. The other Black man, according to Michael, did not have hair and
worked in another department. He remembered:
There were moments there when White folks would get my name mixed up with the
other Black man that worked nowhere near me. His name was Benny, and I would see
this White woman who was, I don’t even know, one of the administrators on campus. She
was like, “Oh how are you doing, Benny?” I’m like, “Benny is from another department
and he doesn’t have hair.” I mean we have similar complexions, but then it was like,
“Okay.” I don’t even remember her name either, but to that point it’s like I was
invisibilized because I was also like the other Black man who was on [that] campus
working that looked the same and fit the same body type.
This particular microaggression also happened to Gavin. It was public and in a meeting. As he
shared, I could sense the embarrassment and frustration. Recall, Gavin is someone who at all
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times wants to be taken seriously as it regards his profession. This moment seemed to undermine
that. He said:
I was the only other Black person in it with somebody else and this person looked
directly at me and called me the other person’s name, and I’m just like, “Well, I knew
that was just going to happen,” and they were like, “Oh, you know, sorry. It was an
accident.” I’m just like, “Well, I understand unconscious bias and all this stuff and you
took a shortcut in your head to call me this other person because you don’t interact
enough with Black people to know that we all don’t look the same, or you don’t have
multiple Black people in a room with you. Well, we’re the only Black – two Black men
inside of the room, so – and we’re also the only people with, I guess, less than common
names than what they’re probably used to seeing, especially, names that you would
traditionally only see with Black men. Like every Javari I’ve ever met was Black. The
only other Gavin’s that I know were Black males, and I don’t even know many – I really
don’t even hear other people with my name, so it was one of those things to where I
know in those situations it’s – it has to – it was the fact that you know he mixed up my
name and confused me with another Black person.
Recalling how it made him feel, he elaborated:
It was irritating and I got upset more at the other person when they tried to accept
the apology from the other person on my behalf and I was like, “No. You don’t get to do
that,” and I can understand even if the person wasn’t trying to be offensive, that’s one of
the huge things that offends me because we’re not close to the same age. We don’t look
alike. Nothing about our mannerisms are the same as that. The least you could do, if
SSU’s paying you to facilitate a training, is to be able to pay attention enough and to slow
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your mind down enough to get it right that we’re two totally different people. It really
bothered me because I know that we look nothing alike, we sound nothing alike, our
mannerisms are nothing alike, and so, it was just even more egregious for that, is the fact
that this person has trouble quickly and readily identifying differences between Black
people when he has them in the same room.
Carla also observed this microaggression in her office. It seemed to be a common, longstanding
occurrence in her workplace, even amongst a multiracial workforce. Reflecting on this incident
and others she asked, “Can onboarding solve office racism?” When I inquired about the
dynamics of her racially hostile workplace, she explained:
But you can also recognize it in interactions with other people in the office. I’ve
seen other colleagues refer to two Black people as the same person, and they weren’t the
same person. It’s like, “No, that’s not who that is. That’s a whole different person. I
understand that they’re both Black, but they don’t look alike.” I think the interesting thing
about our office is, we do have a very interesting racial mix. There are Black people.
There are Asian people. There are Latino people, but you still see some of those racist
things kind of come up. And it’s not just calling one Black girl another Black girl’s name
when they clearly are not the same person, and they’ve both been there a long time. It’s
not like one person only been there a month. They’ve both been there for years or at least
a year, so I don’t know. It’s interesting at least to me to see things like that come up
because it’s like, “All right. Are we not doing a good job of integrating people into the
office?”
Storyteller Snapshot: George
George described himself as a chameleon without the pretense who could blend in
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without selling out. I had never met George before but the chip on his shoulder due to
mistreatment at work was evident. The unspoken refrain of George’s complaint about his
marginalization was that he just wanted the hard work he put forth and dedication to students to
be rewarded equitably. “I just wanted to be treated fairly,” is what he told me. I could hear the
years of frustration in his voice as he had been repeatedly passed over for promotion. George
said of himself that he was the, “Black sheep of his department”. Since he was so outspoken
about inequities and inconsistencies he had been held back and retaliated against. Despite the sad
moments he shared, there was a lot of joy; he was grateful and excited to participate in my
research and I was glad to have him. We bonded over being part of two “rival” BGLO
fraternities. Every interaction with him from the initial email to member checks included him
thanking me for doing this research. He told me how much it was needed and that is what I held
onto when the going got difficult.
Racialized Shadiness, Diet Coke Racism, and Casual Racism
These are microaggressions that are particularly nuanced. They could be couched and
conveyed in positivity or exist simultaneously with something true. Storytellers spoke about a
kind of racial mistreatment at work that did not sting outright when it initially landed on them
but was painful when they later reflected on it. This category of experiences is about types of
microaggressions that seemed superficial and harmless; often, storytellers’ first instincts were to
waive them off. However, on second glance and upon further inspection, they were interpreted to
be injurious and not inconsequential.
An Experiential Portrait of Racialized Shadiness, Diet Coke Racism, Casual Racism
Towards the end of our interview, Tim began describing a notion he named, “casual
racism”. He was familiar with the intersections of race and power, and well acquainted with
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terminologies such as microaggressions that described subtle ways people of color were racially
mistreated. He distinguished between more explicit forms of racial mistreatment he experienced
at his workplace, such as being hostilely confronted in his office, and other ways he encountered
racialized slights. That he had these encounters was, “shocking” because he, “thought this place
was different.” As an administrator with a more elevated and visible position, he experienced
routine bouts with casual racism even though the tone in which he described them was
nonchalant. In his words, “The casual stuff, there’s nobody to tell because that’s the price that
you pay for being a [Black] American. It’s the tax.” Sharing what this looked like, he said:
Other things have been around sports and things. People are like, “Oh, you play
basketball or football, right?” “No. No.” And, those are the casual everyday racism
things. And then, in the parking lot there’s another casual piece of racism. There’s a lot of
times where people will say, “This is the faculty and staff parking lot.” So, when you’re
pulling in, despite the fact that my car is relatively expensive car and the last few cars
I’ve had are relatively expensive cars. I have a staff sticker on my car. I am told as I’m
pulling by faculty and staff that are walking in, that I’m in the wrong parking lot.
Nia had recently been elevated to a more visible position as an administrator as well. She shared
what it was like to experience racialized shadiness as she called it. To her, this was a kind of
backhanded complimenting by others in her workplace that belied ideas about her fitness for the
position. She took offense to the, “cold” decontextualized ways colleagues expressed surprise or
offered congratulations via email. She remarked:
And I feel like – and maybe this is me being a little militant – but I feel like a little bit of
that is little reminders of you’re not staying in your place by doing this, or it
communicates, “I’m surprised that you’re exceeding my expectations of what I thought
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that you might be able to do.” And maybe some of that is too much of me being super
extra. But you can just say, “I’m excited for you!” Or “Congratulations! How can I
support you?” Or “I’ll be watching and let me know if I can help.” There are different
ways I feel like people can show support or surprise or whatever.
This was, “shady” to her because she felt colleagues were hiding behind their words in a sense.
She elaborated:
Some shady dean from another department was like “What a surprise!” I said, “Thank
you for your support. You take care. Have a great week.” And then she replied and she
was like, “I’m also really looking forward to working together.” It’s like, “You didn’t say
that, though.” You are being shady. And maybe this is me projecting. I don’t know. You
never know until someone else is in the role and you have something to compare it to,
like what happened with me and the exams process. But I think it feels a little shady.
Everybody’s like, “Oh, this is a really great opportunity for you.” And I wanna be like,
“It’s a great opportunity for the law school. You guys don’t see me as having something
to bring to the table because either you don’t know me very well or you have assumptions
about what my skillset is. But I’m super qualified for this position.”
Unpacking racialized shadiness further, she noted:
I always feel like that’s [a] micro aggression to me. It’s like, “Oh, you don’t look like
you’re supposed to be here. You don’t look like you’re qualified to be here.” Right? But
yeah, I don’t think those things can be disentangled. I think it’s very much, “You’re a
young, Black woman and I don’t expect for you to have been promoted to interim dean
and I wanna make sure that you know that I’m surprised by that.” Especially now, all of
these outreaches are intentional. No one is seeing me in the hallway and randomly like,
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“Oh.” They’re actually saying, “Oh, I’m gonna respond to this email and I’m gonna make
sure Nia knows how I feel.” The banality behind saying that. Deal with your surprise on
your own. Why are you telling me that you’re surprised?
Tillman was an administrator who also experienced this particular brand of microaggression. His
term for it was veiled or Diet Coke racism. I could not help but chuckle at his wording of this
kind of experience. I had to know more about what he meant by this, how he experienced it, and
from whence he derived the term. When I asked him about it, he responded with the following:
Yeah. It's from a veiled place. So, it's never outright, but it's like, don't treat me like I'm
some bomb [tail] dude that don't know how to do my [stuff]. Or if it falls short then that's
to be expected or any of that sort of that [stuff]. So, it's that sort of a thing where I would
say, I think about veiled racism.
The way he talked about it was intriguing. He painted a picture of there being a curtain and it in
ways hiding what one truly thinks about race. He went on to describe how those racialized
beliefs and feelings eventually make their way to the surface, occurring sometimes
spontaneously. He said:
Yeah. It subtly is going to come out through your behaviors because it's a belief of what
you deep down think, perhaps, and so you're not going to get that fully, because maybe
there is a motivation not to be seen that way, or maybe you want to whatever it may be,
but in certain critical moments, your behaviors and your decision making is going to
reveal how you really feel about this. That's why I sort of say veiled, where you don't get
the full thing, but it's that Diet Coke version of it but it's still there.
Terry and I talked about a kind of second-hand microaggression she experienced. Seemingly
positive comments were made by her White male supervisor about a colleague of hers they were
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looking to hire. Since the colleague of hers was a person of color and the comments being made
about her were from a White man, the way his words could be interpreted did not sit well with
Terry. Describing the situation, she noted:
And there was one girl who actually is my friend in particular and he was [like], “Yeah, I
really like her ‘cause I know she can really connect with those kids there.” And the way
he said connect with those kids there. And then, he went further like, “She has a way of
being real cool around kids.” And I was like, dude, are you using this pointed language
because she can use some African American vernacular English[?] What are you – what
are you saying here? How about she's a good worker and she's gonna be amazing, period,
no matter what region she is in.
Storyteller Snapshot: Cornell
Cornell grew up in the neighborhood adjacent to where I live in Los Angeles. We chatted
about familiar street names and how the area has changed. Cornell is an Information Technology
administrator who began and developed his career outside the higher education context. He
characterized himself as a “walking contradiction”, always looking for additional perspectives to
make sense of phenomena. He attributed this to his military background. In our interview, he
elaborated on how he feels the need to often explain his perspective as a means to fight to be
heard. Being heard in a way where White people will listen was something he ruminated on. It
was hard for him to pin down whether not being heard was occurring because of his race, or
because of him being considered an outsider to higher education, or because of his perceived
lack of bonafides.
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Incorrect Inferences About Racial Makeup and Identification
This category of experiences is about a set of microaggressions where Black employees
were frequently asked about their racial makeup by others if they were deemed not to fit
stereotypical notions of what a Black person should look like. It is about ways that people at
work violated their boundaries and made uneducated guesses or inquiries about their racial
composition or identification. It is about ways in which they were robbed of self-revealing this
particular part of their identity. It is an unwelcome curiosity about race that crosses boundaries.
An Experiential Portrait of Inference About Racial Identity
In our interview Carla brought up being automatically assigned to, “Black events”
because she was Black. She felt shortchanged by such assumptions, particularly because they
reduced the complexity of what it meant to be Black or what being Black could look like. She
shared how this was frustrating for her at work because it demonstrated how her peers did not
take the opportunity to get to know her but instead make inferences based on their preconceived
notions of race, particularly so given her appearance. When asked about why this was difficult
for her, she responded:
For two reasons, I think. One, because I look like I’m somewhat racially ambiguous, so
people already be confused and then when I’m like, “Oh, I’m Black.” They are like, “But
what, Black and what else?” I’m like, “I’m Black.” So, that need for folks to have a
category to put you in can be tough. And then, once they do it, it’s just like your other
interests kind of fall by the wayside because now they’ve put you in this category and
type cast you to it so to speak.
Kyndra also recalled times at worked where she was awkwardly questioned about her racial
identity. She framed the instance as a matter of boundary crossing. In our interview, she
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commented about this in a series of stories about how her previous supervisor, the Associate
Dean, would often perpetrate racial mistreatment in her workplace. She said:
I remember she had asked me – not the Dean, but the Senior Associate Dean. She asked
me if I was mixed or if I was totally Black. If I was mixed race. If I – and I'm thinking,
"Why does it matter? Like, why are you asking? Like, we not even cool like that. Why
are you even worried about what I'm mixed with or not mixed with?"
Antoinette had worked on multiple campuses in Southern California. “People trying to figure
[her] out,” psychologically, socially, aesthetically, was a recurring theme in our interview.
Describing herself she said, “I’m outgoing, I'm outspoken, I’m sure, I’m confident.” Noting the
problems this presented on one of the campuses where she worked, she said, “I just don’t think
they knew how to digest me…” As such, she encountered speculation about her racial identity.
Framing it around her appearance, she stated:
Let’s see, I think both whether Black or non-Black I always get the, “Let’s try to figure
her out” individuals. I say that from a standpoint of the way that I carry myself as
opposed to their predispositions. But also too, just from an aesthetic standpoint. Being
lighter skinned, getting the question from both White folk and Black folk, “What are you
mixed with?” If I had a dollar for every time, I got asked that question, I’d be rich by
now. But also, too, from a Black women standpoint, hair. Trying to figure that out.
Storyteller Snapshot: Sandra
Honor and gratitude are words that describe ways Sandra framed her professional
journey. She loves being engaged in her community. This was evidenced by the several
community-serving organizations to which she shared she was committed in her North Los
Angeles hometown. Sandra loves to travel and considers herself a global citizen. Though success
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was always changing for her, quoting Beyoncé, she said, “The best success is your paper.” This
explained, partly, her motivation for setting her sights beyond the role in which she is currently
employed. Though she shared some hard things about her work experience, her sitting outside in
the bright sunlight and birds chirping in the background provided a serene and calming contrast.
She credited being able to pivot as a means of navigating difficulty and finding success.
Myths and Tropes
This set of experience is about ways that storytellers experienced references to
caricturizations or exaggerations of Blackness in the workplace. This is about them being
subjected to microaggressions based on very broad, monolithic stereotypes about Black people.
It is about storytellers experiencing fixations with particular aspects of Blackness that were
blown out of proportion.
An Experiential Portrait of Myths and Tropes
Kyndra spent a significant amount of time in our interview detailing the often awkward
and seemingly unrelenting ways she experienced racial mistreatment and microaggressions in a
previous division. Painting a picture through story-telling of the environment there, much of her
consternation was directed at the leadership in that division, who in her eyes were culpable for
encouraging such an atmosphere that allowed racial mistreatment to persist. She recalled an
instance that somewhat caught her off guard: she was confronted with the myth that all Black
people listen to and know a lot about hip-hop. Her team was in a meeting about how to
encourage more student engagement. In considering who they should bring to campus, the Dean,
a White woman turned to her as the alleged hip-hop expert. She shared:
Then also I remember the Dean had said something. We were in a meeting. It was the
academy cabinet. We were talking about people we could invite to campus to get the
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students engaged or whatever. And so, we were talking about some rap artist or whatever.
And she was like, "Well, Kyndra, who do you suggest that we invite?" Right? And again,
I'm the only one up in there that look like me. Right? So, I'm thinking to myself, "Why
are you asking me about like rap artists and stuff?" Now, okay. Yeah, I do listen to rap.
But I wasn't going to give her that. It's irrelevant. Exactly. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't –
I don't listen to secular music." I just told her that. So, I was just, "I'm sorry. I don't listen
to secular music." She was like, "Oh. Oh. Oh. I'm sorry." Like, how are you just going to
point to the only Black person in the room like I'm supposed to know. Like I'm supposed
to be the resident expert on everything Black. You know?
Eric, a Black male administrator, also experienced navigating racialized myths associated with
hip-hop. His campus was located in a very large urban city. He found that when he attempted to
bring Big Sean, a rap artist to perform at the institution, that there were a lot of folks who
associated a Black rapper with inciting violence on their campus. He recalled:
…but my students planned an event. Have you heard of Big Sean? Yeah. They
brought him, which was – I mean this was when he just first came out. He was
kind of still kind of underground. And word got around in the institution. At that
time actually I was the head of an all-male group composed of Black and Latino
males. And everyone was just up in arms. They’re like, “Oh, my gosh. You’re
bringing a rapper from Detroit.” And I’m like, “What?” They’re like, “What’s
gonna happen? Who’s the fans who are gonna be there? Where are they from?
And are they gonna be able to come in? And they could potentially be violent.”
And I’m sitting there like, “Really? Big Sean, of all people? And why are you sort
of concerned about this when there’s been bigger events happening?” At that
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point, I did raise that, I remember. And I mentioned, “Why is there such a focus
on this sort of concert as opposed to other things that we’ve been doing?”
Garry and Tim were two Black men working at different Los Angeles area colleges. They both
brought up the trope of often being categorized as an athlete on their campuses. Tim lamented
that while there may not be malicious intent behind such encounters, they were still nonetheless
dehumanizing. Expanding on his idea of, “casual racism” he noted:
Other things have been around sports and things. People are like, “Oh, you play
basketball or football, right?” “No. No.” And, those are the casual everyday racism
things. Like, “Yeah. Oh, so when you were in college you didn’t play football?” “No.”
I’ve never seen – I don’t hear people ask my White colleagues if they play baseball or
they surf or if they skateboard or things that are attributed to, like sports, that are
attributed to White people. I never ask – I never hear my Asian colleagues asked if they
play cricket or soccer or ping-pong or any of those things. And, I never, I don’t hear even
my Latinx colleagues, nobody asks them like, “Oh, did you play sports?” That question
of sports doesn’t come up for other people. But, I’ve heard [people ask] multiple African
American people, specifically African American men, if they play basketball or football
as an icebreaker. I mean people feel like that is the way to get to know you and so that’s
their entry point into conversation. And then, they say, “Well, you look like a big guy or
a sizeable guy, so you probably gained that size from athletics.” And, I think that they see
it as a compliment. And, I think that it is casual racism because I don’t think that there is
malicious intent tied to it. I think people don’t know how to talk to humans. Or, is it they
don’t see me as a human?

