: A Qualitative Exploration of How Black College Students Experience the Campus Racial Climate

• In Event: Humanizing and Liberatory: Imperatives for Equitable Postsecondary Education Systems in the 21st Century

Abstract

Extant research indicates that Black college students at HPWIs experience the campus racial climate negatively (D'Augelli, & Hershberger, 1993; Solórzano et al., 2000). However, little is known about how engagement in co-curricular diversity programming shapes the campus racial climate for minoritized students. As HPWIs continue to extend initiatives centering diversity, equity and inclusion, it is important to understand how they may impact Black students. This study explores how Black students who engage in co-curricular diversity programming experience the campus racial climate at an HPWI.

Critical Race Theory (Solórzano & Yosso 2000) with specific emphasis on the following
three tenets:
(1) The centrality of race and racism and their intersection with other forms of subordination.
(2) The centrality of experiential knowledge.
(3) Challenge of dominant ideology.

This presentation uses a Black Liberation Research methodology (Steward & Haynes, 2019) to explore the ways in which Black students experience the campus racial climate. Black Liberation Research is a critical qualitative approach that rejects scholarship which situates Black students in positions of pain and disadvantage. Instead, Black Liberation Research redirects attention away from Black deprivation and focuses upon racist institutional customs, policies, and practices that produce negative experiences for Black students in higher education.

Data was pulled from a larger empirical research study which included a total of 20 semi-structured, virtual, one-on-one interviews with 10 Black students at a large northeastern PWI.

Despite engagement in co-curricular diversity programming, participants continued to experience the psychological climate negatively. These findings call into question the capacity of programs to improve the experiences of Black students at HPWIs. Findings revealed that anti-Black racism shaped participants' lived experiences in and out of the classroom. Consistent with recent campus racial climate studies (Griffin et. al., 2016; Lewis & Shaw, 2019), participants discussed constant exposure to anti-Black racial microaggressions perpetrated by white peers, faculty, and staff. However, participants reported that participation in cocurricular diversity programs provided insights about the functions of racism on campus and within larger society.

The scholarly significance of this study is twofold. Firstly, findings offer current insights into how Black students experience the campus racial climate at a HPWI. Contrary to the espoused benefits of co-curricular diversity programs, participants continued to experience the campus racial climate negatively. As students return to campus following the COVID-19 pandemic, this study can serve as a useful guide to understanding individual and institutional level forces that inform the ways in which Black students experience the campus racial climate. Secondly, this study illustrates the capacity of co-curricular diversity programs to support Black students. Considering the proliferation of diversity initiatives among HPWIs, it is important to better understand how Black students experience and make meaning of them.

Author

• Alex Kenney, The Pennsylvania State University