Transgressions on Students and Faculty of Color in Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter considers transgressions that students and faculty of color face in higher education. Specifically, the chapter examines how implicit bias and microaggressions affect the experiences of students and faculty of color. Special attention is paid to strategies that prevent or address these transgressions from both personal and contextual approaches. The chapter ends with a thought-provoking case study that portrays the multifaceted dimensions of these troubling transgressions in the classroom and provides the reader with some reflection questions to consider.

“Are You Willing to Die for This Work?” Public Targeted Online Harassment in Higher Education: SWS Presidential Address

“…While the current upswing in targeted online harassment of faculty that I discuss in this address is rightfully receiving increased attention over the past year, the common, everyday patterns of harassment and discrimination that many faculty from oppressed groups live with receives relatively little attention. Faculty who are people of color, white women, working class, and LGBTIQ often face ongoing harassment, such as microaggressions and bullying, from both students and colleagues, ranging from subtle to overt (Frazier 2011; Fuentes et al 2018; Hunn et al 2015; Louis et al 2016; Mabokela and Green 2001; Pittman 2012). These faculty are more likely to be underrepresented in the curriculum (Sadker and Silber 2007; van Dijk, van Driel, and Archbishop Tutu 2007); feel stigmatized (Lee 2017); receive lower teaching evaluations from students (Amos 2014; Boring, Ottoboni, and Stark 2016); be directly challenged by students in the classroom (Fox 2009; Perlow, Bethea, and Wheeler 2014); to be less likely to receive tenure and promotion to associate and full professor (Frazier 2011); conduct invisible, unrecognized and unremunerated labor, often emotion work (Bryzzheva 2016; Subramaniam and Kadowaki 2014); and face generally hostile climates (De Welde and Stepnick 2015; Mabokela and Green 2001).…”

Confronting the Embedded Nature of Whiteness: Reflections on a Multi-Campus Project to Diversify the Professoriate

“…While there is a current movement across PWIs to address the historical oppression and marginalization of BIPOC faculty, staff, and students through DEI initiatives, these initiatives are not always successful due to the overwhelming number of challenges that BIPOC faculty face. An example of this is that PWI campus climates are often hostile and alienating (Fuentes et al, 2018), which results from a "lack of belonging, discrimination, social exclusion, and tokenism" for minoritized faculty (Settles et al, 2021, p. 1). BIPOC faculty are routinely challenged in the classroom, particularly when addressing race and ethnicity with students (Harlow, 2003;Turner et al, 2008;Pittman, 2010;Sue et al, 2011).…”