How Diversity Fails: An Empirical Investigation of Organizational Status and Policy Implementation on Three Public Campuses

Abstract

Although diversity has been a guiding preoccupation in higher education for several decades, organizational diversity practice, i.e., what happens when colleges and universities implement diversity plans, is rarely a subject of inquiry. As a result, there is relatively little empirical understanding of why diversity has failed to significantly advance racial equity on college campuses. In response, this ethnographic, collective case study draws on interviews with 54 respondents, archival and organizational documents, and campus observations to interrogate diversity practice on three campuses of different status in one public system in the U.S. This study employs Bourdieu’s theory of practice, specifically institutional habitus as an analytic lens, to examine the influence of campus social status on diversity practice related to a statewide policy. Findings reveal that each campus has a unique institutional habitus—that is, a status-linked sense of campus identity, constraints, and opportunities—that prefigured and, on most campuses, derailed diversity practice in response to the policy. Only the middle-status campus made any substantive progress. By juxtaposing these findings, this analysis demonstrates that diversity practice does not exist within a campus vacuum; instead, it is inevitably influenced, constrained, or aided by the institutional habitus of the organizational environment. The paper concludes by arguing that organizational change efforts that recognize diversity work as a situated organizational practice that reflects broader power relations can better challenge inequities to spur transformative change across educational levels and contexts.

Whiteness and racialized emotions in leaders’ planning and implementing equity in graduate education organizations.

“…Specifically, I discuss how whiteness manifested through the centering of white-racialized emotions, which effectively decentered focus on racial justice. Adding to the literature on how whiteness is woven throughout the organization in normative ways of knowing and working (byrd, 2022;McCambly & Colyvas, 2022;Ray, 2019), I illustrate how whiteness worked by diverting energy away from racial equity goals and ultimately tempered the possibility of leaders to pursue organizational change that centered racial justice.…”

“…Whiteness via racialized emotions also distracted leaders away from racial equity and toward the comfort of privileged faculty. Whiteness worked through racialized emotions to coax leaders to give in the ease of their own racialized emotional comfort (Bonilla-Silva, 2019; C. Harris, 1993) as they led diversity and equity initiatives within their racialized organizations where whiteness persisted (byrd, 2022;Ray, 2019). Relatedly, whiteness also worked to redirect leaders' focus and work to center the anticipated or expressed white-racialized emotions of their colleagues (Bonilla-Silva, 2019;Patton & Haynes, 2018), again perpetuating whiteness within the racialized organization (byrd, 2022;C.…”

“…When racial incidents and protests about campus climate arise, administrators rely on diversity statements to respond and direct students to diversity policies and programs (Berrey, 2011, 2015; byrd, 2022; Cole & Harper, 2017; Hoffman & Mitchell, 2016). These diversity policies often center whiteness and eurocentric epistemologies while subordinating alternative ways of knowing and anyone who is not white (Alexander, 2005).…”

“…Implications of whiteness include diversity as a shift to race neutrality or race evasiveness (byrd, 2022; McCambly & Colyvas, 2022; Mueller, 2020) in language and consciousness and redirection from explicitly discussing and considering race and racial inequity (Berrey, 2011, 2015). For example, many universities use general race-evasive terms like equity in strategic plans or mission statements rather than directly discussing racial equity or racism (byrd, 2022; McCambly & Colyvas, 2022). Ahmed (2012) argues that nonperformative diversity efforts intentionally or inadvertently support whiteness within the organization.…”

“…In their conceptual framework on racialized change work, McCambly and Colyvas (2022) describe how leaders can engage and institutionalize organizational change that practices racial equity. In an ethnographic comparative case study, byrd (2022) argues organizational change to advance diversity is possible when organizational contexts like broader power structures and status are considered and leaders and initiatives are race conscious. Similarly, leaders can facilitate organizational change toward racial equity by leveraging institutional resources like a Federal Hispanic Serving Institute Grant to continuously support leaders and the ongoing development of their antiracist lens (Petrov & Garcia, 2021).…”