Equity Advocates Using Equity-Mindedness to Interrupt Faculty Hiring's Racial Structure

Abstract

Background/Context Education scholars have recommended steps for college and university leaders to take toward creating a more racially diverse professoriate. However, the majority of the scholarship is neither empirical nor focused on faculty actively negotiating barriers during search committee meetings to create equitable practices. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The study examined faculty within search committees who received formal training to interrogate exclusionary hiring procedures and create race-conscious and equitable hiring practices. My goals were to understand the strategies and efforts to advance racial equity of faculty trained on equity-mindedness to negotiate and use practices to change exclusionary hiring procedures. Thus, I answer the following research questions: (1) How do professors enact their agency to create equitable hiring practices during faculty search committee meetings? (2) What challenges do professors encounter when using equity-minded practices during faculty search committees? How do professors overcome such challenges? Setting The study site was a religiously affiliated private liberal arts university with a predominantly White student and faculty population. Senior administrators invested resources in a ten-month intervention to train 17 faculty to advance racial equity in faculty hiring. Population/Participants/Subjects Study participants consisted of 10 faculty members whose university leadership designated them as advocates of racial equity on search committees. Research Design Data for this critical narrative analysis were collected through eight interviews with faculty equity advocates, observations of two faculty search committees, and documents of hiring materials such as hiring criteria, interview questions, and evaluation rubrics. Findings/Results Ultimately, faculty enacted their agency to deactivate exclusionary practices and inscribe new rules for search committees to follow. The findings illustrate that faculty agency for racial equity is an effort to establish positional power, to use equity-minded practices, and to informally strategize to overcome resistance as members of faculty search committees. Conclusions/Recommendations I conclude that faculty advance racial equity by manipulating and subverting practices (e.g., recruitment strategies, evaluation criteria), rules (e.g., conversations about race), and roles (e.g., legitimate roles as committee members, who have the knowledge to integrate equity-mindedness) that historically excluded racially minoritized professors from the hiring process. Study findings suggest for senior administrators to train faculty search committee members on taking active steps to create an equity-minded evaluation system, including the appointment of people who are explicitly trained to advocate for equity in the evaluation process.

Role conflict: How search committee chairs negotiate faculty status, diversity, and equity in faculty searches.

“…Search members believed they were operating based on merit and objectivity, when in fact, they were perpetuating gendered, racialized, and privileged forms of language, behaviors, and interactions with diverse candidates. While Tierney and Bensimon’s study was more than two decades ago, a recent study examining faculty searches through a racial lens revealed a similar account (Liera, 2020a). Liera found, however, that when search members intentionally critiqued the racialized roots of the academic search process, they were more apt to ensure equity in their hiring decisions.…”

“…Faculty have been socialized to reproduce the normative faculty hierarchy of the institution in their institutional roles, which promotes a racialized organizational culture that privileges White culture (Bess & Dee, 2008;Liera, 2020aLiera, , 2020bTierney & Bensimon, 1996). Because they must operate in this interlocking network, they may not be well suited to challenge or see issues within the hierarchical, hegemonic, and biased structure of the university while serving in their dual role as a search chair and faculty member.…”

“…In sum, it is within the intimate context of the search committee that important hiring decisions are made (Liera, 2020b; Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017; Smith et al, 2004). Why diversity and equity matter and how these concepts are operationalized in faculty searches is a value-laden process that will openly and implicitly engage the biases of the individual and the institution (Choudhury, 2015; Liera, 2020a, 2020b) and affect hiring decisions (Smith et al, 2004). Because research has indicated that search committees exercise bias against minoritized groups (i.e., Adam, 1981; Collins, 1998; Williams et al, 2016), inequitable hiring practices may be due to ignored, dismissed, or overlooked biases grounded in status quo decision-making (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017) and colorblind discourse (Liera, 2020b).…”

“…This study has implications for the interpersonal and institutional dynamics of search committee practices. For decades, higher education professionals have known that implicit bias produces inequitable hiring outcomes for diverse faculty (Adam, 1981; Collins, 1998; Liera, 2020a, 2020b; Smith et al, 2004; Steinpreis et al, 1999). While there is a breadth of research on the import of diversity, and evidence-based practices for recruiting a diverse faculty (Taylor et al, 2010; Turner et al, 2008), the interpersonal aspect of faculty hiring decisions must be further interrogated due to continued disparities in faculty hiring (Liera, 2020b).…”

“Moving the Science Forward”: Faculty Perceptions of Culturally Diverse Mentor Training Benefits, Challenges, and Support

“…Internal and external pressures from various stakeholders have compelled institutional leaders to grapple with historic and contemporary racial disparities. This is especially true of the professoriate (e.g., Liera, 2020a , b ; White-Lewis, 2020 , 2021 ), yet concerns in this area are not merely isolated to matters of representation. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deeply intractable inequities in health, wealth, public policy, and technology that negatively impact racially minoritized students’ 1 educational opportunities ( Laster Pirtle, 2020 ).…”