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Garry, a former athlete, mentioned several times how this was the default trope and point of
reference he encountered while working on various Southern California campuses. He talked
about how peers neglected to see him beyond being a former athlete and as a colleague who
wanted to be taken seriously. Talking about non-Black interactions at his former workplace, he
noted:
So, when we talk about my non-Black colleagues, it was always about basketball, you
know? Anytime we come together it was talking about basketball, just introducing me as
like, “Yeah, this is the former basketball star athlete.” And, I’m like, it’s cool, but it’s not
cool because I wouldn’t introduce you like that. You have a title here; you have a role on
this campus. If I’m bringing you to do something for me, I’m introducing you as that, not
as what you did as a – So, it was a lot of that.
He even discussed how this followed him when he was employed at another campus. He was
frequently stereotyped as being associated with athletics because he was Black. Elaborating on
instances where this occurred in professional settings on his campus, he said:
But, as soon as we step out of that, and we get into talking to other people, that’s when
you see the nuances come on. That’s when you hear the microaggressions, the, “Oh,
wow. You work over here? I thought you were a coach.” I’ve never ever worn anything
on this campus that said UCP Athletics, and I never will. So, you start hearing things like
that.
Tamir and Tillman spoke about how they experienced tropes related to language at their
workplace. They reflected on and shared instances where Whites and others used a kind of
“Black talk” to communicate with them. This was a tone, style, and jargon that was supposed to
imitate ways Black people express themselves. The problem with this, is that when expressed by
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non-racially minoritized persons, these were truncated, clichéd notions of Black communication
that reduced Black people to tropes. Tillman shared an example of a particular microaggression
where White people change their vernacular to appeal to Black people. He teased out differences
in treatment that centered on, “their [White] experience” being the norm. He explained:
So, for instance, this is a small microaggression example, but even something along the
lines of interaction. If you're like, “Hey John, how's it going?” But then you get to
Tillman you’re saying, “What up, man?” You know what I mean? You're changing your
vernacular and those sorts of things. You know what I mean? That for me, when I see
those sort of moments, that's a clear deviation from who you are. If you consistently talk
that way, whoever you talk to, I'm not treating that as a racial issue. But if you go out of
your way, when you're talking to me, to suddenly change your vernacular or change your
behavior or your expectations, when I see consistently how you interact with White folks
across the board, I am going to attribute that to race.
Tamir shared a similar example. He experienced odd interactions from Whites at work and tried
to determine if they were actually racialized. He brought up code shifting, that is using language
or metaphors non-racially minoritized people think would stereotypically resonate with him as a
Black person. Taking me through this ordeal he shared:
It's like, I've tried to leave race as like the last option. But it's like all things point to that
specifically. And it's being talked to in certain ways. It's other people switching their code
in terms of how they carry themselves and how they speak. Like, you don't have to say it
like that. You don't have to say it in a hip-hop way to feel like you're connecting with me.
We don't have to do that. Because, I've not given you any indication that's how I get
down or that’s what I want to hear? You know what I mean? It’s one of those things
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where there's been like code shifting that's gone one. But not from me. From the opposite
side. This has been at SSU. This has been at previous institutions. It's been all over really.
And I think that's a discomfort that people have that they feel the need to do that to
connect, to kind of resonate. And it's like it's actually – it's actually insulting. It's actually
insulting. Like, what if I don't listen to hip-hop? What if I skateboard and surf? And then
as you're understanding grows and as you gain understanding and you garner wisdom. It's
like, actually, no wait. That's actually insulting. That's actually kind of insulting to do
that. Because if I were another color, would that be done? And Black people, we're not
monolithic. So, it's not like all do the same thing. So, yeah. I'm gonna take that as an
insult now.
Storyteller Snapshot: Eric
Eric’s interview occurred on a Thursday morning. I was excited to have him sit for my
interview because he had worked at a college in New York, so I figured we would be able to
connect about the East Coast. Eric is from Oxnard, California and works at Olympiad College as
an Assistant Dean of Students. Mentors and counselors were influential in his higher education
career trajectory. As we talked, he shared that he felt most successful when helping others. Eric
was the only storyteller who mentioned being both Black and American. It eventually made
sense why he emphasized that; it was due to his prior work with international students. My
interview with him was pretty straightforward. However, I kept looking at what seemed to be a
mid-century modern cast iron fireplace in the room from which he taking the interview. I had
questions about it but kept them to myself. Showing grit, getting the job done, and students were
big drivers for him.
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Climate-Driven Departure
This category of experiences is about inequitable conditions that prompted Black
employees to leave the institutions at which they worked and seek employment elsewhere. It
covers feelings of restrictedness that are racialized and occur in the organization where they
work. This phenomenon made them want to find places, such as other departments, that were
more equitable and amenable to their racial identity. Climate-driven departure speaks to
employment interruptions that occur when work environments are not hospitable to Black
thriving.
An Experiential Portrait of Climate-Driven Departure
Tamir described his life’s story and career trajectory as a, “Black male transcending”
through unfavorable circumstances. In our conversation he spoke about carrying the burden of
being Black in a workspace and, “always [having] to be cognizant of how we are being
received.” In discussing being Black in work environments, he posed the philosophical question,
“… and I do wonder what it's like sometimes to not have to be aware of certain things. But that's
another story.” As we talked more, it seemed that one way he mitigated carrying the burden of
being Black at work was by finding more suitable environments. Talking about what this looked
like for him, he noted:
You persevere through it and/or you devise a plan to leave. I mean and that's what I did at
my last institution. I left. I said, "Okay. Well, if this is the climate, this is what it's going
to be. If these are the powers that be. Authority figures are not recognizing you based off
of all these different factors and they point to one thing, I'm not going to subject myself
to this anymore. So, I actively participate in trying to leave that institution and I was
successful in doing that after a while. It took a little while, but I was successful in doing
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that.
Providing more context about his reasons for leaving, he recalled how he was passed over for
promotion. Unpacking this story for me, he said:
And there's more to it than that, but there was a White male who was hired, and the Dean
of Students who hired him, he was fairly new himself. And so, it's situations like that,
that have occurred time after time where I've always had to second guess, "Okay. Well,
maybe it was because of this." And it's just like, "No. Like I can't put myself in a position
of doubting myself." I've learned that over time. Which is honestly part of the catalyst
why I left there, so.
Another Black male storyteller, Damarius, commented on how restrictive his immediate work
environment was. It genuinely bothered him that in his current work setup he had to seek
approval by non-Black people to do, “Black specific stuff”. Being in this kind of environment
drained him given how much partaking in Black recruiting events, “charges [him] up”. The lack
of agency he experienced here made him want to seek out other departments more amenable to
Blackness. He noted:
Like, yeah. I feel like that's normal. But it did make me want to consider what other
department can I work in where it's more comfortable and where I can do more either
Black-centered stuff, or just have a little bit more agency? I feel like in the role that I'm in
right now, the most frustrating part is the fact that I need to get approval and permission
to do stuff that otherwise makes perfect sense.
Breonna’s story was a textbook example of climate-driven departure. She shared more than a
few detailed scenarios in which she left places of employment due to inhospitable or inequitable
racial climates. She was often forced out or would have to leave as a consequence of speaking
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truth to power regarding racial equity issues at each institution of which she was a part. In
addition, she also experienced routine microaggressions and forms of anti-Blackness, such as
being refused entry to the campus library despite being a student and employee; it was suggested
that she was neither and thus it was assumed she had no right to be there. Reflecting on her share
of such experiences, she remarked:
That’s the thing that I hated. I hated that there were few institutions I felt like I could
have thrived at if they allowed me to be me. But because they wanted to make me an
acceptable Black, they pushed me out because I no longer felt comfortable.
She explained this was not only her experience but also that of other Black people working in
higher education. She noted, “I feel that a lot of Black folk go through various levels of micro-
aggression, which ultimately makes them want to leave.” Breonna encountered a fair amount of
racial trauma that caused her to seek employment at different institutions. She, “bounced around”
to seek more fruitful soils so her tenures in places were sometimes quite short. She was
somewhat embarrassed by this and was a bit reluctant to share her resume with me. She has since
found a place where she feels comfortable working. Regarding her new role as associate director
for the Center for Black Student Success, she exclaimed, “… it’s the first role that I have where
I’m able to be unapologetically Black because I’m only dealing with students that are a part of
the African diaspora.” She also shared with me her reflections on the opportunity cost climate-
driven departure has caused. She said:
And I feel like it’s not fair that we have to keep leaving jobs to find our place. And I
definitely think I did a lot of that in the beginning of my career, seeking validation from a
monetary perspective and from a personnel perspective. And, yah. I commend those who
have stayed at a certain job – been at a job for like five years. They’ll vent to me like,
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“Man, I hate my job.” I’m like, “Sis, I’m like a little educational rolling stone. I be gone.”
But the older I got, like once I hit 30, I was just like I can’t continue to do that.
Other storytellers noted how racial mistreatment in the workplace and climate-driven departure
were recurring realities for them. It was common for those who had experienced inequitable
racial climates to relocate. Cydni, reflecting on how she has navigated racial and other incidents
experienced at work noted, “So, generally, every time when I encounter these things, I end up
having to change careers, which is, in higher ed, it’s not the worst thing because generally people
have to change careers.”
Storyteller Snapshot: Angela
I had a couple engaging phone calls with Angela before she agreed to participate in my
study. Success for her was about happiness with herself and obtaining her goals. Angela had
familial roots in Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. Angela’s story is about being
employed at one institution for a long time and navigating assorted organizational and racial
dynamics. She emphasized how important it was to be her own best friend during moments of
organizational and racial mistreatment. I interpreted this to be a reference to self-care. At the end
of our conversation, she asked critical questions about how the findings from my study will be
used. That she cared and wanted to know was affirming.
Par for Course Racism/Racism That Comes with the Territory
Storytellers expressed the sense that the racial mistreatment they experienced was deeply
entrenched and yet for them an accepted reality. They also understood it to be part and parcel of
where they worked. It is how they framed and reconciled longstanding racial inequities inherent
to where they were employed that seemed like they were inseparable from existing while Black.
It is about them resigning to the felt truth that racism is an inevitable part of being Black at work.
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Many of them framed racial mistreatment as an occupational hazard of sorts, that is, “a risk
accepted as a consequence of a particular occupation” (Lexico, Oxford English Dictionary,
2020).
An Experiential Portrait of Par for the Course Racism
A sizable number of storytellers shared sentiments where they discussed the racial
mistreatment they experienced as an accepted given on their jobs. Many of them seemed to
express the feeling that racism exists and yet it was expected of them to still produce as
employees. An example of this is what Sandra shared with me. Towards the beginning of our
conversation, she told me how she was, “very dedicated” to the college where she worked
despite having a, “number of careers before I got to RCCC.” As we talked more, she unpacked
the different kinds of racial mistreatment she experienced in her workplace. Reflecting on how
she has been treated while an employee at Rock City Community College, she noted:
Sometimes, not sometimes but often as Blacks you have things happen to you but you
still have to execute. You still have things that are expected of you or are wanted for you.
Gotta grind it out as they say.
Mid-career professionals, such as Nia, had similar outlooks about their at-work racial
experiences. Nia had been recently promoted to a position with more visibility and responsibility
at the private research institution where she worked. Throughout our interview, she often
reflected on what it meant for her, a young Black woman, to occupy this role. We talked on the
heels of intense racial uprisings occurring during the early weeks of June 2020. Against this
backdrop and the reality of her being the only Black dean in her school, being, “cautiously
optimistic” was how she described her approach to her new role. When asked to reflect on how
she overcame the racial mistreatment she had experienced thus far and that which she anticipated
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being on the horizon she remarked, “I feel like it’s an unfortunate price. It’s the name of the
game, unfortunately.”
Terry also discussed the permanence of racism at work. However, she brought to light
generational differences in responses to and considerations about racial mistreatment as a fact of
life or work. She recalled that she was reluctant to share with anyone that she had been racially
mistreated due to power dynamics at her workplace. Recalling how she decided on this course of
action, she said:
If I talked to anybody, it’s just been peers. It hasn't been leadership. And I think, partially
because of the way that I grew up and my generational outlook, racism, unfortunately, is
just something that we knew existed. And maybe even sometimes, we ain't gonna change
it, it’s gonna be there. So, it just is what it is.
Tim and Tamir framed this feeling as recurring and a kind of paying one’s portion or
carrying one’s burden and moving forward, that it comes with the territory of being Black. So
entrenched was this idea in the mind of storytellers that, on one hand, they knew the racism and
racial mistreatment they experienced at work was wrong and yet on the other hand, they knew
they had to “suck it up”, “pay, or “carry the burden” while still being employed. Explaining this
metaphor in response to racism at the workplace, Tamir noted:
And I think, again, unfortunately that's part of the whole experience. Where it's like as
Black people we experience so much and it's kind of like it kind of comes with the
territory unfortunately. I hate saying that. But it comes… So, were so used to carrying
this burden, experiencing these things, it's just – I don't know. You just carry on.
Articulating this idea in the context of the repeated microaggressions and racial slights he
encountered at work, Tim noted, “The casual stuff, there’s nobody to tell because that’s the
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price that you pay for being an [Black] American. It’s the tax.” When he said this, I thought
about it like a toll road, as in Black employees have to pay the toll or tax of being racially
mistreated in order to continue their journey while others are exempt. What was so poignant
about this particular experience they described was their body language and demeanor when they
came to this idea: they all either sighed, said it in a nonchalant way, or just kind of resigned to it
as a fact.
Storyteller Snapshot: Collette
When her screen came up, one of the first things I noticed on her wall was the word
“overflow”. “What you meant for evil, God meant for good,” was the theme for Collette’s story.
Her narrative was a testament to living faith. Growing up in Utah, she was one of very few Black
people in her neighborhood and town. Much of what she shared about how she grew up was
about fighting and overcoming: beating the odds of her circumstance; fighting other kids due to
racial encounters; and fighting to be a Black woman living out her purpose. She recalled, “Like I
had to stick up for myself or fight for myself. And I even see that showing up in the workplace.
Especially when I deal with things like microaggressions, racism and all those things.”
Throughout our interview she gave God all the glory and credited Him for her success. She
shared many trials and tribulations about her personal life and career in higher education, which
took her coast to coast, from HBCUs to PWIs. As we talked that day, she never displayed a
visibly angry face despite the fact she unpacked some very troubling racial encounters. I would
have definitely been demonstrably frustrated in recalling what she told me. However, the grey
shirt she wore that day said it all: “God, I let go. Do your thang.” Collette works as a Special
Assistant to the Vice President for Student Affairs at Wish Wash State University.
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Hair, Professional Appearance, Clothes
This set of experiences is about ways storytellers’ appearance was policed or queried in
work contexts. It is about them explaining how others perceived or experienced their attire. It is
about their articulations of how what was on their person communicated to others in the work
environment. It is also about interactions with peers or colleagues who were fascinated with their
hair or appearance in ways that felt uncomfortable.
An Experiential Portrait of Hair, Professional Appearance, Clothes
Garry and Tim were two Black employees working at Southern California colleges I
interviewed. They both valued professionalism and being perceived as being competent. I did not
sense from them they that dressed up to compensate for or to avoid being stereotyped as Black.
They did so out of respect for and in response to the seriousness of their roles. Despite this, they
were made to feel out of place for such attention to detail regarding their attire. This was
racialized in interesting ways. Discussing the culture at an institution, Garry noted:
So, as a younger professional, I always dressed up. Hardly any days you would not catch
me with a shirt and tie. But that wasn’t the culture at Northcliff. So, when I got there it
was more of a lax-dressed culture. And, they would always say things to the other two
Black men that worked there. Thinking, I guess, because I wore a shirt and tie that I was
a certain way. I guess they thought I was more corny, or what. But you know. I don’t
know what it was.
Earlier in our interview Tim shared with me the effect that going to an HBCU had on the way he
understood the interplay and intersection of race, power, and attire within professional
environments. For him, seeing Black people at his undergraduate alma mater dressed well and
exhibiting both confidence and competence was a pathway to becoming a Black, “superhero”.
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Tim discussed being elevated to a more visible role. For him, knowing and exhibiting sartorial
discipline was critical to his success. Despite his expertise, he experienced a certain racialized
awkwardness around this that communicated to him that he was out of or beyond his “place”. He
noted:
But, even as an administrator it’s weird because, you know, I dress well, I get it. And,
that’s an odd thing for me to hear because I feel like I dress like an adult. Yeah, I’m
gonna wear a suit. Yes. My shirt has my initials monogrammed in the sleeve, but I am a
dean and I’m at the investiture of our president. I should have a suit on that looks good.
And so, you know, you walk into their circle and they’re like, “Why are you so dressed
up?” “Because, we’re at a formal ceremony. Why aren’t you dressed up?” So, it’s weird.
Like, those interactions are weird. Yes. Because, what they’re saying is, I feel like the
undertone of it is like, “How do you know how to do that?” As opposed to this is what
you’re supposed to do when you come to a formal event and you’re an adult man who
knows how to dress at a formal event. The ridiculous amount of questioning around it,
insinuates, “Who taught you that?” Like, “Boy, how did you learn how to dress for the
big house, boy?” You know what I mean?
Explaining how he knew such encounters were racialized, he noted:
Because, nobody else gets those questions. Nobody else in a suit at those events
ever gets those questions. When we go to dinners when our president receives an award
and we go to formal dinners, you get those same questions. But everybody else is dressed
up. And, you’re dressed like them, but they are amazed, “You know how to tie a bow
tie?” they ask.
Cydni had been working in higher education for quite a while, having been employed on both
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the East and West Coasts. She talked about the importance of dressing up and being taken
seriously as a Black woman and how it was incumbent upon her to do so due inequitable racial
standards and perceptions. The normative act for some of putting on professional clothes was
abnormal to those around whom she worked. She observed:
People do make a big fuss about the fact that I come to work dressed every day.
So, I dress up. And, folks look at me like, I mean, people will keep commenting on my
clothes all the time and I just want to let them know, I’m Black. I can’t come to work
looking like you do. Well, actually, I would not come to work looking like you do and I
cannot come to work looking like you do. Looking like, who shot John? That bothers
people. That definitely makes people feel a certain way. I think it just brands me more,
again, as an outsider.
Not surprisingly, Black female storytellers also expressed racialized challenges they experienced
concerning their hair in the workplace. Annoyingly, more than a few of them were asked if their
hair could be touched, as if they were oddities or pets. Recalling non-Black racial treatment at
work, Carla noted, “If I’m being honest, it can be all over the place. I mean, I’ve had coworkers
ask to touch my hair.” Being the only Black person in her division, Kyndra spoke about the,
“weird stuff” she experienced. Unpacking the litany of faux pas she encountered there, she
noted, “I mean, it was everything from – it was little stuff from – oh. And yeah, I did get this.
"Can I touch your hair?"” Antoinette, another Black female employee, commented on responses
to her hair in her work environment. Recalling a story about a student interaction she noted:
Yeah. This particular one that just came to mind was with hair again. This time it
was a student worker. He kept wanting to touch my hair and it was weird. He and I had a
really good rapport. He was a nice guy, but I’m still staff and you’re still a student. So,
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the first time it happened I kinda let it slide. Then the second time I was like, “Don’t pet
me.” I think there was this like it was almost a fetish type of deal. It was really weird and
maybe it was because he had just never seen it before. But it was almost like this is not
the petting zoo. I was like, “Would you go pet somebody else, touch somebody else’s
hair like that.” He was in awe of it and he kinda was like, “I didn’t mean any harm by it.”
But I think in those instances it’s just a lack of understanding how those types of things
come across. So, maybe he really didn’t mean any harm by it, but he didn’t understand
what that felt like or what that looked like to someone like me.
There were other ways Black women experienced their hair being racialized in the workplace as
well. Brittanie brought up comments she received by White colleagues around her hair being
straight, specifically her professional persona being received in a better light when she wore it
that way. She said, “And getting comments around like, "Oh, your hair just looks so much nicer,
more professional, when you straighten it." Elaborating more on this subject she noted:
That's not necessarily a racist comment, but it's a value of your Eurocentric look over my
natural curly hair. Like my hair is combed. It's tidy. It's not out here looking like I didn't
do anything with it today. It can have volume to it and still look combed. It's so – I think
it's just – and maybe that's not racism. Maybe that's ignorance. And they're different, but
yeah. Comments like that, too. Where it's like, "Oh, your hair just looks so much nicer
when you straightened it. I thought you were going to straighten it today." "No. I wasn't. I
don't have an extra three hours for your – for your – for your standards of beauty today.
Sorry." So, yeah. Stuff like that. Where I think you've experienced it so much throughout
your lifetime, you just know what's up. You know what it is.
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Others, such as Antoinette, talked about how her other-race peers doubted whether her hair
belonged to her because of how she wore it. She recalled:
Typically, I don’t have it out today, but when I have my hair out curly people
wanna figure it out, “Is it yours?” Well, for one, how blatant folks could be, I think. I’m
talking Black and White folk and folks of different nationalities. I think just how blatant
people could be. I’ll give you an example, this is when I was working at Cal State Long
Board. A colleague came up to me, I had never worn my hair straight. Just because I
worked out a lot, I don’t straighten my hair very often because it’s kind of a waste of
time. This particular time I decided I wanted to because it was my birthday and I was
trying to be cute. I had a colleague walk up to me, she was White, and she says, “That’s
not all yours, right?” Like she automatically assumed that. I just kinda laughed, I said,
“Of course it’s all mine. What are you talking about?” The assumption one, but then also
too just being blatant enough to just say like, “That’s not all yours, right?”
And yet other Black women, such as Carla, told me about ways in which they experienced
mangers attempting to tell them how to wear their hair. She shared a story about a meeting she
had with the Deputy Vice Provost of her campus:
You want a certain look for the people who are going to be with the most
important people in the organization, I get that. But if that’s what you’re saying, say that.
And he goes, “Oh, no. Your hair is fabulous. Da da da da.” First of all, sir, why did you
bring up this story then? In my mind, it was just kind of like, what was the point of telling
this story if it wasn’t to say, “Hey, I don’t think your hair is the most appropriate for this
trip.” You know what I mean? To me, it was a very roundabout way of being, “Hey, you
might want to look more normal when you go out on the road.”
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Storyteller Snapshot: Tillman
Tillman is from Chicago. He had a lot to say. It was an honest, free-flowing conversation
because, though we had never met, we quickly established mutual respect and trust as two Black
men working in higher education. Like a few others I had interviewed, he was cognizant of race
from an early age. He mentioned that he takes a great deal of pride in being Black. That felt good
to hear. He works at Howston College as an Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and
Inclusion and Residential Life and has thirteen years’ experience in higher education. He seemed
to be around the same age as me. There were a couple times where I had him go back and
elaborate on specific terms he was using to describe racialized experiences or workplace
dynamics. One example was use of the word “turn coat”, which meant someone who turns their
back on their race and culture. Tillman had a unique way of spotting racial inequities,
mistreatment, and inconsistencies. His loyalty to students was his form of activism.
Egregious or Public Acts of Racial Mistreatment
This category of experiences is about public and/or highly racially charged acts that
occurred while at work. These are things that happened to Black employees that cause shame,
shock, or embarrassment both in the moment and beyond. They are things that happen to them at
work that are quite outrageous, ridiculous, or have a particular racial tinge that is difficult to
identify in the moment. These acts often occurred in meetings, public settings, or in the company
of others.
An Experiential Portrait of Egregious or Public Acts of Racial Mistreatment
Having known Olivia prior to our interview, I did not expect her to share with me that she
had been bullied by a faculty member where she worked. This was surprising on many levels.
One is that Olivia is one of the most non-provocative people I know. She is someone who does
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not look to easily offend others, who works towards the good of all people, and seeks to be
peaceful and professional in her interactions. It was actually quite difficult to wrap my mind
around the fact that someone would treat my friend this way. What made the scenario she
described especially egregious, is that when she sought help by her immediate supervisor to
intervene on her and other students’ behalves to disrupt the foul treatment of this faculty
member, he put her in an even more vulnerable and harmful situation. Though he arranged a
meeting between the two, according to Olivia, he:
…wanted me to draft all of the student concerns and read them to her. So, I’m in this
situation where it’s just like this isn’t how you handle these situations. He just put me out
there to kind of deal with it and to bear the brunt of her wrath. So, she pretty much called
me unprofessional, that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I had no right, that she
doesn’t answer to me, and yelling, and screaming. And it was the first time where I was
like she feels some type of why about me personally. It doesn’t have to do with work, and
I felt like she felt some sort of way that I was calling her out on being racist. And I felt
like that’s why my boss also had me be the one to say it, that it would hold more weight. I
the Black woman was saying that she was racist versus him, a White man.
Olivia also experienced this faculty member berate her in addition to talking despairingly about
her work quality behind her back to her colleagues. Reflecting on the treatment during this
encounter she noted:
So, it was an interesting scenario because nothing that I said in that meeting was gonna
change the way that she viewed me, viewed my work, or viewed my position in that
department. And it wasn’t so much that I need to remove myself because of her. But I
just felt like it was so indicative of the culture and the atmosphere. When I was talking to
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my boss, it’s like not only is it just a me thing, she’s a workplace bully. You know when
she doesn’t like someone. You know when she’s upset. You know when someone doesn’t
like what you said. She’s a workplace bully, and it’s harassment. It’s discrimination and
not only do just students say that, staff say that, and other faculty say that but there’s no
recourse. Who are you supposed to report it to? And I think one of the biggest thing is
like she always talks about how her and the dean are really close.
Interestingly, Kaneef, who also worked at the same institution as Olivia, experienced a
particularly humiliating racial encounter. Though he was not bullied, he was racially profiled and
was confronted by campus police at his place of employment. Describing the scenario, he
recalled:
So, I got dropped off after coming back from the happy hour. And minding my business,
about to go back into my apartment to probably play video games, read, whatever, I don't
know. And literally like, I want to say it was like three or four cop cars swarmed. And
this was last summer. Three or four cop cars swarmed right in front of us right there, and
one or two of them comes up to us saying, "Hey, where are you coming from? Who are
you?" Asking all these questions. "You fit the description of a report we just got of
people who aren't supposed to be here." We were really confused, 1.) We were still a
little buzzed, and 2.) It's like, "Bruh, I work here." We were walking like normal people.
And so, they didn’t even ask for ID, they just said we fit the description. And I'm like,
“What is the description at 10:00, 11:00 at night?”
The public nature of this experience was unsettling, primarily because it signaled to him that in
some way, he did not belong where we worked. Indeed, it contributed to emotions he felt
regarding surviving versus thriving where he was employed. He was vexed by the encounter. He
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continued to elaborate on what was troubling for him about it. He said:
And obviously, I would assume that if someone was in a position of they do something
wrong, they would've tried to get off campus. So, I look like I'm already on campus, still
staying on campus. And so, we showed them our IDs and they apologized, or whatever.
If I'm being honest, it was a half-[tail]ed apology. It was one of those sort of apologies
where it was like, “You're not guilty this time, or whatever.” So, that bothered me. I
know that it bothered my peer at the same time. Yeah, that was a very annoying
experience, to say the least.
For Terry, the public act of racial mistreatment she experienced was gendered. It occurred in a
meeting and the offending party was her White male supervisor. Describing the comments she
encountered, she recalled:
And really long story short, we are over-enrolled. And so, when I spoke about it
in the meeting and I happened to be pregnant at the time with my second child. And he
was like, “Oh, is that the baby talking?” And I was like, “No, this is me.” ‘Cause it was
like you made this mess. Now, you got to dig yourself out of it, player. You made it. And
I was like, “No, it's not the baby talking.” And he was like, “Oh, okay, Terry.” And he
didn’t say hormonal, but that’s what he was eluding to. “You're probably going through it
today,” and he brushed me aside and they kept the meeting moving after I made my
comment. And like I said, after that occurred, I had to sit and reflect. Would that have
been done to a White woman? Because Karen would have gone off. And I couldn't – I
can’t go off, right? Because if I go off, that puts me in a vulnerable position.
Cyrus, too, experienced a racial encounter in a public setting on campus. He unpacked a story
where he was literally charged at by a White female faculty member. To say I was shocked by
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this would be an understatement. I literally had to ask him several times during our interview
about that specific confrontation. He remarked:
So, we get a knock on the door and it’s one of my staff members and my staff member is
like, “Hey, there’s this person out there, a faculty member, a White woman, and she is
like really going in on another one of my staff members.” Fine, so we stop what we’re
doing and we then go out there and so my supervisor’s there so he kinda takes his lead
and they’re talking and so some students are starting to come in or what have you. And
this person is going off man. “Are you evicting students?” she asks. Just acting a
complete fool and we’re asking questions or whatever. So, at that moment I was told we
were able to go home. So, I proceed to go and close the door to our office because there
were some students there and I go to close the door and I kid you not, this person charges
at me and [is] like, “Do not close that door!” And comes within inches of my face
demanding that I’m not supposed to do this. I felt like, “Wait a minute. Why is this White
woman charging at me?” Like if I’m in the Walmart and someone charges at me in that
way, I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna have to defend myself, you know? But I think that
because of the setting I felt like she felt like it was okay. You know, I felt like it was one
of those situations where she felt like she wanted to be a well-meaning White person that
can do that based on her thinking, “I’m doing this in the name of trying to support the
students.”
As we talked more about this encounter, he was so off-put by it that he had to consort his social
support network to see if he misread the situation or reacted wrongly. In the moment he had
many emotions. “And so, in my mind as she did that my job is flashing before my face,” he
shared. And that when he had a moment to process it, “…I got angry,” he recalled. Reflecting on
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it all, he said he, “just felt that that was the height of this person’s privilege in so many different
ways,” because, “… this person is a tenured faculty person, came in and was disrespectful to
everyone.”
Damarius recalled an egregious encounter despite believing he was on good terms with
his colleague. Perhaps what made many of these happenings particularly charged is that they
resulted from peers or people with whom my storytellers closely worked. Like many others in
my study, Damarius’ encounter happened while in a meeting. Sharing how he had been called
“boy”, he explained:
This was at UC Marshbreak. And it was an employee that I worked with on a pretty
consistent basis. He was at events. And we had events like every weekend. So, we would
be working together almost every weekend. So, in my head we had a good working
relationship and I think in his head we had a good relationship, too. We were in some
meeting. It was me, him, and my supervisor. And this man called me boy in the meeting.
So, like, I didn't react in the meeting. As soon as the meeting was over, I went up to him
and I was like, "Don't ever call me boy again." He was like, "Oh, what do you mean? It
was just…" Like, "You're gonna call me boy in front of my supervisor in a meeting?
That's disrespectful."
Storyteller Snapshot: Michael
“Every day I do the best I can and everyday my best is different,” is how Michael began
our conversation. I appreciated how before, during, and after the interview, Michael referred to
me as “brother”. When he did so, it jolted me into the notion that he and I share a reality as two
Black men employed in higher education attempting to navigate the field and industry as best
they can. We spoke not too long after the recent racial uprisings that occurred in the early
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summer of 2020. He mentioned how he processed this time in history as unheard of and also not
surprising. He also talked about how, due to his role, he was now balancing the regular work that
accompanies it with being pulled in different directions to provide support and racially
responsive leadership. As he took me through his story, I could see the library from his youth in
Alabama that was his summertime refuge, and Legion Field, the football stadium he grew up
next to. Michael’s idea of success resonated with me: “Actually, success to me is really not
having to consistently compromise and give away of your own integrity in order to still move
forward.”
Descriptions of Racially Hostile Workplaces
This set of experiences is about how Black employees who have experienced racial
mistreatment at work described and identified racially hostile workplaces. These are examples of
how they understand the contexts, conditions, and environments in which they worked. It is folks
putting language to the feel and dynamics of their workplaces.
An Experiential Portrait of Racially Hostile Workplaces
Though my entire study was about racial hostility and mistreatment Black employees
experience in their workplaces, I wanted to know precisely how they understood the term
racially hostile workplace. Generally, no one had trouble articulating what this meant to them. In
fact, more than a few of them were eager to respond when I posed this question. Others were
glad to have language to name their experiences. And still, there were some for whom this term
was less abstract and deeply personalized, calling to mind the contours of specific instances of
mistreatment they encountered where they worked.
I asked Collette to describe what comes to mind when she heard the term “racially hostile
workplace.” “I hear my name,” she responded. She elaborated:
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Like everything that I've experienced is racial. It's hostile. It's based on my race. It's based
on me being a Black woman. Because I see when other White people have these issues,
they're not treated as such. And I've only seen this done to Black folks in this office. And
– or Black folks in this division.
As we talked about the hostilities she encountered throughout her higher education career, she
noted that she did not always hold the view of her workplaces being so volatile. In fact, it was
not until she saw the environment from the lens of one of her students that she was able to more
fully come into such an analysis of her workplace experiences. She noted:
…and I was supervising a young man named Quincy. And he used to tell me all the time,
"Collette, they're super hostile. They're racial. They're racist." And I'm like, "No, they're
not. You're just tripping. You just had a bad experience." But now, and not that I'm not
humble enough to go back and tell him he was right, but everything he experienced I'm
now experiencing.
Others, like Collette, either personalized or named their immediate institution in response to the
question. One example is Tillman, who connected racially hostile workplaces to his existence as
a Black person. He observed,
What comes to mind? I will definitely say a racially hostile workplace, I'm not going to
lie, as cynical as it is, it's just like, [shoot], that's [darn] near a major aspect of being
Black in a workplace. You know what I mean? We normalize it, we work through it, we
make it work.
Another example is Sandra, who said:
What comes to mind is finally somebody’s put a title to what I’ve experienced over six
years. I don’t mean to laugh but when I read your email, I was like yes. Someone realizes
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it. So, I am the woman who broke through the door and was like finally I’m her.
Tim, too, named his workplace. When asked he said:
Rock City. I mean, you know, everything about that institution is racially hostile from the
way that Black women and men are treated. The fact that there are maybe from the non-
faculty side, there are maybe nine out of 3,000 employees, there are maybe 20 men,
African American men, maybe. On the faculty side there may be another 10.
Interestingly, both Sandra and Tim worked at the same institution and named the place where
they were employed as being hostile instead of describing the concept in more objective terms.
Other Black employees in my study came to similar conclusions about the immediate and
broader contexts of where they worked. Considering her career trajectory, Cydni’s framing of
various institutional experiences was an interesting example. Though Cydni was quite
accomplished in the field and despite how tame or rare her racialized workplace incidents were,
she framed the entire industry and workplaces therein in negative terms. “Higher education, the
whole place. The whole thing is racially hostile,” she said in response to being queried about
how she understood and described a racially hostile workplace.
Olivia and Cyrus described racially hostile workplaces through behaviors that were
enacted and occurred within such contexts. Cyrus, reflecting on the intersection of emotion,
power, and actions commented:
I feel like there’s tension, eggshells, walking on eggshells, for me I think lack of power
and I just feel like – yeah, lack of power is what comes to mind when I hear that. And I
remember too just thinking about being here and thinking about how people kind of
throw their weight around particularly some White folks.

