Desiring Diversity and White Settler Backlash in Higher Education

• In Event: 324 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. RGC and Education

Abstract

In this paper, I offer an analysis of acts of backlash to diversity on higher education campuses through the lens of critical race theory and white settler colonialism, situating these acts as logical and even predictable consequences of a society borne of stratified racist capitalism where territoriality and entitlement permeates the collective consciousness. My attention is on college campuses not because they are unique in these displays but because of their visible position in the nation’s rhetoric of meritocracy, upward mobility, and the desire for the appearance of diversity.

Author

• Lisa Patel, Boston College