A Critical Discourse Analysis of Senior Administrative Leaders' Responses to Anti-Blackness

• In Event: Equitable Education Systems and Organizational Discourses

Abstract

After the murder of George Floyd, higher education leaders released statements to address Floyd’s death, in particular, and racial injustices, in general. The purpose of the paper is to examine university messaging related to Black personhood, collective responsibility, and institutional charge. The paper investigates the ways in which leaders reinscribe, critique, and contest racism and racist institutions. The authors, informed by relational sociology, employ a crisis communication framework to analyze a national sample of senior administrative leaders' statements about racism at Carnegie classified, research-intensive universities. They find key differences among statements. Statements in which administrators identify as Black include personal experiences in the context of racial injustices; whereas, other statements use comparatively neutral language to emphasize conciliation and change.

Authors

• Ceceilia Parnther, St. John's University

• Randall F. Clemens, St. John's University