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Olivia also discussed tensions in racially hostile workplaces. However, she noted that they were
layered and involved attitudes from different categorizations amongst instructional personnel, in
addition to age and race. She observed:
And I feel like that’s how I would describe MAT, that it is racially hostile because you
have this older White faculty, and I think you had a lot of different layers. All of these
faculty were the RTCP. I always get those letters mixed up. So, I feel like [… it] was a
little bit of, I don’t wanna say like maybe a chip on their shoulder, but like they had
something to prove because they weren’t tenure track faculty. Then you had the older
White folks that had just been there forever, and then you had kind of a newer guard of
faculty members, some of them people of color, who were coming in questioning certain
things including myself being a younger woman of color coming in questioning policies,
and the way that we interact with students, and things like that. And so, I felt like it was
always this tension. I never felt like it was necessarily gender because there’s always
been [both] working there. But I feel like it was an age thing, and I felt like it was a race
thing. I would say it was hostile. It was heavy. There was always tension. It was just like
an uncomfortable place to work and/or feel uncomfortable to speak up.
Damarius, seemingly unbothered and contemplative in his composure, made an interesting
distinction in his response to identifying and defining a racially hostile workplace. He noted that
they were often places where pervasive manifestations of Whiteness were present. He observed:
I would say it's just a Eurocentric place. UCP specifically. Would just be a Eurocentric
environment. So, it's not necessarily that it's hostile and extremely uncomfortable for
non-Euro or non-White folks. But it's very clear that the workplace isn't designed for me,
if that makes sense. For me, it's a slight distinction between a hostile environment.
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Because I feel like in a hostile environment, you are actively being pushed out. And it's
like, "Okay. They clearly don't want me here. They're making these comments. They're
making it uncomfortable. And they're trying to get me out of here.” That's hostile in my
opinion. While the Eurocentric environment, it's like, “You can be here, but just know
you're not focus and you're not important. It's okay for you to be here, but we're not going
to focus on you." That's kind of the difference for me. So, I feel like I'm in this type of
work environment.
Storyteller Snapshot: Nia
Nia was also a person who I had seen and with whom I had interacted often, but did not
know substantively. I was excited to interview her because she also went to an HBCU and I
wanted to know why she chose to go there and how she ended up in California. From a young
age she was constantly told by her parents that there was nothing she could not do. The way she
navigated challenges and achieved success in her personal life and career proved that to be right.
One thing that was obvious from our time together was the special place her small band of
coworkers held in her heart. She shared how supportive they were of her and her projects and of
each other. I caught up with her on a Tuesday afternoon. Amid her unpacking boxes and tending
to her daughter, I was surprised with how intently she engaged with me. She talked to me about
her new role as interim dean, about which she said she was cautiously optimistic. Despite the
apprehension she shared I let her know I was rooting for her. I am glad I got to know her more
intentionally through the interview. She reminded me of the many talented and intelligent Black
women who I encountered at my undergraduate HBCU.
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“A Sliding Scale”: Racial Mistreatment by Non-Black People of Color in the Workplace
This category of experiences is about encounters with non-Black people of color in the
workplace that were racialized. It is about ways that Black employees experienced mistreatment
by other people of color and how this complicated work for them. It also encompasses how
regional dynamics between and among racial groups played out in Black employees’ interactions
with other people of color on campus.
An Experiential Portrait of Racial Mistreatment by Non-Black People of Color in the
Workplace
In our conversation, Cydni routinely highlighted that producing excellent work was her
only option; she had no backup plan. Admittedly, she shared, her high-quality work and work
ethic rubbed people the wrong way. It often made people jealous, feel inadequate, or conspire
against her. Recalling who has racially mistreated she noted:
It’s usually very specific. It’s usually women and it’s White women, but not always. I’ve
definitely had, like I said, I had the Black woman, but she was, again, not Black
American. And, at CNNU I had another, an Asian woman, she was the Dean of Students
and she’s very, that woman is very … Whatever the university wants, she’s going to do,
students, people be [darn]ed.
She went on to unpack how some people of color where she has worked did things to make
themselves look good in the eyes of a predominately White administration. Such acts were either
aimed at her directly, or she experienced them as forms of collateral damage. Articulating how
she knew such encounters were racially motivated, she said:
Because, she treats her own staff the same way. And, I have another, a Black
colleague in the Dean of Students Office who is constantly harassed and maligned
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because she’s the head of the Black Caucus. And so, this woman often tries to silence
people. So, I worked the financial aid office, the Dean of Students Office, the AVP who
didn’t like me in financial aid, they would work together, again, to make sure I didn’t get
this job that I knew I deserved. And, to spread rumors around, and it wasn’t just about
me, about Black people on campus that were difficult, that were going to be protesting all
the time on campus. And, it’s their way of ingratiating themselves to the campus and to
campus leadership, “Look at us.”
Garry and Tim, two Black male employees working in Southern California colleges, described
racialized incidents involving Latinx persons. Garry believed those who identified as Latinx
were responsible for trying to pit him against Black peers in his workplace, and for an HR report
alleging he favored Black students over Latinx students. For him, the issue also involved
colorism. Speaking about them and the incidents he said, “Yeah, yeah. But these are also people
who identified, and who passed as White. You know, you wouldn’t know unless you talked to
them about who they were and that would come out.” Tim, too, attributed his several vivid
racialized encounters with Latinx person to him being a Black male in leadership, and to a
regional history of distrust between Black and Latinx persons. Interestingly, most, if not all, of
Tim’s racialized Latinx encounters could be tied back to instances where he displayed some kind
of authority in a role. When I asked him about the reason for such mistreatment from this group,
he noted:
There aren’t that many African American men in leadership positions and so … And, I
would think [it] is a phenomena. I don’t have the data in front of me, but I mean in the
state of California and especially in higher ed in California, there aren’t as many
cisgendered African American men who are in leadership positions. And so, when you
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encounter that it may the first Black man that has told you no or that has some semblance
of control. And, in California there is a significant history of conflict between African
American and Latinx people.
Damarius did not name specific racial groups, but both he and Breonna felt that the racial
treatment they experienced at work from non-Black people of color was somewhat of a mixed
bag. In Damarius’ words, “The non-Black folks, I feel like it's been a somewhat of a sliding
scale.” Breonna, in all of her unapologetic Blackness, reported that she experienced both positive
and negative reception from non-Black people of color. She noted:
I definitely found that from an administrative or staff perspective, non-Blacks were
definitely, for the most part, a little more unwelcoming. They weren’t very welcoming at
all. There were some. I did have some good allies. But there were definitely more non-
allies than there were allies.
Though she did acknowledge that non-Black people of color could be allies, there were also
times she experienced exclusion from them. Speaking about her “place” among peers, she said,
“I almost felt like, sometimes the way I was treated almost felt like institutional slavery, in a
sense, where it’s like the White folk and the AP[I] folk would be like, “No, stay in your place.”
She continued, “It was like they were saying, “You’re in the field, we’re in the house; this isn’t
your thing.”” She elaborated further on the “mixed bag” experiences, trying to sort out and
reconcile the mistreatment she received from non-Black people of color:
I feel like on most college campuses non-Blacks treated me less than my Black folks did.
But the Californian in me, because we got “everybody” there, I love everybody. So, I
understand that all White folk aren’t bad. All API aren’t bad. All Browns don’t hate
Blacks. I get that. But when you live it every day in your little academic bubble,
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sometimes it’s hard for your lens to be like, well [darn], where are the good ones at?
Because this all I see right now.
Storyteller Snapshot: Kaneef
Kaneef took me through what it looked like to balance working while Black at a PWI,
having enduring empathy, guarding one’s heart, and protecting and/or keeping one’s Blackness
intact. He brought up troubling racial encounters that made me mad on his behalf. Though he had
experienced these things, he did not seem to hold a grudge. Kaneef worked in residence life at
Sunshine South University in Los Angeles. He mentioned how he had worked at another
institution in Georgia and made comparisons between the racial encounters there and what he
had experienced at his Los Angeles institution. As Kaneef reflected on what he would like to
achieve and where he saw himself going, he informed me that he was seriously considering
leaving higher education to start a new career as a high school teacher.
How Whiteness Manifests and Is Experienced by Black Employees
This category of experiences is about ways that Black employees experienced
manifestations of Whiteness or White privilege at work. It is about events, acts, and attitudes that
conveyed a superiority or power over others by virtue of being White. Examples included
liberties taken with Black employees that otherwise would not be taken if roles were reversed or
if the employee was not Black. It is also about the ways that White norms were reified.
An Experiential Portrait of How Whiteness is Experienced by Black Employees
According to Collette, “…White folks can do whatever they want to do, however they
want to do.” I typically would have interpreted such statements as a general expression of racism
in the aggregate. However, listening to repeated boundary-crossing by White people Collette
experienced at work helped me understand that her saying this came from a specific place. In
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fact, she experienced a form of White privilege that was so outrageous it was difficult not to
mistake it for a practical joke. About two weeks into her new role working for the director of
disability services, her boss, a White woman, with whom she had no prior relationship asked her
to keep her kids. She recalled:
So, then that happens and then two days later she comes to me and says, "I have a really
important meeting. Like a dinner for athletics and I have nobody to watch my kids. Could
you please watch my kids for a couple hours?" And I'm thinking to myself, "Well, this is
really inappropriate, but I probably should do it because I'm new." And I think when
you're new in a position and they have this position of power over you, you
kind of – you kind of move different. Right? So, I was like, "Well, okay." So, she brought
her kids to my house and they brought bags with them and a sleeping bag. And I'm like –
"What? Why do you guys have these bags?" They're like – she's like, "Oh, in case they
want to lay and watch a movie." And I was like, "Oh, I don't have a TV." Like because I
haven’t owned one in eight years. The only reason why I have a TV now is because I run
it on The Price is Right. And so, she drops the kids off about 6:00. Well, 9:00 comes
around and I'm texting her. Because I'm like, "If you're at a university dinner, it's
probably over by now." No answer. 10:00 comes. I call her. No answer. Midnight comes.
No answer. 1:00 in the morning she goes, “Oh, well the kids are just gonna stay the night
with you. I just drank too much. Bring them to me in the morning.” So, I mean, I'm
calling my cousin and my cousin was like, "Don't go to sleep with them kids in your
house. They raised by a White woman. You never know them kids are going to say you
did something to them." Right? So, I'm just – so, we're all just – and I was like, "Okay."
So, then after that she would just drop her kids off to me in my office at work and say I
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have to watch them.
Eric had held several leadership roles in his higher education career. He experienced Whiteness
in the workplace in more subtle forms. For him, voicelessness was a barrier to feeling completely
comfortable and effective in his roles. He often shared that others got credit for ideas he
articulated or that he had to say the same things repeatedly to be heard or taken seriously. It was
not surprising that his experiences with Whiteness at work were framed through the lens of
communication. He noted:
I don’t know. This is me personally, but I think that people are so used to seeing White
people in these positions they just take whatever they say and say, “Okay. This is fact.”
But if it was someone like me, I would have to constantly be – or I’d constantly have to
reinforce what I’m saying. I’d have to come with more and more research. I’d have to say
it in four or five different ways before someone says, “Oh, okay.” Or have someone else
be on my side and then they’d be like, “Okay. You’ve got this person? Okay. Maybe this,
what you’re saying, is true.”
His communication-related experiences with Whiteness were compounded by the repeated
markers of Whiteness he encountered on the campus where he worked. He observed, “And I
look around at these images on the wall. There’s a lot of these portraits of various presidents or
leaders of the campus and none of them look like me or many other people. They’re all
essentially White men.”
Cydni observed Whiteness operating in the workplace in a more systematic fashion,
through the ease with which White people attained roles. Critiquing both the work quality and
systems that enabled White’s preferential promotion, she said:
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White people and actually White women in particular I’ve experienced as being rather
mediocre and they network their way into positions, they don’t earn them. And so, they
get really mad at you when you’ve earned yours. So, I’ve had multiple White women try
to act like I’m aggressive or there’s no possible way I’ve earned what I’ve gotten. One of
them was like, “Well, I just don’t believe that you’re able to do all your work well and do
all these different things.”
Garry often used metaphors to make ideas vivid realties. He opined about the burden Black
people carried being in predominantly White workplaces. According to him, this weight included
among other things racial mistreatment. However, he suggested that such predicaments could be
negotiated more effectively through mutual support among Black people. Extending the
metaphor, he noted, “If you can allow for someone to stand over the top of you and squat you
while you’re lifting weights, why can’t that same terminology transfer into everything else about
your life as a Black man?” He continued, “Because every day we need a squatter, we need
someone to help us with that last rep.” As a former athlete, it was not surprising that he would
frame difficult workplace scenarios in this way. He also expressed that such weights were
compounded by “White logic,” a concept he used that intrigued me. Expounding on what this
was and looked like he noted:
But I also think, too, that a lot of this is disguised under professionalism. And, to me,
that’s a camouflage word for White logic. And I think that so long as we understand that
we’re able to kind of break down how we’re being treated, and how we’re being viewed.
And, I don’t care if you are a higher ed person and you work at a historically White
institution, a predominantly White institution, and they should be seeing you a certain
way. [a] majority of the way these things are put together is based in White logic, so it
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does not matter. Where we work is something that we all experience. So, now I’m in the
position to where I have to depend on my supervisor and this White-logic leadership. Or
so they thought.
Tillman, too, experienced Whiteness as a particular outlook that upheld certain values and
norms. His story was that he refused to have his Blackness “pigeon-holed” insomuch as he was
expected to exist within the cultural confines of Whiteness at work. He took me through an
example of a dynamic that shows up when Black and White peers make small-talk and use
references to pop-culture. He observed:
Because I know that in this country and society, the paradigm is all – the default is
always centered around their being and their experience and their saying this and that.
That is "the norm,” even though I push back on that strongly. And I think older I've
gotten and deeper in my career, especially from a personal, not even just professional, but
a personal standpoint, I go out of my way to sort of push back on that. So, like, there are
small, subtle things. So, like, if you're having a conversation around eighties rock or these
movies that are deemed pop culture or whatever, but it's always centered from a White
perspective and it's expected that we supposed to just know. “What, you don't know Bon
Jovi? Or you don't know ACDC?” they ask. That [stuff].
Damarius observed Whiteness in his workplace at the institutional level. He was especially
offended by how he saw Whiteness operating in light of a Black affinity group he worked to
launch. In his mind, institutional resource allocation revealed a prioritization of Whiteness. He
noted:
So, we just launched a Black Community Center at UCP, literally this January it just
opened up. And we don't have funding right now. This is another thing that makes me
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understand that this is not a – that it is a euro-centered campus. They gave the Black
Community Center $50,000 of seed funding. Nonrenewable seed funding. So, it's like,
"You can't – you can't even hire anybody to run that center with $50,000. Let alone pay
for events, maintenance, all that stuff." So, it just again shows me that you're not really
serious about supporting them. You just want to make it look like you're serious.
Storyteller Snapshot: Terry
Terry was the final interview of my study. I had reached out to her a while ago and did
not think she would respond. Like Lydia, she too did the interview from her car. The change of
pace and setting enlivened our time together. Though we had never met before, she knew one of
my fraternity brothers from Hampton University. She, too, was in a BGLO sorority. Terry wove
together a story about how faith guided her life and the tactical ways she navigated racialized
encounters on the job. Terry is the Assistant Director of Transfer Initiatives at University of
California Ipsis and had more than a few stories about inequitable experiences. Throughout it all
and most especially in our interview, she kept her joy.
Part Two: How They Got Over - Success and Navigation
Don’t Let Them See You Sweat: Resilience, Persevering Through It
This is an attitude that storytellers adopted of enduring under pressure. It is a
determination to not be overwhelmed or overcome by racial mistreatment. It is them being
resilient and yet not allowing people to outwardly see ways that racial mistreatment affected
them. It also encompasses storytellers using racial mistreatment as motivation to succeed. It is an
internalized resolve to carry on and be excellent.
Enduring, persevering, and resilience were all terms storytellers used to describe an
ardent stance to succeed despite racial mistreatment at work. Often, these terms were coupled
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with phrases like “prove” or “I will show you” to highlight the vigor with which they sought to
achieve in their work. One example is Logan, who noted:
So, now I get it. It was endurance, without a question. For me, it was about I see you, I’m
gonna prove to you that I’m valuable, and because I’m valuable, that’s why people are
gonna keep coming to me. It’s funny because I have two forms of competition. I compete
with myself to do my best work. I’m always gonna be my most critical piece of feedback,
and I’ve been that way since I was a child, but the other is when someone tells me you
can’t do something, and I’m going, “[Eff] you, I’ll show you.”
Carla and Michael also talked about a determination to prove as well. “I think it’s because you
want to prove people wrong. You want to be able to have that flex moment and be like, “You
thought I didn’t know, but I know,” was how Carla framed how this showed up in her work life.
Similar to Logan, Michael shared about the significance of, “proving wrong” those at work who
held negative assumptions about him. He commented:
Yeah, in cases like that I just want to prove them wrong. When that White man said those
things, I was already eloquent, and what he was saying was just his own thing, but I
killed that presentation in front of the University Senate. It had coverage, and I was in the
newspaper and all these things. I don’t know. I just want to do my best.
Other storytellers touted their ability to endure the sufferings of racism. This kind of sustained
tolerance was a success in itself. Collette explained:
You know, sometimes people experience racism for maybe a couple of months. A year or
so. But I've been in the thick of this thing since 2017. And so, years of nonstop dealing
with racial battle fatigue. All of those things. I think the success that I've seen is that I've
– I'm surviving and I'm overcoming it. And that to me equals success. It’s when you can
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survive. Not only survive something but overcome something. Especially in regards of –
like, I can forgive those people. And that equals success to me, because the success in
that is, I take them off of my hook and I put them on God's hook. And he can deal with
them way better than I can. And that's – that ends up being success.
George articulated the tenacity that undergirded excellence in many of their approaches to work.
When asked about what superior work looked like for him during intense periods of racial
mistreatment, he replied, “Oh, my goodness. You know what? Fortunately, I didn’t take my eyes
off the prize, so to speak, as far as excellence is concerned.” Similar to an “eyes-on-the-prize”
approach to workplace success was Sandra’s idea of, “shining throughout it all” as a means to
get ahead during instances of racial mistreatment on the job. Brittanie and Tim also discussed the
centrality of a focused resilience to their success in the workplace. “I think just resilience is like
one of the things that I've had to develop more than anything,” she remarked. Articulating the
gendered contours of her work context and how she navigated that she replied, “And I think the
intersection of being Black and a woman in a very patriarchal White dominated space of higher
education is just to not take things personal and not let things get to you.” Tim, too, suggested
that it was important to demonstrate the ability to remain calm and determined in the face of
racial duress. He said:
Don’t let them see you cry. Don’t let them see you sweat. Don’t let them see. You’ve got
to be like a duck. I think that’s what it taught me was like, no matter how I feel, no matter
how it’s getting to me, I can do all of that under the surface, but it has to look like
everything is smooth. And then, I just realized it was about maintaining my calm.
Because if I blinked then they knew they had me and so I needed to really be intentional
about being grateful.
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Kaneef’s sentiments in that regard were almost word-for-word the same as Tim’s. For him:
Excellence just looked like surviving and being my best self to support my team. At the
end of the day, my job is to support my residents, support my RA. And so, it required a
level, for me – I got this mentality from my dad. But my dad always taught me to never
let them see you sweat. So, it can be toxic, in a way, to live by that mantra. But it
required me to have a thick toughness.
Success Linked to Students
Storytellers connected their motivation for work and the metric of their success to
students. This category is about how much students mattered to them and how hard they worked
for them despite the racial mistreatment they encountered. This is a category of experiences and
a series of statements Black employees made about serving students well and how integral doing
so was to how they thought about and demonstrated excellence at work. Simply stated: students
were significant to the work lives of Black employees.
“But, when I know I'm successful is, for me, it always starts with the students. That's why
I do the work,” is how Tillman conceptualized a job well done. He was not alone in his heart for
students. Overwhelmingly, storytellers expressed strong concern and positive regard for students.
This occurred even amongst storytellers whose roles were not directly student-facing or student-
related. Somehow, conversations around workplace success and excellence ultimately came back
to students. It would not be an understatement to say that storytellers’ unofficial job duties
included ensuring the thriving of students where they worked. Black employees also recognized
that students valued such dedication. Carla noted, “I think sometimes it’s knowing that the
students appreciate the extra work that you put in as opposed to your colleagues or your
supervisors because sometimes that might be the only place where you get that recognition.” Eric
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also noticed that his validation and measure as a successful Black employee was somehow tied
to students he served. Responding to how he knew he was effective in his role, he remarked:
Wow. I think that would come from my students. Yeah. My students who would – I feel
successful when I see a student going off and doing good things in life with work or with
graduate or professional school. Or when they would come back and send me notes or
maybe a letter saying, “Hey, look. This conversation we had or thank you made me do
this.” Or, “Thank you for helping guide me throughout my entire college trajectory. And
I couldn’t have done it without your support as well as other people.” So, I think those
things kind of make me feel whether or not I’ve achieved success.
Carmen worked in residence life. Before being employed in that role, she was a secondary
teacher. In her career, she has served students in two educational capacities. She, however, more
directly stated that students were her metric and a reflection of performance on the job. She
stated:
I use my students as my barometer. I know that for me, I'm here for them. Part
of why I decided to stay, even though I moved, I decided to stay because I really enjoyed
mentoring them. And so, if they are successful and able to successfully do their jobs – if
they understand – if I’m getting a lot of questions from them or a lot of pushback from
