Exploring Tenure Denial Lawsuits of Black Women in the Academy

• In Event: Exploring the Unspoken Racialized Processes for Minoritized Tenure-Seeking Faculty

Abstract

This scholar will discuss how three tenure denial lawsuits filed by Black women illuminate the extant research (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wood, 2008; Matthew, 2016) on how RMFC experience overt and covert racially gendered discrimination during the T&P process. Also, the scholar will advance how lawsuits are an additional artifact that demonstrate the ongoing inequities embedded and normalized in academia. The three Black women’s T&P experiences reflect ways in which research, scholarship, and service, can be used as cloaks to protect academic bullying (Cassell; 2011; Frazier, 2011) and deny tenure. Concepts such as “rigor” and “good citizen” enable sabotaging practices to flourish despite predominately white academic leadership espousing a commitment to retaining RMFC. Additionally, vague tenure policies (Shaver, Butler, & Moore, 2015), toxic department and program politics (Hillman, 2018; Stanley, 2006), and a white racial frame (Feagin, 2006) contribute to biases in T&P evaluation within decision-making committees. Suggestions will be shared for how to recognize and address T&P practices that operate as barriers to RMFC successfully advancing in the professoriate. Audience members will be invited to discuss retention and successful promotion of RMFC as well as the blatant and subtle practices that reduce productivity and cause emotional and psychological harm.

Author

• Lawanda Ward, The Pennsylvania State University