Squad-Up or Perish: Community as Clapback for Faculty of Color in the Face of Inequity

• In Event: "Control, Alt, Delete": Recalibrating Work-Life Harmony and Reaffirming Scholarly Identity to Better Cultivate Educational Equity

Abstract

Purpose

Embracing the AERA 2022 Conference focus of cultivating equity by dismantling, redesigning, and reconstructing the current racist terrain of higher education, this paper amplifies the need for a community that validates, protects, strengthens, and envelops faculty of color when wellness waivers due to inequitable tenure-track practices. The author examines their tenure-track experience and reflects on the ways their “Village” pushed against master narratives and messaging for them when their strength waivered, reminding them of their worth. Furthermore, this paper argues for recentering and emphasizing the importance of a strong wellness practice, that includes a community, for faculty of color as they navigate an inequitable academy that requires more work of this population in order to be seen as “legitimate” and worthy scholars.

Theoretical Framework

This paper will use the tenets of Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000), drawing upon conceptual arguments that problematize strategies within education especially when institutions repudiate racism (DeCuir and Dixson 2004). Critical Race Theory “privileges the voices of those who bear the brunt of inequalities in society and relies heavily on storytelling, as opposed to analytic means, as a methodology to represent them” (Duncan, 2005, p. 200). Narratives, while acknowledging race as permeating all avenues of society, also allows for the intersections of identities. Counter narratives allow for the author to speak about the barriers faced and overcome while pursuing tenure as a scholar of color at a PWI (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Kimberly Crenshaw's (1989) theory of intersectionality, Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000), and Gloria Anzaldua's (1987) Borderlands Theory were used as frameworks for analyzing findings.

Methods

Incorporating Solórzano and Yosso’s critical race methodology, this paper combines counter-narrative with autoethnography (Mensah, 2019) as it allows for the author to validate and center lived experiences and reframe personal experience as truth while also pushing against and through established master narratives (Solórzano and Yosso, 2002).

Results

Findings establish and highlight the need for strong community support as tenure-track faculty of color combat and navigate racist academic spaces while also carrying the weight of being the lead or among the few scholars focused on increasing anti-racist and equitable practices in education. Data also suggests that strong community support is imperative to disempowering master narratives that aim to invalidate scholar of color voices, knowledge, research, and overall existence and should be seen as a cornerstone of re-setting and recentering the wellness of those who fight the “good fight'' daily.

Scholarly Significance

The author contributes to scholarly conversations about tenure-track faculty of color success and retention by calling attention to ways that current institutional practices minimize, erase, and overlook faculty of color intersectional experiences and needs, ultimately silencing this population. Furthermore, this paper pinpoints specific ways community can be centralized within the tenure-track experience to recenter faculty of color wellness, identify and prepare for tenure track challenges, combat master narratives and imposter syndrome, and ultimately remind faculty of color of their greatness.

Author

• Cecilia Elizabeth Suarez, University of Florida