them or they're not doing well. Then, I know I'm not doing well. I'm not doing something
right. But if I am – if they are okay. And they seem to be understanding and they seem to
be doing well and excelling at their job – at school and jobs and moving forward and
accomplishing their goals, then I know that I've done something right because I don't look
to other professional staff members to affirm me because I know I'm not really gonna get
that all the time.
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George encountered more than enough racial trials, traumas, and tribulations at his campus job
space to make him want to quit. However, if he were to do so, he remarked, “The only people I’d
be letting down is my students.” And despite managing caseloads of well upwards of over 500
students during such challenging periods, he informed me, “I have to give these students my all.”
Cydni’s dedication to student success was more calculated. Not only did she provide
support, she had clear markers to ensure their post-graduate thriving. This was how she knew she
was being successful in her role when she did not receive praise or positive feedback. She noted:
Because I see my students thriving. I see my students graduating on time or with less debt
or getting the mental health services that they need. Right now, I don’t really work
through the students directly. I work with student employees. Every last one of my 110
student employees that wanted to work during the shutdown, or not the shutdown, the
shelter in place, was able to work. Because, I figure out a way to make that happen and to
continue to justify paying them. That is success to me.
Counseling and Therapy
Storytellers highlighted the efficacy of using counseling and mental health services as a
means to overcome racial mistreatment in their lives and at work. This is about how counseling
and professional help-seeking was instrumental to their ability to repeatedly show up at work and
navigate racial mistreatment while striving for excellence. These were spaces where they could
release and process trauma.
Black employees transparently discussed seeking and/or using counseling services to
process racialized matters in the workplace. For Logan, it was a normal part of his life; he had
studied counseling and knew well the value of therapy. In fact, it was abnormal for him not see
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his therapist regularly. Elaborating on how therapy aided him in overcoming the racial
oppression and discrimination he faced while working in those roles he noted:
I think talking the process through with a therapist was the first one. This was the first
time in my life since I moved here that I haven’t been able to have a therapeutic outlet
and partially because there’s not a lot of therapists in the Bay. But back in Chicago, I was
in therapy at least twice a month, and I had that forum to just share these things on a
professional-personal level.
Others such as Kyndra recognized the importance of professionals listening and attending to her
well. In order to find balance between the racial stressors she was encountering and a productive
work life, she sought the help of counseling professionals on her campus dedicated to workplace
issues. Recalling that period in her career she stated:
And I did – I did end up going to work and family. You know just to talk to someone and
just to kind of say, "I'm having these issues at work and what can I do about it?" It's very
stressful because it's like this is my livelihood that's being affected here.
Nia articulated how therapy was incorporated into her routine as a means of self-care and
personal continuity. She noted that going to therapy was part of being excellent. She said:
But sometimes it’s just like that. And being excellent is getting up, going to sleep, having
your feelings, feelings them, going to therapy, whatever you do to take care of yourself,
and getting up and trying it again. Nobody said that this was gonna be easy, but it’s
supposed to be worth it. And you gotta put in the work to make it be so.
Tim, like Nia, had recently been promoted to a more visible role with increased responsibilities.
Not only did he have to navigate racial stressors, he shared that he also took on newer pressures
as a result of his current line of work. In our interview he opened up about the importance of
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mental health and stability in light of his work context. He noted:
But mental health is a big part of that and counseling. I started going to counseling more
regularly. I’ve gone to counseling off and on as an adult, but I started doing it regularly in
2017. And that’s probably been the best thing that I’ve done because that’s the place that
I can cry, meltdown, say everything, be ugly, be nasty, say all the things that I’m
thinking. And, it means that I can kinda be graceful in public because I have that private
side where I am working through, talking through, processing everything or even
admitting that I’m in pain because I’m having this racialized experience.
Seeking Advanced Credentials and Goal Setting
Goal setting is a success mechanism that storytellers used to develop tangible action steps
to guarantee work success, job security, promotion, marketability or career mobility. It is them
taking practical ownership over their career journeys despite what they encountered in their
workplaces. Similarly, storytellers sought out academic credentials as a means of advancing their
careers. They explained how additional degrees would enable greater mobility in job selection
and attainment. This is about how they believed success would be more attainable by them
strategically selecting and putting their degrees to work.
Sandra was disappointed that she had spent much of her career at her institution without a
promotion. In spite of this, she still had very high expectations and aspirations for herself. In fact,
she informed me that she was intentionally mapping out and working on a career mobility plan
with support from her mentors. According to her, this strategy would lead to her interfacing with
the college’s president, with whom with she would discuss her aspirations to the vice presidency.
She stated:
Sure, so last fall, our president actually did something called career planning,
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career mapping. She sent out a form where if you were interested in rising, you kind of
mapped out what your role would be eventually either at the institution or elsewhere. And
so, I completed it. I’ve had mentors at the college who worked there 20 years, 25 years,
30 years, and a number of people that are African-Americans who had illustrious careers
there but for me, personally I would love to be a vice president. The president’s role is its
own can of worms. So, I would love to be a vice president. I’m not sure which area and
so, use the career planning. And so, Erika has an opportunity where if you wanna meet
with her to discuss it, you can.
Telling me how she knew this plan would be effective, she remarked:
Well, it’s similar to when I mentioned earlier that I do vision boarding. It’s everything in
my life. You have goals. You have plan. You have to kind of plot it out, and so, to me,
the career planning was very similar to that.
Tim worked at the same institution as Sandra. Like her, he was part of a BGLO. Another
similarity was that they were both quite deliberate in their strategies and goals for career success.
In talking with him, Tim took me through how he developed goals that benchmarked his
professional plans. He shared:
I mean, whether it’s the program, the higher ed program I went through or other
programs, I’ve always built out goals. And so, I’ve been taught to measure my work
based on the goals. And so, there was always a goal of getting to this position. There was
always a goal of what the program that I was running should look like or whatever my
job was, I had set out like, I had built what the metric of success was and then I would
give that to my boss so that they would measure me or I would be measured by the ruler
that I built. So, that’s always been a part of my practice. I think from an early stage I was
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taught to write goals down. So, whether that was 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20-year goals, that’s
always translated into how I did work. And so, I’ve always had very clear metrics and
things that I needed to achieve. And, they are also timed. So, if I haven’t reached a thing
in this time, I didn’t do something. There was a step that I missed, there was a thing that I
didn’t get right. And so, because I built things in that way or built systems that I think in
that way, it allows me to do a really good kind of forensic analysis of goals because I
know I can usually find a place where the breakdown happened. And, whether that was
my fault or not, I can still go back and try to fix that and it’ll get me to where I need to
go.
Tim also put pursuing and obtaining his doctorate in context. His articulated how he would
leverage this credential and be perceived as a commodity amongst his peers once he received his
degree. Connecting this to his comprehensive professional strategy he remarked:
And then, I knew getting the doctorate and enrolling in a doctorate program was
gonna be a big thing because there are so few of me and people who look like me with
the degree. And so, I knew here that would be a commodity and so I kinda focused on
doing those things.
Angela and Collette were similar in their thoughts about ways to avoid racial mistreatment at
work. When asked about what plans she had developed to circumvent such harms, Angela said,
“Yeah, my plan was to stay in school, finish my degrees.” Collette’s answer to the same question
was simple too: “Like just get this doctorate and get that experience from that angle. I mean, I
think that's been my biggest strategy.”
For Cyrus, acquiring degrees was helpful professionally, but they also held deep personal
meaning for him. Sure, they helped him get ahead, but they were also markers of greater familial
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success. He observed:
And I think also acquiring the degrees I think is helpful and I see that as successful
because my mom, well she’s retired now, was a bus driver, she drove the city bus, and
my dad was a postman, you know.
For Carmen, a doctorate provided greater flexibility and career mobility. She was pursuing her
degree while working in residence life and shared she had several opportunities to further reflect
on her career path. Telling me about this she said:
I actually don't want to move up, to move out. So, and it's not just my campus that
I think is making me want to. I was in the middle of my degree. I was working on a
graduate degree, on my doctorate and I stopped. I took a year off because I was really
frustrated. And this experience is actually inspired me to continue.
“Flipping it”, Reframing Challenges, Bigger Picture Perspective
This is about ways that storytellers recast challenges in larger contexts to consider new
and different ways forward. Flipping it is colloquial term that speaks to shaping negative
occurrences to work out favorably. It also encompasses finding an angle on an unfortunate
circumstance to ensure it works out in one’s benefit. It is about Black employees’ ingenuity in
turning a negative into a positive. It is them reframing challenges to both recognize the sting of
experience and also concede that it is temporal.
Black employees appealed to the temporality of racial encounters. This was assistive in
helping them overcome racial oppression and discrimination they faced while working in their
roles. One example is Logan, who stated, “What also helped too is recognizing some of these
issues were just at the moment, and some of them were not longstanding.”
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For Collette, it was her faith that helped her grasp the temporality of mistreatment.
Indeed, it helped her reframe problems and put them in the context of a future hope where she
was in a more favorable position. She noted:
But I try to tell myself all the time that trouble don't last always, and that things do get
better. Even when you're in the thick of it. And so, I'm probably not that good at – the
best at processing it. And so, I often look at myself like that. I'm going through all this
right now but that's because I'll run a ship one day. And the hope that I have is that when
I become a vice president of student affairs, because I will one day, that I will never lead
or treat people how I was treated.
Others, such as Garry, provided commentary on casting racial mistreatment in the light of a
bigger picture or larger context. In doing so, many of them were able to move forward without
being totally paralyzed by the effects of racial mistreatment at work. Garry shared that his
definition and understanding of success evolved during such periods. He commented:
Well, I felt like in those times I think that my definition was even more heightened. I felt
like it was something that was like a source of energy for me. It became more blatant as
the sole motivation to get through something. Because of how I looked at it, how I
continue to look at things, as being a piece of something that’s much bigger, it can allow
my piece not to be able to work. Because that means that this piece can go to another
piece not working and the whole thing, the whole machine would just fall. But I think
that comes just from having a team concept. I think that comes a lot from playing sports.
Regardless if a player scores 50, if you lose the game, who’s to gain? It don’t matter.
He also elaborated on how racial challenges were not just necessarily outright harms, but were
part of one’s process of improvement and journey toward helping others. He observed:
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I think it’s tough. I heard this analogy one time and I can’t remember who said it,
but they’re in a story, and they said that sometimes you have to be in love with the
process. Sometimes it’s not about the end result, it’s the process of you getting to it. And,
I think, during those times I always go back to that story of how important it is for you to
understand that it’s a blessing to have a process, it’s a blessing to still be able to
contribute something. And so, with that being said, there’s always something that I can
contribute. So, let’s do it, you know? It’s not to say that I’m not affected by what’s going
on here, but I know that I can serve a whole lot better if I’m still able to help whoever it is
get through something. And, that was always my saving grace. That was always my focus
throughout those parts.
Terry and others talked about how the bigger picture was helpful as a self-regulating mechanism
to manage emotions when encountering racial mistreatment. Terry suggested that it was
incumbent upon her to negotiate both not suppressing her emotions but finding a way to express
them tactfully so as to not foreclose on opportunities for professional advancement. She said:
And excellence is thinking about the greater good and the bigger picture than just me
getting my feelings out. For me excellence, it's not suppression of my feelings. It's
thinking about another way to get the point across without cursing somebody out. Again,
for me, success was keeping an eye on the bigger picture, keeping an eye on it – okay.
Yeah, I can win this argument right here, but I'm not winning the war. Yeah, I can make
this person feel real small and real stupid for what they just said or what they just
proposed, but what good is that doing? Now, I have a mark on my back.
Carla, too, expressed a similar notion regarding reacting and reframing. She shared:
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I think I can often be that person who does a rash reaction and just starts talking, and
sometimes that’s not for the best. Sometimes I need to take those three beats to really
process how I’m feeling and reframe and rethink, and then go back to it and say, “Okay,
this is how I say this in a politically correct manner.” Or a way that it can actually affect
change.
Similarly, Lydia took me through what it was like for her to enact this mechanism in real-time.
She shared an example of how she used the bigger picture perspective to endure an instance
where her White boss invisibilized her at a work event: She recalled:
Honestly, being around so many people. Knowing I was at a public event I really had to
hold it together. Like, “Okay, I’m at this event and it’s tied to work and I had to
remember this is how you get your income right now. This is how you pay bills.” Even as
hurtful as it is, this is literally you have to hold it together.
Several storytellers articulated precise strategies they used to “flip” negative racial encounters at
work. One of whom was Tillman, who discussed how to make being the only or one of few
Blacks at his job work for him. He shared:
A lot of times folks are like, first of all, a lot of White people love to have that Black
friend. Number one. I'm like, "Okay. If you are wanting to be my friend, or be around me,
or be able to say, 'I have a Black friend,' or this or that, when I need you most, let's see if
you can ride." I try to use those moments and the capital that I've built over the
years to see, in those uncomfortable moments, how can I leverage those relationships.
And sometimes, but also you can use that strategically. It's not something you can do
often, but sometimes maybe I'm not quite ready to leave a place, but I need to let them
know that I'm valued and appreciated elsewhere, and either step it up, personally for me
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or things that I think is going to help the campus, or deuces. You know what I mean? So,
it's just being strategic in how you leverage data and move along as well, too. That's one
of the things, too. When you oftentimes have been talking representation. You know what
I mean? If I’m one of very few, I'm going to use that.
Logan also shared what it looked like to “flip” and reframe ideas at work. This was especially
helpful for him in advancing an equity agenda to better serve students of color. He remarked:
The great analogy I can use is that if you give me a set of directions, I look at those as
guidelines. I don’t look at them as how you’re supposed to get to the end result. Today, if
I’m assembling furniture, I give them to my wife because I’m like, “I’m not gonna read
all these directions.” But if it’s something where you give me guidelines, I’m like, “Okay,
I’ll stay within these parameters, but I gotta figure it out for myself to make this more
efficient and understandable for me to get to it.” So, that’s how I define my excellence is
being able to navigate my own way. So, I use an analogy, if I’m sitting in a meeting with
someone and our goal is to support students of color, and they say, “Well, these students
have their own resources,” what I would say to that response is that a lot of students have
their own resources, yet these students have some different things that we might wanna
consider. And if our goal is to support those students in long-term career development,
here are some strategies on how we can do that. So, it’s acknowledging like, “Okay, I
heard your comment, but I’m gonna change the framework in saying that this is how it
aligns with our goals and how we can support them.” So, in a way, I’m still sharing the
goals so it aligns with the long-term objective as an organization, but I’m also clapping
back by saying the way you phrase this is wrong. Does that help?
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Faith and Purpose
This is about how storytellers’ strong belief in God enabled them to endure and
overcome. It is about the ways that trusting in the Lord guided their decision-making and
influenced their ability to navigate difficulty. This is also about how purpose or having a strong,
salient reason in their line of work contributed to their success and endurance.
“Yeah, I mean faith I think for one is a huge thing,” said Cornell when asked about how
he navigated racial oppression in his place of work. Faith in God was instrumental to storytellers’
endurance through difficult racial mistreatment. Many of them attributed their successes at work,
the insights they received, and the ability to make it through to God. One example is Collette,
who was unabashed about her Christian faith, and often framed her trials through Biblical
narratives and God’s sovereignty. She explained:
So, you know my friends make fun of me all the time. They call me "the Jesus chick" or
"God's girl". So, I've made a t-shirt that says it. I normally have it on. But I think that I
navigate my world through a lot of faith that good things happen to people, bad things
happen to people. Now don't get me wrong, I still be tripping like, "God, are you – you're
the whole fool for this, because this don't make no sense.” So, I think being able to find
my situation in the word of God and seeing how God handled it, that's the most helpful
thing.
Her faith also animated her approach to work, even the midst of unfair treatment, poor
management and leadership, and inequitable conditions. She noted:
And so, whatever they give to me, I do it with excellence and I do it as if I'm working for
the King and not for them. So, it automatically turns out good. And so, I think that's been
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why I've been able to be successful at it. And it's really not me. It's Him. And so, I try –
He's given me the ability and the gift to do it.
Breonna was another example of how storytellers often made sense of life’s vicissitudes through
a faith outlook. As she unpacked closed doors, dashed opportunities, and moments where she felt
things were not working out for her, she shared with me how she believed God still ordered her
steps. She said:
And then I think that other folks that have influenced me, which I should have said first,
to be honest, I think God, my faith. Along the way, in every stage and journey that I’ve
been in, my faith either increased or decreased depending on where I was. What I mean
by that, there were times where it was just like, “God, did you really bring me here? God
you don’t give me options, you tell me where I’m going. I’m okay, I’m fine with it.” And
so, I think that if anybody influenced my life, it was God because He literally handpicked
everywhere that I’ve been.
And even though she changed roles and institutions often, she still displayed a positive attitude
shaped by her faith. Reflecting on such experiences she said:
I can honestly say there’s people from each location that I’ve become lifelong friends
with, that I’d do anything for. And so, I’m grateful for the places that God has sent me. I
heard someone say the other day, “I don’t call my job my job. I call it an assignment
because everything I do in my life is an assignment that God placed me into.” And I
agree.
Terry’s faith was also how she managed to navigate and overcome racism at work. She
repeatedly grounded her ability to succeed and fight racial mistreatment in Biblical principles. In
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fact, she framed her encounters with racism through the concept of a, “spiritual battle” and noted
that Christ gave her strength to triumph. She said:
My faith in God for sure always because I do believe I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. And also, for me, racism is a real thing and a real evil, but it's a
spiritual battle. It's not ... It’s a spiritual battle. It’s not necessarily all the time a fleshly
battle.
Relatedly, storytellers also articulated how purpose fueled their ability to show up at work
knowing they would likely encounter racism, racial mistreatment, or microaggressions. They
often expressed a sense in which they felt called to their work or that work was more than just
collecting a paycheck; it was bigger than them. For many, this idea of purpose is what kept them
going and what helped them remain steadfast despite obstacles they encountered. Take for
example Kanicka, who stated, “Remember, I said that I look at my work as an extension of me. I
don’t just go to work to do my day-to-day and come home. It’s just not how I’m wired.” For her,
this idea of purpose also animated her going above and beyond in her role and doing her best
work not just because her supervisor expected her to. Explaining further she remarked, “And I
don’t just go do my work based on what the boss says. But I also think with this initiative, there
was kind of a higher purpose here for me.”
For Terry, faith, purpose, and her line of work intersected. She shared it did take a
moment for her to see such connections, but what ultimately led to her to working in higher
education was her role as the youth director of a former church to which she belonged.
Reflecting on her career track and how she has sought out success, she noted:
And being in education directly now, and then, also just seeing different structures
and things, it's not so much the attaining of a degree as it is more just finding your
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purpose and living in your purpose. And if that purpose does come with a degree, that's
amazing. If that purpose comes with a trade, that's amazing. If that purpose is outside of
education, that's amazing. Whatever your purpose is, find that. And to me that’s success.
What are you on this earth for? And really walking in that and what brings you joy. Like
I said, back when I was younger, I had a very superficial way of looking at success. Like
how much money you have. Like I said, degrees, the accolades, where do you live? And
now, it's are you walking in your purpose and are you joyful?
Similarly, purpose for Antoinette was personal. In our conversation, she shared that her life’s
mission was connected to the work she did on campus. This rationale grounded her and enabled
her to have a more long-term approach to her employment. She noted:
So, I just think my purpose, my mission here is to make people better versions of who
they already are. So, that just kinda spills into everything that I do whether it be
professional, personal. If you don’t know what your purpose is. If you don’t know what
wakes you up in the morning and you have not determined what those things are, I don’t
think you could have sustainable success. You can’t have longevity I believe because
you’re at some level going to be meandering and trying to figure it out.
Key Relationships: Social Support Networks, Mentors, Developing and Leveraging
Strategic Partnerships
This category of experiences is about how storytellers used friends, family, and peers to
glean support during difficult times at work. It is about how mentors were efficacious and
provided wisdom in helping them navigate uncommon situations in their places of employment.
This is about how storytellers developed and leveraged social capital to better maneuver campus
or secure advancement opportunities.
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Social Support Networks
Almost all of the storytellers in my study acknowledged how beneficial it was for them to
have family, friends, or peers who were committed to their success. They often referred to such
groups in terms like “village” or “community”. They relied upon these networks of people who
were close to them to provide insight, advice, and support; to console them; and to listen. These
were trusted others with whom they could sort out vague or chaotic situations at work. One
example is Cyrus, whose “village” included peers working in administrative and faculty roles.
This was who he relied on to make sense of the White faculty member who inappropriately
charged at him. Telling me more about that incident and how this group was useful, he shared:
You know, like I said I have a strong village, strong community. I have a great
community here but I have folks that do the work that I do both in the administrative side
and folk that are on the faculty side. And so, I leaned on them.
Kaneef was also in the same BGLO fraternity as Cyrus and likewise discussed how useful social
support networks were for him as a bourgeoning higher education professional. His network
enabled him to put some distance between himself and his job. He stated:
So, having my family. Being able to check out of the job because, as mentioned,
