A Racialized Organization Approach to Faculty Agency for Racial Equity Change Work

• In Event: Studies of Equity-Minded Organizational Learning in Educational Contexts

Abstract

Racial equity and organizational change scholars have emphasized that transformational change requires organizational conditions that normalize anti-racist frames (e.g., equity-mindedness) and the allocation of resources (e.g., leadership support, multi-level collaborations, data, and data use protocols) (Dowd & Liera, 2018; McCambly & Colyvas, 2023). Although some theories of change emphasize multi-level, multi-stakeholder change efforts (Kezar et al., 2021) and equity-minded, inquiry-driven change efforts (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015), faculty agency, specifically within the context of racial equity change, is under-theorized. Faculty are uniquely positioned to advance racial equity across disciplinary departments and program offices because they often oversee their university’s teaching, research, and service components (Griffin, 2020). However, faculty who wish to advance racial equity goals may be deterred by a lack of training, lack of support from leadership, or an uncertain sense of authority within larger university power structures (McNair et al., 2020).

In this article, I conceptualize faculty agency for racial equity as an outgrowth of learned social and organizational positionings in the racial hierarchies of academia. Specifically, this paper explicates how positionings of self and organization are just as likely to open up opportunities to advance racial equity as they are to foreclose those opportunities. Scholarship on faculty agency has theorized that professors exert higher levels of agency in some areas of their academic lives than others (Campbell & O’Meara, 2014). In addition to contextual factors, professors’ previous experiences, current personal situations, and potential future circumstances influence their perceptions about their ability to advance their academic careers (Gonzales, 2018; Sulé, 2014). Critical race theorists have argued that racially minoritized professors must enact their agency merely to survive oppressive environments, even as they simultaneously take steps to advance their careers (Gonzales, 2018; Sulé, 2014). Given that faculty commonly act in ways informed by their context and social location, the agency of racially minoritized professors is often dually informed by experiences of racism and knowledge of academic norms and expectations (Gonzales, 2018; Sulé, 2014). Therefore, racially minoritized professors are as likely to enact their agency to replicate norms of the professoriate that accrue career rewards (e.g., publishing in top-tier journals) as they are to challenge aspects of the profession that disaffirm their social identities (Gonzales, 2018; Sulé, 2014).

The racial hierarchy of college and university organizations shapes the ability to plan and accomplish racial equity change efforts because of who has historically held and continues to hold decision-making power positions. Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations provides framing to identify how seemingly race-neutral processes rely on colorblind racism to sustain racial inequity. A theory of racialized organizations posits that organizations are entrenched in racism, which is observable through the relationship between individual racial beliefs and the distribution of resources (Ray, 2019). Applying a theory of racialized organizations to understand faculty agency for racial equity as an outgrowth of learned social and organizational positionings will guide higher education leaders to consider how to support faculty members to enact their agency to engage in racial equity work across various organizational contexts.

Author

• Román Liera, Montclair State University