Benevolent intentions, dangerous ideologies: A critical discourse analysis of presidents' letters after the threat of the repeal of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

Abstract

Because presidents hold unique and important powerful roles that influence the formation of organizational identities and cultures, we used critical discourse analysis of 80 presidents’ letters to analyze presidents’ messages to their campuses and to uncover their discourses and assumptions surrounding Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)/undocumented students and their needs in light of the threat of the repeal of DACA. We used a critical theoretical framework and found 4 predominant discursive themes related to their perspectives of the DACA policy, depiction of DACA/undocumented students, institutional commitments, and organizational identity. Overall, presidents communicated benevolent intentions, but perpetuated dangerous ideologies and overlooked important elements of students’ lived realities.

Psychological Impact, Strengths, and Handling the Uncertainty Among Latinx DACA Recipients

“…Given our interest in identifying key concepts and ideas that undocumented Latinx immigrant young adult’s experience, content analysis was chosen over other qualitative approaches. Content analysis has been used in other studies with Latinx DACA youth in school’s K–12 as well as higher education (Allen-Handy & Farinde-Wu, 2018; Andrade & Lundberg, 2020). One of these studies highlighted familial support and how it contributed to educational success (Allen-Handy & Farinde-Wu, 2018).…”

“…One of these studies highlighted familial support and how it contributed to educational success (Allen-Handy & Farinde-Wu, 2018). Another study (Andrade & Lundberg, 2020) used content analysis to identify the discourse of DACA on college campuses, and others have used content analysis to examine strength, resilience (Luna & Montoya, 2019), and activism (Rodriguez et al, 2019) in the face of the negative sociopolitical climate. Specifically, content analysis describes written text by categorizing key contents into ideas rather than events (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008).…”

Performing Anti-racism: Universities Respond to Anti-Black Violence

“…Across these data, the national discourse surrounding the murder of George Floyd is the focus of broad institutional discourse regarding racism. Mirroring the data from other studies of presidential discourse related to DACA (Andrade & Lundberg, 2022;George Mwangi et al, 2019) these data illustrate how institutions construct racial equity as a national problem, deeply embedded in society. University responses shed light on a desire to unite the community (Hypolite & Stewart, 2019), positioning the university outside of public dialog regarding racism.…”

“…Further, presidential responses to public events are “inherently risky given the diversity of opinions and perspectives that exist on college campuses” (McNaughtan & McNaughtan, 2019, p. 199), with many presidents noting an obligation to respond national crisis. While the role of presidents may be perceived as symbolic, requiring engagement from diverse stakeholders, they are critical to setting a tone for advancing racial equity on campus (Andrade & Lundberg, 2022).…”

“…Recently, across the U.S. and globally, the intersection of student activism, national political turmoil, and increased use of technology to disseminate responses has increased this form of institutional discourse; communication by senior administration regarding local and national political events (McNaughtan et al, 2019). Focused on racial equity and higher education, the rising level of institutional comment, in response to national political topics, has sparked scholarship which captures the sentiments of institutional rhetoric related to specific political events (Andrade & Lundberg, 2022; George Mwangi et al, 2019; Hypolite & Stewart, 2019; Stein, 2018). Considering the presidential election, DACA, and racialized incidents on campus, the existing literature is augmented historical analysis, such as the work of Cole (2015) looking at presidential speeches in the 1960s.…”