this is a live where you work position. So, being able to check out and leave campus.
Having a fraternity here. I was part of the step team, so I had those outlets to go to, the
step team and just focus on somewhere else, or those sort of activities.
And even in new roles, having a social support network provided through one’s BGLO was
something some storytellers found useful despite there not being robust on-campus Black
professional networks. Take for example Cydni, who stated:
Having peers. Having strong coalitions of Black people. That’s why I’m intrigued
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as to how this current job’s gonna go because there aren’t strong networks of Black
people on campus. I’ve got a couple of sorors that I’ve met, excuse me, my sorority
sisters. Well, you know… And, there is a Black faculty and staff kind of caucus, but it’s
nowhere near what it was at some of the other places where I’ve worked. Having peers
helped.
Kyndra and Carla also talked about their social support groups. For Kyndra, having them there
helped her to not be in denial about racial mistreatment experienced at work. She recalled:
And I can't pretend like nothing is going on. I have to figure out a way to either deal with
it or move on. And then, of course, confided in my family and friends. Have my support
group there. But I think I was trying to, when I start having issues or whatever, just trying
to make sure that it wasn't me being defensive.
For Carla, while family members might not have been able to grasp the totality of her
experiences, they could at least listen. This is what she meant when she said, “I think it’s always
helpful to be able to balance those thoughts and feelings off of coworkers who understand.
Family, who might not understand, but are at least willing to listen.” And for Terry, her social
support network was broad, including family members, her spouse, and colleagues and peers in
other fields who were experiencing similar racialized phenomena where they worked. In
addition, she noted that the quasi-formation of Black professionals on her campus was a helpful
way to better advocate for their needs. She recalled:
So, for me, I've ensured that I have a good support system with my family, with my
spouse, with friends. And I have friends that are in all types of different fields and
professional fields and stuff. And we’re going through similar things, no matter the field.
And so, there's something that is very comforting about that –And so, I do feel like we do
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have still a good group of Black faculty and staff on our campus that we can come
together and that we can talk about various things and that we can do certain initiatives.
A lot of times, we've been so focused on supporting the students, that we forget to
support ourselves. And so, we are now being more intentional about, well, what about us?
We're making sure that the students are fine and taking care of, but what about us? What
are we – what are we doing for us? And so, that's been more intentional. And there's
been, not a division, but it’s there’s been a woman's group on campus for Black staff and
then there's a men's group. And also, what about bringing those together and ensuring
that we're all talking about it to see how we could just further support each other.
Storytellers also overwhelmingly discussed how valuable it was to have social support networks
in their immediate department or office context. This was especially useful to them when there
were few other Black people working there. Kyndra recalled:
There wasn't a lot of people of color in that department. Like you could literally
count us on two hands in the whole department. And it's a big department. So, there was
a tendency for us to kind of – kind of create our own little support group. Or when we see
each other we're like, "Hey. I see you." We became very – it was a tightknit group of us
there because we understood what it was. "Yeah, we're in this position and there's not a
lot of us here. So, yeah. We need to stick together."
For Denise, such social support networks at work were indeed advantageous in mitigating racial
mistreatment and other negative encounters at work. Denise recalled that her and her team had
developed such deep bonds with each other that they were tuned into each other’s emotions. The
support she received from this group helped her to endure. She noted:
The people I worked with, the other women. It was mainly the leadership team that was
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the issue. But the other staff members and the other team members were very supportive
and you felt like you were in it together with them. And that’s why I stayed as long as I
did. Because I loved the people I worked with, the team that I had. So, they were very
supportive. As soon as things would happen that weren’t quite right, we would all sit
there. We can read each other’s faces and see each other’s eyes and know that this isn’t
right.
And for Antoinette, her at-work social support network allowed her a space in which she could
be vulnerable and seek insight. This is how she was able to get past racial mistreatment.
Reflecting on them she recalled:
So, just kinda having I guess you could call it a support group. People kinda just talking
about it and voicing it. Vulnerability really, because even [though] I was a Black Studies
major during undergrad, there were certain things that I already had an understanding of.
But just being vulnerable in the moment and talking about the way in which something
impacted me and kinda getting my community surrounding me to kinda say, “Yeah, I
know, I’m feeling that. This is how I handled it.” Just getting perspective, I guess.
Cornell’s at-work social support network was useful in triangulating and confirming racial
experiences on campus. This network of professionals served as a safe space and a way for
others in this group to receive intel on who was committing acts of racial mistreatment on their
campus. It helped him and others be aware of what was going on and who to look out for. He
stated:
We have a People of Color group for staff and faculty to really just create a safe
space for all 20 of us to kind of get together once a month and just commiserate. It wasn’t
really until I started joining that group and telling my stories that I think really it came to
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light exactly what was happening because what was happening was, I was telling these
stories from a, “Oh you won’t believe what a crazy day I had,” perspective. This
happened. The reaction is, “Oh my God. That is horrific.” It’s almost as if they were
more horrified for me because I didn’t understand exactly what was happening, but then I
get the backstory. Oh, this person did so on, and you start to piece together the story and
you realize. Oh, this person only seems to put actions out on Black and brown people.
Mentors
Mentors, too, were helpful to storytellers in gaining stability and in some ways guiding
their career steps. Most of them were sought out as sources of wisdom and advice, especially in
the face of tough racial encounters. They aided in providing perspective that helped Black
employees consider different conclusions. When explaining who helped him advance in his
career, Eric spoke to how this was true for him when he said:
Well, one thing was I would go to mentors. I have a handful of mentors who I have. And
they would put things in perspective for me. One mentor is my uncle. I tell him sort of
what’s been happening. And he’s from the old school though. He grew up in the ’60s and
he’d say – he’d tell me about his instances of mistreatment growing up in the ‘60s and
‘70s and they were just so much more – they feel like they’re just a lot more blunt. A lot
more kind of in your face.
In addition, he also expounded on his rationale for choosing mentors and mentorship as a means
to maneuver around racial setbacks and obstacles. He recalled:
Well, the reason why I chose – well, with going to mentors, I just thought that – I’ve
always thought that that would be a good idea just to get additional perspective. To make
sure that I wasn’t seeing things incorrectly or inaccurately. So, constantly when I’m
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making big decisions or if I’m thinking through decisions I like to go to my mentors
because they’ve kind of gone through those experiences, they know kind of what to
expect, they’re older. They have that.
For Sandra, mentorship came through the different community organizations with which she was
involved. She had deep ties to her community, and mentors provided leadership development
opportunities, confidential advice, and a space in which to have honest conversation. Discussing
who influenced her she recalled:
Probably top would be [my] mother. Then I have a number of mentors from different
organizations I’m part of so whether it’s […], the current national president of the Lynx
and having connection to her serving as one of the youngest people on their western area
executive team and being a part of their leadership group called Scott Hopkins. One
particular person is a mentor of mine who is the president of the Black Employees
Association, so just being able to have frank dialogue similar to what we’re having.
In addition, Sandra’s mentors also provided perspective and insights into career pathways, and
helped shape her vision for a more elevated role. She noted, “I’ve had mentors at the college who
worked there 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, and a number of people who are Black had illustrious
careers there but for me, personally I would love to be a vice president.”
And for Tim, who worked at the same college as Sandra, mentors of his included a range
of influential people, such as one of the former presidents of the institution and others from
significant community organizations. He credited their mentorship to his current workplace
success. And while Cornell was somewhat new to working in the higher education industry, he
knew mentorship would be important to his progress at work. For him, it was about finding
mentorship in his specific sector. He noted:
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I didn’t know there was a panel of, albeit, 10 Black CIOs of major colleges and
universities. What was really cool was some of them were veterans as well. I just said,
“Hey would you be open to some sort of mentoring relationship where we message every
other month or something and I just kind of let you know what’s happening and you give
me your thoughts on it?” A couple of them were open to doing that, so it was finding
those mentors and just saying, “Hey you probably have gone through these type of things.
How did you navigate this? What did you do? How did you rise to the level of CIO
amidst everything that you’ve experienced?” That’s been very impactful, too is
understanding that journey and what they’ve accomplished.
Developing and Leveraging Strategic Partnerships
Storytellers were also aware of actors on their campus who were in positions of power.
Storytellers expressed ways in which these individuals could be useful to their advancement or
provide other professional benefits. They thought about their relationships with such persons in
strategic terms. One example is Tillman, who when discussing how he approached his work
stated, “When I'm at a current institution, one of the things that I've been able to do is leverage
relationships. That's a big part of how I do the work.” Another example of this is Angela, who
deliberately befriended officers and administrators on her campus who had more power than her.
She did this to better understand at a macro-level, institution-wide issues and current events so
she could more effectively navigate institutional milieu. When asked how she avoided being
mistreated she recalled:
So, being really strategic in the relationships that I was building, and really collecting a
lot of information so that I could build a bird’s-eye view of what was happening around
me, and kind of seeing where I would be strategically placed.
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Relatedly, Terry spoke about having connections on campus in high positions. Throughout our
interview, she had routinely referred to the two Black men on her campus who held high-level
administrative positions as “the brothers”. She was close with them and they supported her in
many ways. Terry, speaking about “the brothers” recalled, “There was a lot of protections that I
had at the time that definitely – because those brothers put certain people in place and in
leadership even after they had to retire or leave.” “I knew those brothers had me at the top,” is
how she would often position their relationship. Elsewhere in our interview, she seemed to speak
of her acquaintances as if they were a kind of ace up her sleeve. She noted, “Again, I knew I had
– and I still have direct connects to higher leadership to where if something goes down, I can talk
about it.” This kind of security gave Terry an assurance that she would be heard, supported, and
taken care of should she encounter inequitable treatment.
In addition, Tim also mentioned influential persons who acted on his behalf in advancing
his career at his institution. He specifically mentioned three senior-level administrators by name
who, in his words, “Have been super supportive and influential in just me being able to move
throughout the college and successfully attain full-time positions.” Because of their strong
relationship, he noted, “They’ve advocated for me in different ways. They’ve put me in
positions, appointing me to positions, or hire me for other positions that just have been life
changing.”
High Quality Work and Work Ethic
This section is about how storytellers described their approach to work. This was a
disposition that separated them from their peers and enabled them to seek excellence in all they
did at their workplace. Keeping this attitude in mind helped them remain steadfast in the face of
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opposition while producing work that advanced departmental or institutional missions and
exceeded expectations. It is about them going to work to be the best for others and their selves.
More than a few times, throughout their interviews, storytellers revealed their
philosophies, attitudes, and approaches to work. Often, this was not something that they divulged
as a direct response to a question. Instead, they habitually wove and unfolded such views
throughout the course of our dialogue. One example is Olivia, who demonstrated what high-
quality work looked like for her in serving students. For her it was about going beyond
superficialities with students she served and also knowing academic policies well. She recalled:
Like when my students came in, I’d always ask them like how are you doing and they’d
be like, “Oh I’m good. Class is this, this, this.” And it’s like, “Yeah, but how are you
doing beyond just classes and academics?” And so, I feel like I really got to know my
students really well and they would talk to me about a variety of different things. I know
the university catalogue like the back of my hand. I saw myself as an advocate for
students. A lot of times we have a policy and you tell the student the policy, and then
accept it, and then they go off. What I would do is like this is the policy, but this is also
our different options. So, I would discuss every possible scenario with my students and
figure out what’s gonna be their situation, whether that meant needing to petition,
whether that meant needing to get a particular waiver, or whatever the case might be
because I kind of viewed myself as a gatekeeper. They don’t know what the possibilities
are. They just know kind of what I’m telling them or what’s listed on a website. So, I try
to go above and beyond and the university and the catalogue says anything is petitionable
unless it explicitly says that it’s not. So, I petitioned my [tail] off for everything possible
if it was gonna help other students out.
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For Carmen, the route to high-quality work excellence was clarity. This was especially true
during instances of racial mistreatment. “Making sure I had all my stuff – if something was
assigned to me, making sure that I had it done. Also, making sure I was clear on what was
expected to do – what I was expected to do,” was how she said she navigated such unfavorable
circumstances while negotiating expectations, “to do the same job with half the resources.” And
for Breonna, work excellence was about going above and beyond. Her motivation was knowing
that, “…getting off your [tail] and taking that extra step goes a long way to changing a person’s
life despite the bare minimum that you want to do because now you’re sitting at the top.”
Explaining why this was excellence to her, she noted
I think that’s excellence to me because I not only proved to them that 1.) I’m capable and
2.) There was always a possibility, but I proved to myself that I didn’t let no be the final
answer. So, yeah, that’s what excellence looks like to me.
And while Lydia’s role did not involve working with students, she was nonetheless committed to
high-quality work. Her responsibilities in HR included helping employees transition to and from
medical leave. In her mind, however, it was about more than filling out or processing forms. She
knew she was being successful in her role, “because I’m doing everything that needs to be done.”
Sharing more about her work ethic in her context she elaborated:
For me, it’s like as long as I make sure someone has called Broadspire to get their
disability claim started, I have sent them their FMLA forms, I have made sure they have
my contact information, I have reiterated, “You can contact me at any time.” That’s when
I know that like, okay, all boxes are checked. There is no reason for anything to fall
through the cracks. No one can come back and say like, “Oh, you didn’t do something.”
So, and it’s like with that, I don’t need anyone to say like, “Oh, good job for putting that
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person out on leave,” and then it’s like, okay, when they come back, I return them from
leave in work pay, they’re back working successfully, they’re back, you know, getting
their university pay and all things are good, it’s a constant. It’s kind of this, as long as
things are rolling then that’s how I know that it’s all good.
With Brittanie and Eric, their work philosophy included being the best or attending to their
responsibilities skillfully. To do so garnered them success. Brittanie recalled:
So, success – you just have to be the best in the same spaces. You have to be the person
that's willing to work harder, go harder, or even just figure out better ways to articulate
the work that you've done to where it's obviously how you're qualified or how you're
competent to do the work you're already – excuse me. You're already doing or that you've
been doing.
Eric suggested that words such as efficient and effective corresponded to and described the
quality of his work. Performing well at his job was not just about getting the job done, but doing
so in a nimble fashion. He explained:
Excellence looked like me getting the job done. Able to, of course, get the job done, get it
done efficiently and effectively, and it also looked like me being able to grow my
portfolio or being trusted enough to get more responsibilities or opportunities. So, I think
excellence would look like, yeah, being able to really perform at a high level and to effect
change at a given institution.
Chameleons Without Pretense: Emotional Intelligence Strategies, Situational Agility, and
Choosing Your Battles
This section is about the psychological and emotional strategies storytellers used to
mitigate the impact and consequences of racial mistreatment. It is about them displaying or
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discussing ways they managed their responses in the moment as opposed to reacting. It is them
being strategic about expending emotional energy when encountering racial mistreatment. It is
them being in such moments and making split-second decisions to protect their psyches during
such crises. It is about how they chose what microaggressions and racial encounters to address
and which ones they decided were worth letting go of to conserve energy.
As a newly hired, upwardly mobile administrator, one of the strategies Michael employed
when interacting with diverse peers and audiences on his campus was to get a sense of the
emotional and social climate of the context in which he was working. He shared that this was
especially useful as there were power dynamics at play amongst his peers that he was still
attempting to discern. In his mind, reacting prematurely or wrongly to scenarios would likely set
him back as a newcomer to the institution. Thus, for him, it made sense to hold back a bit and let
others unveil their responses and emotions to provide clues as to how he might respond. He
shared:
I think for me, a part of it is like reading the room. I’ve always been this way. The earliest
I can remember is college. I never was always the first one to speak. I think I’m grateful
for the emotion[al] intelligence and the patience that I have because I feel like
a lot of people in situations like that would just really react. For me, that’s just not my
personality. I think that it allows for me time to then process it, really evaluate if this
really was intentional, and then if it was or if I just can’t really solve it on my own, then
I’ll loop in some other colleagues.
Gavin’s emotional intelligence strategy was developed with the presumption that he would
indeed encounter racial mistreatment in the workplace. For him, it was less about if such
scenarios happen, and more about when such situations occur. As a given, this helped him to
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brace for racial impact. Having experienced those kinds of encounters before, he knew he would
likely have to engage them again. This seemed to take some of the shock or sting out of it when
faced with such phenomena. He shared:
I mean it’s one of the things to where I sort of – I’ve been in these type of situations
before, so I’ve learned to expect them, but when – even though I brace for it, it’s still like,
“wow” that this happens.
He provided additional insights on how this strategy was honed and refined via a public racial
experience where he was called the wrong name of another Black person. Since the offense
occurred in a meeting, he reasoned he had to attend to the issue differently, while not denying the
emotional impact such an occurrence had on him. Talking about that moment he shared:
Well, I just – at that point, I just tried to check my reactions. I quickly went through my
emotions. After we got through the break, I just knew that, okay, there was so much time
that we have to get through. I still have to get through these sessions and you know I
can’t let this situation ruin how I’m going to interact with the rest of my peers who I have
to interact with going forward because I know that how I come across can sort of impact
how they actually think about me going forward. I still kind of want to have a good career
work relationships with these people, so I can’t just come across as a purely hostile or
Black person that doesn’t exercise much emotional agility or situation awareness and
can’t navigate those things.
In addition, he also discussed how managing his emotions in this way was a long-term benefit to
his career. He explained:
Well, I think it’s important to demonstrate to my colleagues, but also, just for myself
because I know that, naturally, [it] wavers from day to day and there are things that
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impact me and my ability to operate, so things that are going on in the world and
communities that I occupy could affect me, but you know I know that I have to be able to
perform in my environment because of other things that I’m working for and what I’m
trying to get out of my work situation. So, in those situations, I have to be able to figure
out, “Okay, how do I get my mind right to be able to perform my work, but also, just not
try to just put off these emotions and things that I’m feeling and just minimize them and
let them build up in other ways to where I can’t actually perform and they interact other
parts of my life?”
Terry’s at-work emotional intelligence strategy concerned traits of her personality that felt
natural to her. She discussed how she used an awareness of the positive light in which she was
viewed to protect against being unfairly labeled. In addition, she also commented on how she
managed this trait to get her point across during moments of importance. She recalled:
And I've known this about myself and I've done this purposely. All my life, I've
been goofy and cracking jokes and things like that. But I've definitely been the funny,
jokey Black girl in the offices if you will. And I know I've done that not just only because
that's a part of my personality, but I've also been strategic in that, so I don't get labeled
the angry Black girl in the office. And then, when I have – when I do have a criticism, it's
actually taken more seriously because they know I am so fun and so light-hearted. So, if
Terry's actually criticizing something or complaining about something or saying, “Hey,
y'all, let's pump brakes and let's look at this.” It's, “Oh, she's not happy about that thing.”
So, it works to my favor when I do point out something ‘cause they know I’m not always
that way.
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A few Black male employees shared how exercising control over their emotions at work through
a depersonalization technique was helpful. According to Tamir, “You know you kind of
compartmentalize it, in a sense of you just persevere through it.” This sentiment was shared by
many in this group in response to experiencing racial mistreatment yet having to produce at
work. Tim brought to light what this depersonalization technique looked like for him. He shared:
But then you just have to accept that. And then, not internalizing it. That’s the other part
of it. I have developed a really stronger shield that allows me to realize, this is a problem
that the world has. This is a problem that our country has specifically. And, I can’t get
caught up in those moments. I can’t get caught up in that stuff because it’s never gonna
stop. I have to continue to fight it, but I can’t let it, I can’t get mired in those moments.
Damarius, another Black male employee, figured that it was best for him not to immediately
emotionally react in ways that confirm stereotypes about Black people. Even when being called a
derogatory name, “being professional” and carrying out behaviors associated with that idea was
the better long-term option for him. He noted:
So, personal excellence in those situations looked like 1.) not losing
my head and giving the typical, "Aw. [Eff] y'all. Okay. I see how it's gonna be,"
response. Like just making sure I stay as calm – as calm as possible in those situations.
That way I don't feed into other stereotypes. But 2.) while you're being professional, I
feel like true Black excellence is still being able to voice your opinion and let the
[oppressor] know that they are being wrong in this situation. So, that's why like after I
was called boy, "You're not just going to call me boy and then nothing happens
afterwards. We're gonna have a little discussion afterwards." If I say, "We should recruit
students in Africa." And you say, "They can't afford it." I'm going to give you something
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that lets you know, "Mmm. Actually, you're wrong. You're probably being a little too
[presumptuous] with you saying that Africans can't afford to come here. That they don't
have the education to come here." So, I feel like it's twofold for my personal excellence.
Making sure that I one, stay calm, stay professional, but, two, still voice my pro-Black
opinion to make sure that they understand they're being wrong in the situation.
Overwhelmingly, storytellers employed choosing their battles as the default mechanism for
helping them to decide what racial encounters to respond to, and which of them to ignore. Many
