Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Identifying Structures of White Supremacy in Higher Education Institutions
Dr. Deborah E. Southern
ABSTRACT:
How do global histories of white supremacy, colonialism, and slavery manifest in well-established and often taken-for-granted structures and practices of our higher education institutions? Education research on overt racial violence, discrimination, and bias within higher education makes clear that historical racialized oppression persists today on our campuses (Harper & Patton, 2007; Arellano & Vue, 2019). However, in what ways does racialized oppression persist through more covert or unquestioned institutional norms? In order to dismantle historical racialized oppression, scholars, practitioners, and leaders of higher education must be able to identify structures of white supremacy within their institutions, particularly where white supremacy is concealed (Ahmed, 2006; 2012). In working to understand and disrupt both overt and covert manifestations of racialized oppression in higher education, practitioners and leaders can more effectively transform institutional culture, policies, and practices to be racially equitable. Drawing from qualitative case study (Yin, 2018) data from four highly selective public research universities in the United States that are historically white serving, I identify three structures of white supremacy that are typical and often unexamined in higher education institutions. In my presentation, I begin by introducing my theoretical argument: that white supremacy is a global hegemonic power that encompasses historical and ongoing racialized violence including colonialism and slavery (Hall, 1983; Mills, 1997). I then offer a brief overview of how higher education institutions are embedded in global histories of white supremacy, colonialism, and slavery (Bhambra et al., 2018; Wilder, 2013), and argue that universities, therefore, continue to sustain structures of white supremacy–particularly at historically white serving institutions (Gillborn, 2005). Next, I share my methodology combining critical hermeneutics of whiteness (Leonardo, 2003) and comparative case study (Yin, 2018) to demonstrate how I identified structures of white supremacy in the empirical data through analysis using the constant comparative method (Charmaz, 2014; Saldaña, 2013). Finally, I present three structures of white supremacy that I found in my research and discuss how they are common and even taken-for-granted in historically white serving higher education institutions: 1. inequitable distribution of institutional financial and labor resources to address racial inequity, 2. privileging whiteness in ideals of “excellence” in faculty hiring and promotion, and graduate student admissions, and, 3. prioritization of white racial comfort of faculty and leaders throughout diversity initiative planning and implementation. To close my presentation, I discuss the urgency to identify ongoing historical structures of white supremacy within higher education institutions globally, and invite scholars, practitioners, and leaders to join in the work of identifying sources of racial oppression on our campuses so that we may dismantle them.
keywords: white supremacy, higher education, organizational change, racial equity