Breaking Souls, Building Walls: How Gendered-Racialized Organizational Hierarchies Drive Women of Color from Higher Education

• In Event: Who Leads, Who Labors, Who Lasts? Institutional Climate, Labor, and Leadership in Higher Education

Abstract

The Great Resignation profoundly impacted higher education staff, with women of color disproportionately leaving historically White institutions (HWIs). This critical ethnographic study examines how gendered-racialized organizational structures systematically marginalize and ultimately drive women of color professional staff from higher education. Drawing from interviews, reflective journaling, and document analysis, findings reveal how hierarchical logics privileging Whiteness, cultural taxation, and institutional pressures to assimilate (“social White men”) create “soul-breaking” work environments. Departures were framed by participants as acts of strategic resistance rather than individual failure, highlighting the embodied health consequences of organizational trauma. This study contributes new theoretical insights and offers structural recommendations for addressing systemic harm to women of color in higher education staff roles.

Author

• M. Yvonne Taylor, Northwest Education Access