of them expressed this was a kind of strategy to preserve their mental well-being and emotional
energy. One of example of this is Kyndra, who said, “It's kind of like you just pick your battles
with that. It's like, "All right. I see you. But I don't have to deal with you on a regular basis. So, I
have to pick and choose my battles,” when elaborating on how she navigated a particularly racist
season in her work history.
For Terry and Tillman, it was important for them to reconcile the emotionality of racial
mistreatment with perceptions of how Black employees are perceived. At the same time, they did
not want to forego figuring out how to best express their disappointment to colleagues and others
with such offenses. Therefore, they had to develop ways that allowed them to carry out these
compulsions while still remaining employed. Terry shared:
Excellence looked like… Excellence looked like me holding my tongue because
my mom used to call it – the velvet hammer. It can be soft on the outside but when it hits,
it still pounds. And there's been people especially for the majority of my career because I
look younger than what I am who tried me. And especially when I was younger, I looked
super-young. For me excellence, it's not suppression of my feelings. It's thinking about
another way to get the point across without cursing somebody out.
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And likewise, Tillman noted:
But I also know that as a Black man, and most Black folks whose Blackness is essential
to their identity and experience, we could [eff]ing go in every day about these racial
incidents. About a micro-aggression or something every day. It's exhausting. We already
know that we could go on that every day if it really came to it. I do have to pick my
battles. In those moments, I'm going to see, “Okay. Which one it is the one where my
voice needs to be amplified? Which one of these is a major issue that's impacting our
students that needs attention and I got to be their advocate? Which one it is that?” All
those different checklists are going through my mind. I'm making a call oftentimes in the
moment. But sometimes I have more time to sort of reflect on it.
Clearly the racialized experiences and successes of Black employees were broad and
vast. The encounters they shared are their evidence of existing in work environment where racial
inequities persist. Having captured these data, in the next chapter I summarize and expound upon
my findings, while also providing implications for research and practice.
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Chapter Five: Summary, Discussion, Conclusions, and Implications
The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of Black staff and
administrators who worked in racially hostile campus workplaces. Explored in this in-depth
qualitative study were ways in which Black employees encountered race-based harm or
mistreatment, racial discrimination, or racism while employed in their roles as a staff person or
administrator. In this study I sought to answer the following primary research question: How do
Black staff and administrators experience and navigate racially hostile campus workplaces? In
addition, the following research questions were addressed: What strategies do Black
administrators and staff employ to excel in a racially hostile campus workplace? How do Black
staff and administrators in racially unsupportive work environments conceptualize success?
What makes Black staff and administrators in racially hostile workplaces stay? I conducted
individual online interviews with 29 different non-instructional employees classified as
administrators or staff persons who racially identified as Black or African-American. I used
nonprobabalistic (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015) purposeful sampling (Patton, 2015) in my study
because it enabled me to directly engage with and select individuals who have experienced the
phenomenon I wanted to study (Creswell, 2009). In addition, I used it because I wanted to
discover, understand, and gain insight on a phenomenon and needed to, “… select a sample from
which the most can be learned” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p. 96). This aided in my ability to
ascertain a rich and complex sample for my study.
I conducted my study to learn more about Black staff and administrators who work in
higher education. There exists a substantial gap in the research literature concerning what is
known about Black employees who occupy non-instructional roles in postsecondary education.
Research on Black faculty figures prominently in the discourse, though those data are only
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helpful to a certain extent. My study sought to make known ways in which Black administrators
and staff employment experiences might differ from that of Black faculty, while also adding to a
more robust and nuanced understanding of what Black administrators and staff endure at work.
This was a driving factor in selecting my methodology.
I employed qualitative research methods (Cresswell, 2007, 2009) to explore the
experiences and successes of Black administrators and staff. The portraiture approach
(Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) was specifically chosen because of its usefulness in
understanding complex ecologies in educational contexts (Sauer, 2012). It also promotes a deep
and textured understanding of the varied and idiosyncratic work worlds of Black staff and
administrators, thus proving suitable for the goals and intent of my study.
I recruited study participants using social, professional, and personal networks. I
intentionally distributed a call for participants via these means as they corresponded to Black
employees and staff in California postsecondary institutions. A short description of the study and
a link to a Google Questionnaire were included with recruitment materials. Once candidates were
identified using the Google Questionnaire, those who met four criteria were invited to participate
in my study. The first was racially identifying as Black or African American. The second
included being currently employed full-time (37.5-42 hours of work per week) at a not-for-profit
college or university in California as an administrator or staff person. Third was indicating they
had experienced race-based harm or mistreatment, racial discrimination, or racism within the last
five to ten years while employed in their role as a staff person or administrator. And fourth was
expressing a positive response to being interviewed online. Candidates who met these criteria
were contacted for the study. While resumes and CVs were sought from each participant, my use
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of such documents in this study is excluded from the formal presentation of my findings and
discussion because I did not employ a systematic procedure in analyzing them.
Data analysis techniques corresponding to Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) five
modes of analysis were primarily used for the first phase of this study. In phase one, I
interviewed participants according to my protocol while taking notes. Each interview began with
a set of existential questions. Here I captured resonant metaphors, allegories, and other narratives
they communicated. In phase one I closely read each transcript for references to cultural or
institutional rituals and completed this phase by seeking triangulation. For phase two I open
coded themes according to each transcript. I read each transcript a second time to isolate and
highlight references related to race, employment success, or situational navigation. For each
participant transcript, I numbered and coded each highlight and listed them out for each
participant, indicating where they occurred in each transcript. I then refined them by merging
them with emergent themes in part one of the analytic process. I then mapped participants’ codes
to the themes.
Trustworthiness of my study was ensured by a fourfold strategy I employed. First,
interview data were triangulated and verified by outside sources such as institutional and
professional (i.e., LinkedIn) websites. Resumes and CVs participants also submitted were used in
this process. Triangulation was sought because it enhances data consistency (Fusch et al., 2018,
p. 22; Golafshani, 2003). Second, I also employed member checks and allowed participants to
review, clarify, and add to transcriptions of their interviews. This was done to ensure accuracy
and to remediate researcher bias (Birt et al., 2016; Koelsch, 2013; Thomas, 2017). Third, I used
adequate engagement and saturation to immerse myself in the data and seek out alternate
explanations supported by and within the data for the purposes of variation (Glesne & Peshkin,
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1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Patton, 2015). Finally, I employed reflexivity throughout my study
by memoing for 30 minutes at the conclusion of each interview. This helped me grapple with
how I affected and was affected by the research process (Probst & Berenson, 2014).
My study is limited in more than a few ways. The first is that data from Black classified
employees are not included. While my findings might be generally applicable to Black
employees in higher education, one would be wise in noting these findings omit a significant
segment and population in the higher education workforce. In addition, my study is limited to the
state of California. That is, racialized findings from this study represent racial phenomena and
corresponding narratives as they occurred in and pertained to postsecondary institutions located
in this state. Nuances and particulars within the data should be thought of within this context.
Lastly, the findings from my study are not bound to particular institutional characteristics. That
is, findings from my study include administrators and staff persons who represented thirteen
different postsecondary institutions throughout the state of California. Of which, according to the
Carnegie Classification System: two were liberal arts or baccalaureate colleges; one was a two-
year community college; three were masters colleges; and seven were doctoral universities (one
high research, six very high research). Of this number, six were HSIs, and seven were PWIs.
Discussion
Agreements With Scholarly Literature
Climate
Findings from this study affirm much of the literature on campus racial climates. One
area where this is evident is in relation to research proposing that climates in campus workplaces
are experienced in gendered and racialized ways (Aguirre, 2000; Greene et al., 2010; Vacarro,
2010). This study supports that notion by providing several instances where Black employees
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experienced their workplace contexts in uniquely gendered and racialized ways through
comments or actions. One example is the stories of Black women in my study who were treated
differently or made to stand out on account of how they wore their hair. Another is how Black
men in my study encountered repeated hostilities at work such that they felt their race and gender
were “under attack”. In addition, there seems to be a correlation between data in my study and
Greene et al. (2010) and Maranto and Greene’s (2010) research on climate and job satisfaction.
For example, several participants in this study left jobs at one institution for another due to
racially hostile work environments, suggesting they were dissatisfied with aspects related to their
roles. The stories of racialized labor allocations and management discrepancies with work in my
study suggests participants were unhappy about such dynamics and also the conditions and
climates enabling such inequities to persist. In addition, there is a link between findings from my
study and Gusa’s (2010) notion that students are a kind of “canary in the coal mine” in that they
experience climate issues that first affect them and then campus employees. One example is from
Collette, whose student Quincy made her aware of campus climate issues given what he
experienced. In regards to this phenomenon she explained, “everything he experienced I'm now
experiencing.”
Microaggressions
Findings from my study support the idea that microaggressions are common for Black
employees (Gunby & Gunby, 2016; Wade et al., 2012). For example, numerous participants
experienced microaggressions while employed on their respective campuses. They encountered
these kind of racialized incidents at work in repeated and various ways. While the term
microaggression is at least 46 years old (Pierce, 1974), my research supports the idea that the
ways in which microaggressions are experienced is broad and wide-ranging. In my research,
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participants encountered them in ways that were typically common: surprise at communication
skills, references to athleticism, tokenism, and so on. However, my research adds to what is
known about microaggressions by capturing new manifestations of this phenomenon, such as
being Amy Coopered and Karened. Findings from my study are also agreeable with Ricks
(2017), who documented that student affairs staff and administrators experience
microaggressions. This was especially true given the amount of student affairs personnel
included in my study and their repeated references to ways in which they had been
microaggressed on the job. Indeed, my study adds nuance and variety to what is known about
this topic while also speaking to the cultural zeitgeist (i.e., Karens and Amy Coopers).
Racial Battle Fatigue and Racial Stress
My study also upholds what is known about racial battle fatigue and how it affects Black
employees in the academy. In many ways, it vivifies and parallels Smith et al.’s (2016)
understanding about racial battle fatigue being, “the cumulative psychosocial–physiological
impact of racial micro and macroaggressions on racially marginalized targets” (p. 1192).
Inherent in participants’ stories was the sense that many of them were grappling with the realities
and consequences of frequent macro and micro racialized invalidations. Those who did not name
this phenomenon outright spoke to it in other ways, such as mentioning how the ongoing racial
mistreatment they encountered took a toll on their health. Others, such as Collette and Garry,
actually named racial battle fatigue in their stories, tying it to the tiresome nature of having to be
twice as good at work and it being something that is sustained and that one endures it while
working in higher education. While my study was not psychological, there is evidence that
attests to the psychological nature and impact of racial battle fatigue, especially as participants
described multiple ways in which racial hostility and racial mistreatment affected their state of
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mind, identity, motivation, and so on. My study also supports the literature on racial stress, a
precursor to racial battle fatigue (Smith, 2004). I found connections between racial mistreatment
and how racial stress typically affect people of color in the five domains (i.e., physical,
psychological, functional, social, and spiritual) (Clark et al., 1999; Harrell, 2000; Levy et al.,
2016). Participants in my study distinctly recalled ways in which racial stress experienced at
work related to or affected them in these areas.
Tokenism
Participants in my study experienced a significant amount of tokenism. How they
described their experiences with this phenomenon squares with what is recorded in the research
literature. Participants provided data strongly supporting Wolfe and Dilworth’s (2015) notion
that tokenism was a way in which appeals for organizational racial diversity were co-opted and
placated. Several participants described how this manifested in their workplace context. One
example is Denise, who experienced a public-facing kind of tokenism regarding her placement
on the Diversity Council. To which she responded, “I felt like I was always the person they put
out front when they wanted to say, “Oh yeah, look at – we have a person of – Black person
who’s heading all of this.” And then, I’m like, “No, I’m not. You have my name on it but you're
not letting me do anything.” Indeed, Black administrators and staff in my study were tokenized
in other ways. They were shuffled into meeting with students of color; put into positions because
they were Black but not given resources; or, they questioned the circumstances under which they
had been hired, namely whether management or personnel discrepancies suggested they were
there to fill a quota, known as a token hire.
Onlyness. Harper et al. (2011) defines onlyness as, “the psychoemotional burden of
having to strategically navigate a racially politicized space occupied by few peers, role models,
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and guardians from one’s same racial or ethnic group” (p. 190). This concept comes from their
2011 research focused on Black male resident assistants at predominantly White universities.
While this term was born out of studying a particular population, in principal, it is applicable to
many of the experiences of participants in my study. What Harper and colleagues (2011) appear
to suggest is that the demographic underrepresentation of a racially minoritized group existing
within the context of another group comprising a racial majority can engender feelings and
emotions related to onlyness. It seems the dispersal of and frequency with which (or lack thereof)
those in such contexts comprising the racial minority see each other has something to do with
triggering such feelings. While I agree with the attendant conclusions and findings in their
article, I suggest however, that such emotions, feelings, and consequences are also reflective of
inequitable structures precipitating such demographic imbalances, especially where the
employment of Black people on a campus is concerned. Certainly, participants in my study
experienced onlyness. They also, however, experienced fewness, consequences associated with
there being few Blacks in a workspace; isolation resulting from onlyness; and feelings associated
with being invisible due to demographically low numbers of their same-race peers employed in
the same spaces they occupied. Despite such circumstances, participants in my study found ways
to supplement benefits gained in the absence of frequent and routine interaction with same-race
peers. Such strategies, they shared, aided in their success at work.
Stereotypes
An overwhelming amount of research and literature has been published about the ways
racial stereotypes occur and are experienced by people of color. In their (2015) article, Whitaker
et al. discuss URM faculty’s repeated subjection to stereotypes and attrition in academic work
environments. While there were no direct correlations in my research between participants being
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stereotyped and leaving their jobs, and while Whitaker et al.’s (2015) article was focused on
faculty, findings from my research lend creditability to the plausibility that racial stereotypes
contribute to academic workplaces that could cause attrition. In addition, my research concurs
with MacNab and Worthley (2013), further expounding on the racialized nature of stereotypes
and how they affect people of color in the workplace. What is more, my research affirms
Wingfield (2010), that Whites sometimes interact with Blacks in the workplace based on Whites’
negative stereotypes or truncated understandings of them. This was evident in the ways my
participants described Whites relating to them, such as using “Black talk” or being often
mistaken for an athlete on campus.
Deviations From and Contributions to Scholarly Literature
Blackness at Work
While my study findings parallel significant portions of the research related to Black
employees in academic work contexts, there are ways in which they differ from extant literature.
Broadly speaking, findings from my research increase what is known about how Black
employees in higher education make sense of and experience their Blackness and other racial
phenomena at work. This can be observed in six areas. The first is how participants perceived,
interrogated, and negotiated their Blackness at work. Participants expressed an acute awareness
of the implications of being Black at work and simultaneously, did not seem to be set back by
what being Black in specific contexts meant for themselves and others. This seemed to suggest
that participants routinely contended with multiple perceptions of Blackness. In light of this,
some even modified their behavior accordingly. Additionally, some even seemed to suggest that
it was incumbent upon them to have such heightened perceptional sensitivities in the workplace.
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According to Tamir, “We always have to be cognizant of the spaces that we're working in and
we always have to be cognizant of how we are being received.”
Racialized Expectations
In the second area, racialized expectations, participants grappled with others’ projections
of who they were expected to be; how they should comport their selves or enact their Blackness;
or what they would do on the job. Again, these were expectations held exclusively for them as
Blacks, ideas often about the quality of work, perfectionism, or type of work that people wanted
them to do because they were Black. This finding suggests that assumptions held about Black
employees inform expectations about them. And such expectations often shaped workplace
experiences. While racialized expectations included performance elements, it also showed up in
what kind of work their managers, peers, or colleagues assumed they wanted to do or for which
they would be responsible. For example, more than a few participants said they were the default
person who was looked at to respond to “Black issues” on campus, though such requirements
were not officially outlined in their job descriptions.
Second-Guessing Experiences With Racial Encounters
The third observation concerns how participants second-guessed their experiences with
racial mistreatment in the workplace. This finding is notable and can be interpreted in a few
ways. One is that they did so out of self-protection; perhaps questioning the validity of such
encounters was a way to mitigate their impact. Another could be a kind of appraisal, where they
assessed on a case-by-case basis whether it was worth it to address such encounters. It could also
be that racial minoritization made them doubt whether anyone would take such offenses or
slights seriously.
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Intraracial Conflict
The fourth area in which I observed Black employees experiencing racial phenomena at
work is in the realm of intraracial conflict. Findings from my study suggest that Black
administrators and staff experience racialized challenges in the workplace from their same-race
peers. Admittedly, this was a finding that surprised me. However, I wonder what other factors
contributed to this occurring where Black staff and administrators worked. Were there other
dynamics at play such as past histories or pay? More investigation is needed.
Invisibility
Invisibility is the fifth area where my study expands what is known about Black
employees working in academic contexts. Invisibilization is the act of Black employees not
being recognized and seen and overlooked despite their real, physical occupation of time and
space in the company of others. Based on my findings, I also submit that invisibilization occurs
when Black employees on a campus do not hold certain cache, as suggested by Tim and George.
Racialized Resilience
The sixth way my study expands what is known is in the area of racialized resilience. It
seemed this finding was a kind of double-sided coin. On one hand, Black employees would make
comments like, “To be Black at work is to catch hell.” And on the other side they would say,
“But because I’m Black and Black people before me caught hell but they made it, I’m
determined to make it.” So racialized resilience functioned as a descriptor of their Blackness and
also a mechanism for their success in hellish circumstances. Black employees vacillated between
and negotiated both sides of this coin.
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Climate and Racially Hostile Workplaces
In addition, my study provides additional clues about higher education environments and
culture, especially as it relates to two key areas: climate-driven departure and racially hostile
workplaces. Hitherto, little has been studied about both of these issues. While my study was not
a full investigation of either, my research and data can be helpful to scholars looking to conduct
research in these areas.
Success, Navigation, and Antideficit Narratives
My study also adds to the scholarly literature by contributing to understandings about
success, navigation, and coping mechanisms Black administrators and staff use in racialized
higher education environments. This research project was unabashedly conducted with an
antideficit lens. This was important because I did not want to pathologize a population about
which an insufficient amount of research has been published. At the same time, I sought to
discover how they obtained success in their roles despite the racial animosity and mistreatment
they encountered. Black employees in my study often used students as a barometer for success in
their roles. That is, in the absence of kudos, promotions, or other reward mechanisms, Black
employees measured whether they were doing a good job or not by looking to the students they
served. This was also the case for many non-student facing employees in my study, as they
considered ways beyond one-on-one student interactions in which they could have an impact on
students, such as institutional policy or scholarships. In addition, many of the participants’
understanding of success seemed to suggest a strong locus of control (Zhou et al., 2016). Rarely
did they externalize success as manifesting in promotions, more money, or other more tangible
evidences. Though they did desire such career benchmarks, it seemed they defined success as
being broader and more nuanced, perhaps even concomitant with the aforementioned objective
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markers. In addition, my study provides more insights on how Black administrators and staff
navigate racialized workplaces and environments.
Though participants in my study had clearly experienced racial mistreatment, trauma, and
other kinds of racial slights and harms on the job, they employed various strategies assisting
them in managing, resisting, countering, and maneuvering through and around such instances.
This is incredibly important to note because it speaks to qualities and characteristics about this
population that should be given more attention. Such findings are evidence that though Black
employees experience tremendous racial hostility, they are not passive victims of it. In fact,
many of my study participants used the strategies contained in my findings to sustain their
employment or navigate to more favorable work conditions despite ongoing racial mistreatment.
What my research also makes known is that Black administrators and staff who experience racial
hostility where they work use various coping, psychological, or emotional intelligence strategies
in the pursuit of gainful employment under the duress of racism. This was evidenced in their
stories of positive professional help-seeking behaviors like going to counseling and therapy.
Additionally, they consistently reframed negative situations to understand and navigate them in a
more positive light. Finally, they deliberately employed emotional intelligence strategies such as
foregrounding and bracing for racial encounters; employing situational agility to manage one’s
emotions while in public spaces; and choosing their battles. This finding alone should encourage
more scholars to explore this area from a racialized perspective.
Attitudes and Outlooks About Work
Data from my study help the research community better contextualize Black employees’
outlooks and attitudes at work. While not an exclusively attitudinal or psychological study, my
research provides data that speak to Black employees’ motivation for and at work, zeal, and
