Sisterhood While Black in Austerity Academy: Sister Circles as Praxis, Method, and Opportunity to Belong

• In Event: We Demand More: Expanding our Frames and Approaches to Serve the Needs of OUR Community

Abstract

The 2025 return of President Trump and the Project 2025 agenda have intensified attacks on racial and gender equity in higher education. Facing the threat of losing federal funding, institutions have curtailed diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programming, dismantled race‑based affinity spaces, and placed campus organizing under new oversight. For Black women scholars and graduate students—whose intellectual labor and epistemic agency have long been undervalued—these actions deepen the precarity of belonging. Grounded in Black Feminist Thought and fugitive theory, this paper theorizes Sisterhood While Black and examines Sister Circles as fugitive, protective spaces in the austerity academy. Drawing from literature and expert interviews, it explores how these spaces sustain Black women’s scholarship and leadership, offering recommendations for safeguarding their liberatory potential.

Authors

• Jada A. Phelps, Michigan State University

• Briana Green, Michigan State University