Examining the Place and Opportunity for Anti-racism Protest in U.S. Higher Education Practice

• In Event: It's about damn time: Protesting racism in global higher education through teaching, research, and practice!

Proposal

The purpose of this presentation is to 1) Consider anti-racism protests in U.S. higher education practice, 2) question the possibilities of practitioner-activism in U.S. higher education.

Protest in higher education (HE) contexts is nearly as old as higher education itself. However, higher education institutions (HEI) themselves are often regarded as ivory towers out of touch with global social issues and the communities that surround them (Ramasubramanian & Sousa, 2021). Despite this perception, ample data exist that highlights HE stakeholders, students in particular, as drivers of racial progress within HEIs. Contemporary student activism addressing racial inequality in US contexts (Rhoades, 2016) and, student protest across borders (Brooks, 2016), including the ‘why is my curriculum white?’ and ‘Rhodes must fall’ activism in the UK has contributed to change both within HEIs and the global communities in which they are situated.

Similarly, we can look to the rise of scholar-activists in HE contexts (Quaye, Shaw, & Hill, 2017) who leverage their proximity to privilege in support of minoritized and marginalized communities (Huerta, 2018) and demand their institutions center anti-racist practices. Scholar (and institutional) engagement in critical pedagogies aims to transform oppressive educational and pedagogic practice (Freire, 1970 & 1998; Wink, 2005/2011), which have an element of advocacy and activism. Scholars such as Stephens and Bagelman (2023) describe what it meant to be a scholar-activists, saying, “we develop ideas about how enacting our academic lives through a politics of in-between involves developing transversal relations, practising pedagogical dissent, and engaging in non-heroic, creative acts of citizenship” (p. 329). Though much is known about the role of student and scholar activists within HE contexts, little is known about how HE practitioners engage in anti-racism protest in U.S. contexts.

There is some work that highlights the practitioner as activist. Reflecting on administration as activism in HE Barrett (2005) described her purpose as “furthering my small “a” activist agenda. Zerquera, et al. (2018) examined practitioner-driven assessment and evaluation efforts in student affairs as opportunities for embedding tenets of social justice. Higashi and Stebleton (2020) called for career development professionals in postsecondary institutions to examine “how one’s actions can help dismantle systems of oppression that continue to disempower people with marginalized identities” (para 2). In conceptualizing DEI as a form of resistance given the increased legislation against raced-based initiatives in the U.S. that focus on campus racial equality, Knox (2023) highlights DEI administrators whose work may not be in the form of protest on “statehouse steps” but instead in the campus offices working directly with students with marginalized identities. These insights highlight the potential of individual acts of activism and resistance in advancement of anti-racism efforts, which leads to questions of the place and opportunities for anti-racism protest in HE practice.

Adapting the line of inquiry raised by Stephens and Bagelman (2023) this presentation seeks to consider: what might it mean to pursue change in the spaces of the university, using the tools we have at hand, as we consider the future possibilities for practitioner-activism in U.S. higher education?

Author

• Louise Michelle Vital, Boston University