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approaches to employment in higher education or within a racialized environment. For example,
my participants routinely said they had to prove themselves and be twice as good in such
contexts. Might this suggest that Black employees carry with them multiple rationales and
motivations for excelling at work, some of which are racially influenced? Such a question is ripe
with possibilities as these two notions are often expressed and intimated at when discussing work
in Black communities.
Contemporarily Speaking to Previously Explored Issues
My study also provides contemporary data on previously explored issues. For example,
my study suggests that gender and age intersect for Black women in higher education workplaces
in unique ways. Black women in my study who shared this sentiment suggested that the
combination of their Blackness and being perceived as young worked against them to diminish
their creditability in the workplace. In addition, my study provides additional data on cross-racial
interactions among and between employees, especially as it relates to how such encounters are
experienced by Black people. Finally, what my study adds to the research on microaggressions
and racial experiences, is that it confirms new kinds of microaggressions experienced by Black
employees (i.e., Karens and Amy Coopers).
Empirical Conclusions
Given the findings of this study, four major conclusions were reached:
1. Black administrators and staff experience other racial phenomena in racially hostile
workplaces on campus that are not entirely negative. Higher education scholars have
contended that people of color employed in this industry routinely encounter
discrimination, exclusion, being silenced, and also being subjected to a host of other
racial inequities persisting in such work environments (Dancy et al., 2018; DeCuir-
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Gunby & Gunby, 2016; Pyke, 2018). Findings from this study are consistent with
extant literature regarding these conclusions, as many of the findings included in
Chapter Four mirror research in Chapter Two. However, while many of the
participants discussed the negative aspects of their racialized work experiences, not
all of the ways things for them at work were racialized was bad. In fact, participants
in my study described success and navigation mechanisms in racialized terms.
Several examples are notable, such as narratives included in “Don’t Let Them See
You Sweat”, “Key Relationships”, and “Chameleons Without Pretense”, where
participants strongly emphasized racial components inherent to these tools for
success.
2. Black administrators and staff are affected by the structures and environment and/or
climate of their immediate and broader work contexts. This conclusion is supported
by the overwhelming amount of literature on campus environments, a sampling of
which was provided in Chapter Two. What can be deduced from my study is that
Black administrators and staff experience particular emotional, social, and
organizational nuances indicative of, “a combination of psychological climate,
behavioral climate, structural diversity, and institutional history” (Hurtado et al.,
1998; Vaccaro, 2010, p. 202), which are borne out in specific workplace encounters.
Participants in my study shared that structural configurations such as work
arrangements and allocations, valuations, and management discrepancies contributed
to workplaces where racial mistreatment and hostility were allowed to persist, if even
in subtle ways. These and other findings from this study suggest that negative
racialized experiences and inequities embedded into personnel structures and
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practices are likely connected to the nascent idea of climate-driven departure and
other campus climate discrepancies for Black employees.
3. Black employees use several different navigation and coping strategies to remain
employed, advance their careers, and mitigate the personal effects of racism.
Antideficit research such as Harper (2010) suggest that one could learn more about
racially minoritized people who successfully navigate a system that typically,
“complicates and undermines achievement for their particular racial groups” (p. 64).
This approach guided inquiry in this study, which led to a more robust discovery,
understanding, and vision of Black employee success and navigation. Many of the
insights shared by participants related to this finding could be paired with an
antideficit interpretation of the following, as suggested by Harper (2010): Cultural
capital and social capital theories (Bourdieu, 1986, 1987); Stereotype threat theory
(Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson, 1995); Attribution theory (Weiner, 1985); and Self-
efficacy theory (Bandura, 1997).
4. Black employees’ motivations for remaining in a racially hostile workplaces or
careers in higher education are broad. The majority of Black administrators and staff
in my study cited the primary reason for staying in such environments was because
they desired to support students they served. To a lesser degree they articulated a
strong belief in making an impact or change and the cause and efficacy of education
respectively. Subsequently, they discussed a strong purpose or calling as being a
motivating factor for staying.
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Implications for Future Research
My study has implications for scholars who are interested in the racialization of labor
within academic contexts. One of the most critical takeaways from my study is how race shaped
much of the work participants did and were expected to do. In addition, it also seemed to
influence how and the degree to which participants’ labor mattered within workplaces and
management structures. Researchers interested in this area of study might further consider how
specific labors (e.g., intellectual/academic, administrative/management, physical) in the academy
are racialized by applying an intersectional analysis to future studies. This would be helpful in
further identifying where stratification occurs in the postsecondary job market and understanding
potential reasons for discrepancies in role placement and experiences. Scholars seeking to know
more about the racialization of labor and employment in postsecondary education might use
findings from my study to consider how employees with similar characteristics as those in my
research perceive and are affected by labor racialization.
Findings from my study provide more detail about how race functions in the academy.
There have been numerous studies on the intersection of race and higher education, however,
there remains much to be known. While the call to continue to study how race functions in
higher education is rather broad, I suggest race scholars consider more tightly knit and
underexplored avenues, such as how race might function in higher education work environments
where there is intraracial conflict. Those studying race in higher education might also want to
generate scholarship around how race works to induce climate-driven departure within
postsecondary institutions, organizations, and departments. Additionally, I suggest they also give
attention to how race functions in interactions among and between people of color working on or
within specific campus workforces, groupings, divisions, and/or departments.
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My research might also appeal to those looking to advance understandings of Black
employment in higher education beyond the professoriate. As mentioned earlier in this project,
an overwhelming amount of research literature has been published on Black faculty at the
expense of other employment roles on campus. Those who would be interested in research in this
area might consider conducting additional studies of non-instructional employees explicitly
focused on sector, department, functional area, and job type, or specific combinations of the
aforementioned. I also heartily recommend that classified, non-salaried campus workers such as
custodians, groundskeepers, food service workers, and those occupying similar roles be included
in future research. Such employees were intended aims of this study but were unable to be
pursued because of study limitations and augmentations due to COVID-19. Provided in Burke’s
(2020) article is a glimpse of how research on this employee group could take shape. Based on
my research, I also suggest more studies be conducted that forthrightly include how non-
instructional employees experience campus environments.
In addition, I would also like to see more contemporary research on the nature of work in
higher education. It cannot be overstated that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed work
arrangements in the postsecondary education industry indefinitely. Though it remains to be seen
how deep and sustained such changes are, it is clear that typical business models, work
arrangements, class schedules, operations, and expectations have all been disrupted and modified
on account of this pandemic. Given this pause, an opportunity is provided for scholars to think
seriously and anew about the nature of work in higher education and how it sits in tension with
not yet remediated inequities in campus workplaces, which have been temporarily modified to
exist virtually. Scholars studying the nature of work in higher education might consider how the
industry was impacted by the pandemic and the summer 2020 racial uprisings, and what they
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mean for people of color who work or seek to be employed in higher education. It would also be
advantageous for researchers to explore intersections between telework and work from home,
Zoom-bombing, and other pandemic-related remote work phenomena with an eye towards
centering the experiences of people of color encountering inequities in such contexts.
Implications for Practice
Higher education is an industry where rhetoric around racial equity is prevalent.
However, extant literature suggests that employees of color experience their employment in
campus workplaces in negative ways despite espoused institutional commitments to diversity,
equity, and inclusion (Garrison-Wade et al., 2012; Gomez et al., 2015; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015).
This underdiscussed gap has troubled organizations and employees alike with little remediation.
Often, when looking for answers, institutional actors have lacked a clear starting point in
addressing such issues. My research provides a way for such groups to be informed about the on-
campus realities of Black people in their campus workforce. This could be especially useful to
campus HR departments who want to assess and improve the organizational health of their
campus. This research coupled with recommendations by Christian and Junious (2020) would
provide a more than adequate point of exploration for HR professionals to gain skills and create
tangible strategies for improving the health and functioning for campus workforces they serve.
Race was a significant factor in the work realities of my participants. For many, race was
the primary lens through which they saw themselves and situated phenomena in places where
they were employed. Those working with Black employees in higher education workplaces
should ensure such spaces are apt for the holistic sustainability and nurturing of their racial
identities. According to my study, Black employees spent an inordinate amount of time and
energy thinking about their race, how they are being perceived because of their race, and what
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the race of others means for them in work situations. This occurred simultaneously with
producing the work for which they were responsible. Might there be a better way for Black
employees to be Black at work? Surely if there is to be such space, it should be kindled in the
halls of the academy, for it is at least one place that portends to hold to espoused commitments to
equity and inclusion.
Too often, as evidenced in my research, Black employees took on the additional labor of
thinking about their Blackness in higher education work contexts. This resulted in them
modifying their behavior to comply with dominant cultural cues to render their Blackness non-
threatening. Such adjustments, among other things, enabled their employment to be sustained in
a racially inequitable system. Higher education leaders would do well to understand: a) that this
is an additional kind of racialized labor that Black employees expend just to do the work for
which they were hired; and b) such racialized behavior modification should not be a prerequisite
for promotion and long-term employability. Moreover, higher education leaders should partner
with psychologists and sociologists to devise the kind of work environments where Black
employees do not have to think about their race if they so choose. Such spaces should also
provide the leeway to consider and explore their Blackness if they desire. Admittedly, working
toward such a goal might be difficult. Doing so suggests holding in tension and/or reconciling:
a) increased attention given to Black employees resulting from renewed demands for racial
equity nationwide; b) a spotlight being placed on Black employees resulting from university or
department-wide equity and inclusion efforts; and c) ways to provide reprieve for Black
employees by decreasing the onslaught of triggers from the work environment to think about
their race. In addition, higher education leaders would be better positioned to work alongside
Black employees by learning that there exists a multiplicity of Blackness. That is, there is not
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one way to be Black and that expectations premised upon singular notions of Blackness are ill
founded and work counter to the dignity and productivity of Black employees.
Given this, I recommend that my study be used in facilitating trainings and conversations
around racial equity in the higher education workforce. Student affairs practitioners, fundraising
and development officers, and campus information technology professionals alike could all
benefit from engaging with the real and varied narratives of campus employees who have been
racially mistreated in their places of work. Campus organizations that thoughtfully and
rigorously engage such topics position themselves to adequately meet the demands of an
increasingly racially diverse workforce and society. If the ideas shared here are taken seriously
across campus, perhaps institutions can avoid issues like: higher turnover, employee
disengagement and underperformance, unresolved tensions between employees, public
organizational embarrassment, and invalidating the experiences of people of color.
In addition, those managing Black non-instructional employees should take this research
seriously so as to be informed about ways to encourage Black employee success, and managerial
behaviors to avoid. Those in personnel management roles should consider this research as a way
to refine their management approaches and philosophy. In addition, those working with Black
employees in this way should come away from this research with a more nuanced understanding
of how they show up at work, what goes into their success, and what they have to constantly
endure. In response to this they should ask questions about the conditions under which they
allow Black employees to work. I expect constituents in this group to question if they have and
are paying their Black employees equitably; if their Black employees are satisfied, and if not,
why; and/or if their Black employees are being passed over for promotion or being managed in
demeaning ways. While question asking is a helpful first step, consumers of this research should
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figure out ways to make higher education workplaces suitable for the long-term, career-
advancing employment of Black administrators and staff persons.
One way to do this practically is to interrogate long-held, misguided beliefs. I agree
wholeheartedly that those holding low expectations of Black people foster a kind of racism that
is seemingly covert and infantilizes them. I contend that those hiring, working alongside, and
managing Black employees work to change “doomed to fail” views they might hold of them to a
“destined to succeed” mindset. This can be initiated by thoroughly reading and grappling with
part two of my findings section. In it, readers will find strategies Black employees created to
achieve success against odds stacked against them. These and other counternarratives suggest
that Black employees do not conform to the low expectations held of them, but find culturally
intuitive ways to navigate around, through, and above negative beliefs. Might higher education
leaders learn something new about the application of culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-
Billings, 1995) to the work environment? I suggest readers take seriously this work as a way to
alter the prism through which Black employees are viewed. This entails a mindset that does not
automatically assume them to be problematic but instead, sees them as positive contributors of
the highest capacity. What if higher education leaders lead with this assumption? Would there be
gross underrepresentation of Blacks in the highest ranks of the academy?
Peers and colleagues of Black employees should know about how race and gender
intersect for Black employees. This knowledge can help them be better partners in doing the
work of higher education and can aid in the reduction of ways Black employees are
microagressed. Far too often in my study, passion was read as threat and outspokenness came
with opportunity costs. Participants experienced these conundrums because of how others
interpreted their gender and then racialized it. I recommend that anyone who is non-Black and
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works in any capacity in higher education actively participate in pushing back against and
abolishing the notion and stereotypes of Angry Black Woman and Angry Black Man. This deep-
seated idea is harmful to Black employees in many ways. Chief among them is that it
dehumanizes Black people and polices their emotional expression at work. No doubt this a huge
issue for non-Blacks to work through. I suggest, however, that for the sake of your Black
employees, seeking therapy or counseling to work through biases permitting such gendered
stereotypes to exist would be of great benefit to your Black employees. Higher education leaders
would do well to understand the longstanding history of how Black people’s labor has been
uniquely gendered and racialized within an American capitalistic economy. In addition, they
should take such knowledge and reconcile it against the stories shared in this research to unlearn
gendered racialized patterns and learn behaviors that do not replicate such inequities in the
workplace.
Intraracial distrust and conflict was a surprising finding of my study. I cannot deny that
some participants felt that at work, some who were a part of the racial group to which they
belonged were unsupportive of their advancement. Black professionals working in higher
education might understand that working in a racially inequitable environment might mean that
their same-race peers may operate in ways that cut against notions of racial solidarity. This can
be understood two ways. The first is that racially inequitable environments where there are few
Black people can engender a kind of misguided, prized token status among some therein,
wherein which they can be the “only” Black person working in that space. To them, so tightly
coveted is such a position, that they actively work against any other Black person who they
perceive as threatening to that status. The second harkens back to the multiplicity and
heterogeneity of Blackness. It can be understood that Black people in an organization do not all
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hold to the same values and motivations, or supposed ideals of racial solidarity. Both of these
premises are not mutually exclusive; they can exist independently, simultaneously with one
another, or manifest in other social arrangements.
All Black professionals working in higher education would be wise to consider this
finding, as it no doubt adds complexity to forging and sustaining Black relationships at work.
And yet, this finding can be used by Black professionals in a multitude of ways. One is that it
can be used to shore up any misguided or faulty homogenous assumptions regarding Blackness.
Said differently, it can soften the blow if a Black employee encounters this for the first time. This
can help Black employees be equipped to navigate such situations if they occur. Black
professionals can also use this finding to develop authentic, supportive relationships with other
Black employees in their places of work. Surely not all Black employees working in an
organization are distrustful of each other. I submit that while there may be some Black
employees who do not get along with each other, there are others present committed to the
professional well-being of other Blacks. I suggest that Black employees who have such
commitments be receptive and welcoming to other Blacks who have experienced intraracial
distrust or conflict. Non-Blacks managing or working with Black employees should take notice
of intraracial distrust and conflict, too. It could be a symptom of a racially inequitable
environment engendering power asymmetries causing same-race peers to undermine each other.
While findings of my study can stand on their own, consumers of my research might
understand these data as giving additional context to quantitative findings concerning Black
employees in higher education. My research compliments quantitative data about inequities in
the racial distribution of employees on a campus or in the higher education workforce. For
example, one can pair my findings around onlyness, fewness, isolation, and invisibility with
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quantitative data about the lack of a substantive amount of Black employees occupying certain
positions. In this way, these findings can be used to elucidate the consequences of the realities
such numbers expose.
Presidents, vice presidents, deans, unit directors, and other institutional officers would do
well to use my research to rigorously investigate and alter structures governing their campus
workforces. Black employees in my study experienced racialized differentials in how their labor
was perceived. Senior-level officers can lead the charge in creating systems and hiring personnel
to fairly assesses the labor of Black employees. One way this can occur is for them to use their
power to convene those with the appropriate expertise and knowledge in this area to create
policy towards this end. In addition, unit directors and other institutional officers should consider
analyses that identify racialized patterns in promotion. If there is a discrepancy with Black
employees’ who have not been promoted in a sufficient fashion given their time and effort at the
university, such officers should: a) consider the underlying reasons for this occurrence; and b)
work with these employees to develop an anti-deficit, long-term, sustainable, positively-framed
plan that directly results in their promotion within an agreed-upon time; achievement of certain
deliverables; the acquisition of additional skills; and a monetary increase. Such plans are win-
wins for both the employee and the institution, as they can be used to satisfy employees, enhance
productivity, and remediate turnover. In addition, such plans, if used well, can assist in Black
employees’ contributions being better recognized. For example, when they achieve agreed upon
deliverables in the plan, managers have a receipt of ways they have worked to move the
organization forward. Unit directors, managers, and other institutional officers should promote
such achievements in campus listservs, periodicals, or through other highly visible media.
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Institutional officers are also poised to serve as mentors to Black employees. This could
be done through formal or informal processes that grant Black employees access to such power
epicenters on campus. If senior-level officers are unable to serve in this capacity, they should
recommend other key personnel who can. What senior-level officers can lead in doing, is more
equitably distributing their social capital to ensure Black employees develop relationships
leading to their career advancement and success.
Presidents, vice presidents, deans, unit directors, and other institutional officers are also
in positions to do something about tokenism. Long gone are the days where hiring one Black
person or a few counts as a significant step in making the campus workforce more racially
diverse. There are tools to help postsecondary institutions identify where racial hiring gaps occur
and then find racially diverse prospects to interview and potentially hire. An example of one such
effort is PRISM, a racial equity recruitment tool developed by the USC Race and Equity Center.
Peers, colleagues, and managers can practically learn how to appropriately treat Black
employees with dignity and respect in the workplace. That is, they would do well not to replicate
and to disrupt the offenses participants described in their places of work. Those considering how
to engender greater workforce equity in higher education should consider my research, as it can
aid them in creatively building better support mechanisms and structures to assist Black
employees advance. One way this can be done is by mining the strategies and mechanisms Black
administrators and staff persons used to be successful, modifying and contextualizing them in
culturally relevant ways, and implementing them where applicable. Persons seeking to improve
campus workplaces and employee outcomes should seek to figure out how to better come
alongside Black administrators and staff in goal setting and seeking advanced academic
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credentials; developing key relationships; living out their faith and purpose at work; and
supporting them in seeking counseling or therapy.
Lastly, to ensure the care and well-being of Black employees, institutional actors should
routinely normalize counseling and therapy in the workplace culture. They can do this by making
sure culturally competent, racially literate, licensed therapists host routine group and/or
individual workplace sessions, for example. This can be facilitated quite easily over Zoom.
Institutional leaders should also find creative ways to increasingly take the burden off Black
employees of proving their adequacy and that they belong. This should occur in onboarding
sessions and throughout the entirety of their career. The power of messaging could be helpful in
this regard. A “You Belong Here” campaign featuring the stories of Black employees at the
institution who have navigated Imposter Syndrome or other like phenomena could set the right
tone.
Closing
You know some people never change their minds. Well either way we're gonna be just
fine. Even when you try to bring me down. You see, I'm still here, let me adjust my
crown. Two steps forward, ten steps back. Killing us dead, Black lives don't matter. I can
hear you loud and clear. It feels like you don't want me here.
These lyrics belong to PJ Morton, and are found in his song, Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.
Morton, who sings about the treatment of Black folks revisits the refrain, Everything’s Gonna Be
Alright, every other verse or so in his song. The way the song is constructed would seem to
suggest that, despite the trials Black people endure, they resolve to find a way to be alright.
Like, Morton, in conducting this research I was not naïve to the fact the Black people
routinely experience hellish racialized circumstances at work. And yet, I know from others’
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experiences and my own that Black people have consistently found ways to overcome despite
what they encountered. While I knew that to be true, I had never taken stock of how that
occurred. This research provided the opportunity to do so, and for that I am grateful.

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308

Appendix A: Role Types
1
Administrative Professional Associates
Academic Affairs
• Academic Services and Advisors
• Librarians
• Museum and Continuing Education Professionals
• Instructional Design/Media, Training Delivery, Performing Arts, and Faculty Affairs/Development
Professionals
Student Affairs
• Services, Admissions, and Career Counseling Professionals
• Financial Aid and Housing Professionals
• Student Activities, Counseling, and Registration Professionals
Institutional Affairs
• Legal and Human Resource Professionals
• Equal Opportunity/Diversity Professionals
• Other
Fiscal Affairs
• Accounting Professionals
• Audit and Finance/Budget Professionals
• Materials Management and Business Operations Professionals
External Affairs
• Development/Fundraising Professionals
• Alumni Relations, Advancement Services, and Communications/Marketing Professionals
• Media/Public Relations and Event/Conference Management Professionals
Facilities
• Services, Maintenance, Design, and Construction Professionals
• Engineers
• Environmental Safety/Risk Management, Facility Operation, and Retail Operation Professionals
Information Technology
• IT Professionals
• IT Applications Professionals
• IT Database, Client Support, and Network Support Professionals
• IT Systems Support, Security, and Telecommunications Professionals
Research Professionals
• Physical and Social Sciences
• Medical and Life Sciences
• Laboratory Coordinators
Research Support Professionals

1
Position listings and descriptions borrowed and adapted from College and Universities
Professional Association for Human Resources 2019 reports.
309

Extension Programs
Other Education Professionals
Health Science and Environmental Sustainability Professionals
Athletic Affairs
• Athletics Professionals and Trainers
• Head Coaches
• Specialty and Assistant Coaches
Safety Professionals and Supervisors of Office/Clerical, Skilled Craft, and Service/ Maintenance Personnel
310

2
Top Executive Officers
• Includes Chief Executive Officer (Campus or System) and Executive Vice President/Vice Chancellor.
Senior Institutional Officers
• Persons in these positions direct a major functional area with institution-wide scope/impact as well as the
work of other professional employees.
Academic Deans
• Persons with faculty status who serve as the principal administrator/ head of an academic program, which
may be a school, college, or department.
Institutional Administrators
• Persons in these positions direct a major functional area with institution-wide scope/impact as well as the
work of other professional employees. They serve as the senior content expert in a recognized professional
realm.
Heads of Divisions, Departments, and Centers
• Persons in these positions direct an institutionally recognized division, department, or center and the work
of other professional employees.
Academic Associate/Assistant Deans
• Persons with or without faculty status who report to and support the dean in the administration of an
institutional program, which may be a school, college, or department.

2
Position listings and descriptions borrowed and adapted from College and Universities
Professional Association for Human Resources 2019 reports.

311

Appendix B: Interview Protocols
Hi (insert name). I really appreciate you taking time to sit for this interview. I am certain your
schedule is quite busy and I am grateful for the opportunity to talk with you.
As you know, I am a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership Program at USC’s Rossier
School of Education. I am interested in learning about higher education workplaces, and seek to
investigate how Black staff and administrators navigate racial challenges where they work. Your
insights and thoughts on this matter are valuable and will aid in the production of my research
study.
The information you disclose in this interview will remain confidential. Nothing you share can be
used to identify you or be traced back to you. Your anonymity and that of those whom you
discuss is my top priority. Your participation in this interview is strictly voluntary. Please feel
free to decline to answer any questions with which you are uncomfortable.
This interview will be recorded. I am the only person who will have access to this recording; it
will not be shared with anyone. You may see me taking notes, but please know that you have my
utmost attention.
Any questions before we begin?
Section One Questions:
1. Tell me about yourself as early as you can remember.
2. What’s interesting about where you’re from or where you grew up?
3. Who influenced you?
4. How do you define success?
5. Talk to me about how you see and walk through the world.
6. What was your path to working in higher education?
7. How did you get your current job? Who and/or what was helpful in that?

312

Section Two Questions:
1. What’s a typical day at work like for you?
2. How did both Black and non-Black people treat you in the different staff or administrative
roles you’ve held?
a. What stood out to you about those interactions?
3. What did you like and dislike about each of colleges where you worked?
a. What made you leave?
b. What are some of your most vivid memories (good or bad) of your career in higher
education?
4. Describe your interactions with non-Black peers, subordinates, supervisors, colleagues, or
other employees on your campus.
5. Who treats you well at your current job?
a. Why do you think they treat you well?
6. Who doesn’t treat you well where you work?
a. What is it that they do that tells you they’re not being kind to you?
b. Why do you think they don’t treat you well?
7. What race or ethnicity are the folks who you feel racially mistreat you?
8. Describe what comes to mind when you hear “racially hostile workplace”.
9. You had mentioned that within the last five to ten years that working as either a staff person
or administrator you had experienced either racial discrimination, race-based harm, or
racism. Can you tell me about that experience or experiences?
10. Tell me about how you knew you were being mistreated at your place of work because of
your race.
a. How were you able to know that you were working in a racially hostile workplace on
campus?
11. When these things happened, who did you tell? What did they do?

Section Three Questions:
1. How did you overcome the racial oppression and discrimination you faced while working
in that role? Who or what helped you make it through?
2. When these incidents happened, what kind of things did you think about or do to get
ahead?
a. Was there any kind of plan you developed to avoid being mistreated and/or to get
support? If so, can you tell me about that?
3. During the time period when you experienced racial mistreatment, what kind of thoughts
did you have around getting a promotion or seeking out another role on your campus with
a higher status/rank/authority or one that had more influence/prestige/prominence?
a. Did you develop a plan of action to gain a promotion?
b. If so, tell me about how and/or why you knew it would be effective.
4. During those times of intense racial mistreatment, what did excellence look like for you?
a. Was it important for you to be excellent in your work and role?
b. If so, why? Tell me about the significance of doing stellar work in the midst of
being severely mistreated.
313

Sections Five Questions:
1. How did your understanding of success change or evolve during periods of racial
mistreatment?
2. How do you know you are being successful in your role, especially when no one tells you
you’re doing a good job?
3.
Section Six Questions:
1. What’s the hardest thing about being a Black employee at the school where you work?
2. What’s the hardest thing about being Black in your field of work or in previous roles
you’ve held while working for a college or university?

Section Seven Questions:
1. Thinking back on your career and the discrimination you faced, why did you stay in those
roles so long? Why didn’t you leave earlier?
2. What has motivated you to stay with a career in higher education despite the racial
setbacks you encountered?

314

Appendix C: IRB Approval

11/1/2020 h ://i a . c.ed /i a / d/D c/0/7PDJSVSBO88UKHC1TH8OULIG00/f S i g.h l
h ://i a . c.ed /i a / d/D c/0/7PDJSVSBO88UKHC1TH8OULIG00/f S i g.h l 1/2
Uni ersit of So thern California Instit tional Re ie Board
1640 Marengo Street, S ite 700
Los Angeles, California 90033-9269
Telephone: (323) 442-0114
Fa : (323) 224-8389
Email: irb@ sc.ed
Date: Ma 01, 2020, 08:41am
Action Taken: A e
Principal In estigator: Wilmon A. Christian III
ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Fac lt Ad isor: Dr. Sha n Harper
ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Co-In estigator(s):
Project Title: P a f e Rac a ed E e E e e ce f B ac S aff a d Ad a H e Ed ca
St d ID: UP-20-00191
F nding:
The Uni ersit of So thern California Instit tional Re ie Board (IRB) designee re ie ed o r iStar application and attachments on 5/1/2020.
Based on the information s bmitted for re ie , this st d is determined to be e empt from 45 CFR 46 according to 46.104(d) as categor (2).
As research hich is considered e empt according to 46.104(d), this project is not s bject to req irements for contin ing re ie . Yo are a thori ed to
cond ct this research as appro ed.
If e e a e ca c a e a c ea e e b ec f e f d a c a ed, b a a e d e e IRB f
e e a d a a . F e e e a ca , e e Se d Me a e IRB .
T e a e a b ed a d c de ed f e e f ec c ded:
1. iStar application dated 4/29/2020
2. Dissertation Inter ie Protocol, ploaded 2/29/2020
3. Google S r e for Participant Recr itment, ploaded 5/1/2020
NOTES PI:
Per USC Polic , someone ma not collect data abo t people he or she o ersees in a professional capacit . Please ens re that someone on the st d
(represented in 2.1, ith the req ired h man s bjects certi cation) is able to ser e as an independent data collector. F rther, data m st be stripped of an
identif ing information before being pro ided to people ho ha e the s per isor relationship in order to protect the con dentialit of the participant
responses.
INFORMATION SHEET
Consent and recr itment doc ments are not req ired to be ploaded for e empt st dies; ho e er, researchers are reminded that USC follo s the
principles of the Belmont Report, hich req ires all potential participants to be informed of the research st d , their rights as a participant, con dentialit
of their data, etc. Therefore, please tili e the Information Sheet Template a ailable on the IRB ebsite (http://oprs. sc.ed ) and re ise the lang age to be
speci c to o r st d . This doc ment ill not be re ie ed b the IRB. It is the responsibilit of the researcher to make s re the doc ment is consistent
ith the st d proced res listed in the application.
F d ce( ): N/A f d ce ed
Attachments:
Information-Sheet-for-E empt-St dies-07-27-2019.doc
2019-10-31_g idance-for-recr itment-tool- nal.pdf
Of ce of Research COVID-19 Research Contin it Plan, dated 03-16-2020.pdf
Social-beha ioral health-related inter entions or health-o tcome st dies m st register ith c ca a . or other International Comm nit of Medical
Jo rnal Editors (ICMJE) appro ed registries in order to be p blished in an ICJME jo rnal. The ICMJE ill not accept st dies for p blication nless the
st dies are registered prior to enrollment, despite the fact that these st dies are not applicable clinical trials as de ned b the Food and Dr g
Administration (FDA). For s pport ith registration, go to .clinicaltrials.go or contact Jean Chan (jeanbcha@ sc.ed , 323-442-2825).
315

Appendix D: Informed Consent Form

University of Southern California
Doctorate of Educational Leadership Program
Waite Phillips Hall; Suite 404
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4034

Study Title: Portraits of the Racialized Employment Experiences of Black Staff and
Administrators in Higher Education

Principal Investigator: Wilmon A. Christian III

EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECT ’S BILL OF RIGHTS

You have been asked to participate as a subject in an educational study. Before you
decide whether you want to participate in the research, you have a right to the following
information:

CALIFORNIA LAW REQUIRES THAT YOU MUST BE INFORMED ABOUT:

1. The nature and purpose of the study.
2. The procedures in the study and any drug or device to be used.
3. Discomforts and risks reasonably to be expected from the study.
4. Benefits reasonably to be expected from the study.
5. Alternative procedures, drugs, or devices that might be helpful and their risks and
benefits.
6. Availability of medical treatment should complications occur.
7. The opportunity to ask questions about the study or the procedure.
8. The ability to withdraw from the study at any time and discontinue participation
without affecting your future care at this institution.
9. Be given a copy of the signed and dated written consent form for the study.
10. The opportunity to consent freely to the study without the use of coercion.

I have carefully read the information contained above and I understand fully my rights
as a potential subject in this study.

Date: ___________________ Time: ________________

Signature: _______________________________________
(Research Participant)

Signature: _______________________________________
(Parent or Legally Authorized Representative)
If signed by other than the research participant, indicate relationship: _____________
316

Appendix E: Participant Communication

317

Sunday, November 1, 2020 at 16:04:29 Pacific Standard Time
Page 1 of 1
Subject: Transcript Review for Wilmon's Study
Date: Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 2:03:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Wilmon Chris an
To: Jamika Williams
A achments: 210600_jamika_williams_interview (1).doc, image001.png
Dear Jamika,

I hope you are well. Many thanks for par cipa ng in my research study on the racialized workplace
experiences of Black staff and administrators. I am nearing its comple on and ask that you please review the
a ached transcript of your interview. Please let me know if this transcript is an accurate reflec on of your
responses. If you feel it is not or that clarifica on and/or elabora on needs to occur, please do not hesitate to
contact me with your feedback or revisions no later than Friday, August 14.

Many thanks, and I look forward to informing you about next steps with the development of my study.

My very best,

--
Wilmon A. Chris an III
Director of PRISM
USC Race and Equity Center
318

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Black higher education administrators and staff routinely encounter racism and other forms of racial mistreatment in their workplaces. However, given overwhelming and unbalanced attention to faculty experiences in the research literature, not much is known about such occurrences particular to this employee group. This study was undertaken to provide additional inquiry distinctive to Black staff and administrators to increase what is known about this group’s higher education workplace experiences. Qualitative methods were used to explore the racialized employment realities of Black staff and administrators, and the means by which they obtained success despite racial mistreatment they encountered. A portraiture methodology was used to guide this study, which included a diverse sample of 29 participants who were interviewed in-depth. Findings from this study are presented in two parts. The first is about their experiences with race, racism, racial mistreatment, and other racialized encounters in the workplace. Included in the second part are eight mechanisms Black employees used to obtain success and navigate workplace conditions. Findings from this study are consistent with the literature on race and racial equity, but add to the research in key areas such as climate-driven departure and success-framing at work.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Christian, Wilmon Ashland, III (author)

Core Title Working while Black: occupational experiences, hazards, and triumphs of Black staff and administrators in higher education

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 12/22/2020

Defense Date 11/23/2020

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

Tag administrators,Black,campus climate,climate-driven departure,employee,employee success,equity,Higher education,microagressions,OAI-PMH Harvest,postsecondary education,Race,racial battle fatigue,racial mistreatment,racial stress,Racism,staff,Work,workforce management,workplace

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Harper, Shaun R. (committee chair), Davis, Charles H.F., III (committee member), Jones, Brandi P. (committee member)

Creator Email wilmonac@usc.edu,wilmonac3@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-415956

Unique identifier UC11666613

Identifier etd-ChristianW-9231.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-415956 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ChristianW-9231.pdf

Dmrecord 415956

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Christian, Wilmon Ashland, III

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA