Notes on: McCoy, D. and Rodricks, D. (2015). Critical
Race Theory in Higher education: 20 Years of
Theoretical and Research Innovations
: ASHE Higher Education Report volume 41, number 3
Chapter 3
They are reviewing the literature to show how
'critical race tenets intersect to illuminate the
effects of race and racism on people of colour's
experience in the Academy' (16), first students,
and then faculty. [ CRT seems taken for granted in
its main claims and the focus seems to be on
gaining experiential evidence. Methods range from
focus groups to much more controversial
'composite characters' and counterstories. I
thought throughout of links with classic 'labelling
theory' and wondered if any of the people of
colour invovled were able to resist labels by
citing contradictory lables or otherwise negating
self-fulfilling prophecies as that literature
suggested --after all,some of them made it into
jobs as faculty in HE]
This is a US study. CRT has been used to examine
the various issues that affect people of colour
and their lived experiences, especially how
traditional aspects of education and the structure
supporting education 'perpetuate racism and
maintain subordinate and dominant racial positions
on college and university campuses'. CRT is a
'powerful theoretical framework and methodology'
and 'an analytic tool for examining a myriad of
educational issues'. It challenges '"Eurocentric
epistemology and… dominant notions of meritocracy,
objectivity and knowledge"', and suggests a
'"liberatory pedagogy that encourages enquiry,
dialogue, and participation"' (17). It is
interdisciplinary, transcending 'epistemological
and disciplinary boundaries, and has established
its own community of scholars from various
disciplinary backgrounds, all dedicated to expose
critique, and transform racism and other forms of
oppression, as in the 'scholar – activist
tradition' found in ethnic and women's studies'
and informed by various critical theories
including Marxist and feminist ones. It borrows
from sociology, history ethnic studies in women's
studies. It centres race and racism in historical
and contemporary contexts and challenges race and
racism and its impact. It is a social justice
project working towards the liberatory potential
of schooling.
It was first introduced in education in 1995, with
Ladson–Billings and Tate, who had three
propositions: 'race remains a significant aspect
of American society; American society is based on
property rights not human rights; the intersection
the of race and property offers "an analytical
tool for understanding both social and educational
inequity"' (18). Race had not been adequately
interrogated and theorised. CRT would be a
suitable analytic framework [an analytic
framework?More like a sensitising political
stance?]. Class and gender-based explanations were
'insufficient in describing the variance in
students of colour's educational experiences and
performance' — culture and poverty were not the
primary reasons for their inequality
The essential component of power was the ability
to define possession and property, and this
related to education in various ways, explicit and
implicit. For example affluent communities
resented funding public schools that serve
students of colour. The curriculum was a form of
intellectual property. Race and property
intersected, especially since whiteness conveyed
property functions like: rights of disposition;
rights to use and enjoyment; reputation and status
property; the absolute right to exclude, and this
was applied to education. CRT challenged whiteness
as the norm and recognised the permanence of
racism. Racial analysis will deepen the
understanding of the educational barriers faced by
people of colour.
Races are socially constructed concepts, so
conceptual notions emerge, including those of
whiteness which include '"school achievement,
middle-classness and intelligence"' as opposed to
'" gangs, welfare recipients and basketball
players"'. In white societies everyone is ranked
and categorised like this says Ladson-Billings.
[No 'cool' identities -- sportsmen, sexual
athletes, natural musicians and dancers?]
CRT has gone on to look at the experiences of
people of colour especially things like 'racial
micro-aggressions' and educational policy and
legal jurisprudence, in a number of works. They
have chosen works that show applicability and that
will also 'enhance the audience's understanding…
[Illuminate] the theories' depth and broadness'
(19). These works confront the majoritarian
narrative in higher education and also head
towards social justice.
Starting with students' experiences, studies have
shown various forms of oppression [I'm not going
to give references because there are many]. Lived
experiences must be 'viewed as "valid,
appropriate, and necessary forms of data"' (20)
[even if they are mistaken, biased, or the result
of misunderstanding?]
One study used 'a critical race methodology' to
'enhance understanding' of black students'
experiences that three elite predominantly white
institution, via case studies and focus groups.
The researchers [!] 'Sought to connect racial
stereotypes, cumulative racial micro-aggressions,
campus racial climate, and academic performance'.
The participants' counterstories highlighted the
effects of microaggression, revealed tense racial
climates and struggles with self-doubt frustration
and isolation. The conclusion was that 'even at
elite undergraduate institutions, inequality and
discrimination still exist'. [I would have liked
to have seen more detail about racial
microaggressions, for example, or tense racial
climates, compared to say class climates and class
micro aggression, how strong these were compared
with routine self-doubt frustration and isolation
and so on]
Another study developed a phenomenological
approach conducting interviews with 143 blackmail
undergraduate students at 13 predominantly white
institution 'to disrupt the master narrative and
deficit perspectives' [already committed then?].
It 'reviewed the etymology of "nigger"… and used
the term "niggering" to explain how white people
marginalised black males in education'[pretty
emotional stuff then]. The participants were
academic achievers and student leaders but despite
their success, they experienced racism and had to
negotiate their institutions, engaging with same
race peers and publicising their educational
achievements to white people who possessed deficit
perspectives. 'They resisted being "niggered"' by
being positive and resisting stereotypes, 'a form
of resistance and oppositional action' (21) [very
controversial I would have thought, political
action against stereotyping even if it didn't take
that form?].
Another study also 'combined critical race theory
with a phenomenological approach' [looks like one
of the authors], exploring intersectionalism with
students of colour and first-generation college
students, this time at 'an "extreme" predominantly
white institution… where students, faculty and
administrators of colour are grossly
underrepresented… [With]… a history of racism and
exclusionary politics and practices, the local
community is overwhelmingly white and offers
limited resources and/or services for people of
colour, and there are no "visible" communities of
colour' (21). Counterstories were gathered to
learn how students of colour transition from their
own diverse communities to such a community. They
had already experienced high educational
expectations, a difficult admissions process and
other challenging transitions and culture shock.
The conclusion was that the institutions needed to
create a little more inclusive campus community to
ease their transition, a more multicultural
student centre and staff and a more diverse
faculty [what a tame little conclusion, again just
lacking detail]. [These must have been tough
students, well able to resist superficial
judgments and prejudices]
Yet another study drew on CRT and Latino critical
theory, LatCrit, to see how educators might fully
understand and respond to Latino/a students needs.
Apparently there was potential for improving
understanding of their experiences, and new ways
to assess policy and practice, producing a better
understanding of inequalities and inconsistencies.
So CRT and all the other theories should be used
to enhance understanding. The same goes for
another study, this time looking at Chicana/o
student resistance in 1968 and 1993, the first one
a walkout, and the second a protest about the lack
of support for expansion of Chicano Studies. The
authors conclude that this form of resistance has
been ignored, but that what it was doing was
criticising oppression promoting social justice
and had a great possibility for social change.
Their method involved creating 'two composite
characters (a faculty member and an undergraduate
student) to illustrate the complexity' (22), again
an apparent triumph for CRT and other theories to
identify ways of engaging in resistance and
helping 'disrupt deficit perspectives'.
Another 'conceptual piece' considered educational
outcomes if black male student athletes worked
with community college administrators faculty and
coaches as they transferred from community
colleges to four-year institutions. Both parties
would benefit, but the institution and the coaches
would probably 'experience greater benefits — via
increased reputation, for example, or attracting
future donors [Jesus, scraping the bottom of the
barrel here].
There needs to be more on graduate students of
colour and the discrimination they might
experience. One study looks at Chicana/o students
again, involving the creation of two composite
characters again and gathering counterstories to
illustrate 'feelings of self-doubt, survivor
guilt, impostor syndrome, and invisibility' to
illustrate this otherwise marginal group. Another
study used CRT [how exactly?] to analyse
experience of 15 graduate students of colour on a
social work programme to analyse factors affecting
their professional development and socialisation.
In various ways they were ignored and experienced
'cultural and racial isolation [and] invisibility'
(24). The recommendations include that they should
be given mentors, and that the issue be addressed
better in the literature on professional
socialisation. The author also linked with earlier
work to show that such students experienced
'numerous racialised challenges while enrolled in
their academic program' [and how did they react?]
[Several points so
far: is this using CRT? It's trying to test out
some of the predictions about racism, or find
them. It's trying to use some of the methods to
gather the personal experiences of people of
colour, but some of those looked rather dubious
like introducing provocative terms like
'niggering' even though no participants
seem to used that, and developing composite
characters and then getting 'their' stories. At
the conclusion, the policies actually seemed
quite mild and to involve mentoring and better
advice in order to fit in — we're not exactly
talking about replacing white schemes with those
based on indigenous knowledge]
Turning to faculty, we can use CRT to 'develop a
more nuanced understanding' [very modest and
academic aims] of faculty experiences in academia.
They are underrepresented and frequently
concentrated in humanities, social sciences and
education, 'because of our sense of responsibility
and obligation to our communities' (24) they may
have been under studied because they 'choose to
not participate in studies because we are easily
identifiable' and were not seen as an important
research focus. There is also a problem that
'numerous white faculty do not believe faculty of
colour are objective in their scholarship and the
scholarship lacks rigour… [and]… there are those
who believe "this research can be validated only
with a comparison group of white faculty"' (24 –
25). [seems reasonable to me].
CRT has often provided evidence of unwelcoming and
hostile climates, for example Stanley used
autoethnography to illuminate participants'
experiences [quite a wide variety of ethnic
backgrounds it seems] and identified certain
themes — 'mentoring, collegiality, identity,
service, and racism' (25). They often had their
authority and credibility questioned in the
classroom [haven't we all] , but still experience
joy in teaching. They had also been mentored by
older faculty and had experienced professional
development. They saw relationships with white
faculty as critical. They saw that others perceive
them as a result of 'multiple intersecting
identities', gender and ethnicity, sexual
orientation and so on. They had 'heavy service
commitments' including mentoring students of
colour, recruiting diverse individuals, helping
local communities and 'educating white people in
the University community about diversity' (26).
They had racialised experiences at the
institutional and individual level. Their efforts
to diversify faculty were often greeted as of
little value.
Another study used CRT to identify 'an apartheid
of knowledge'maintained 'through epistemological
racism' used to patrol mainstream research.
Dominant epistemology has produced scholarship
that portrays people of colour as deficient and
renders 'faculty of colour scholarship as "biased
and non-rigourous"' (26) [might look this up:
Delgado Bernal and Villapando 2002].
There are frequent racial micro-aggressions. One
case study showed 'interpersonal racial
oppression', such as 'micro invalidations and
micro-insults' [apparently developed in a later
chapter]. Micro invalidations seem to involve
having your experiences questioned or dismissed,
micro-insults are seen in students frequently
challenging faculty members' intelligence. Racial
microaggressions can lead to additional service
commitments, supporting students of colour,
although African-American faculty often 'continue
to experience "chilly" campus climates' (27).
Another group used [?] CRT to share their
collective experiences after they had presented a
paper. 'To do so, they created a composite
character and used counternarrative' (27) to
represent all the voices and also protect authors
from unnecessary scrutiny. Another study used
'counterstorytelling' to highlight racial
profiling that black faculty experience in
classrooms, and another study referred to
'"teaching while black"' to refer to racial
profiling like '"driving while black"', and
developed their argument through composite
stories, participant counterstories which they
claimed would 'elucidate the 13 African-American
faculty members' experiences', and reveal
oppression in the classroom, such as having to
prove their credibility to disrespectful white
students. Other research showed that
cross-cultural communication is often
misinterpreted, and white students adhere to
stereotypes that African-American faculty 'are
aggressive and threatening', while there are often
insufficient mentors to explain the rules to
African-American faculty, including 'racialised
and gendered differences [the example is how a
composite character 'shared how she was
objectified by a white male colleague because he
considered her "a young, attractive, African
American woman"' (28].
The final example shows that the field of student
affairs can reveal that the participants
'experienced racial battle fatigue' as they
constantly have to cope with racial
micro-aggressions or hostility. The recommendation
is that more diverse faculty and mentoring is
required, especially to guide black faculty
seeking tenure. Again, any study that looks at
lived experiences apparently is 'consistent with
the critical race methodology' — this one used a
focus group to get the lived experiences of tenure
seeking faculty members and how difficult it is to
mix at work-related social events, and the need
for 'a coloured space… Where faculty of colour can
relate to each other beyond the scrutiny of the
dominant culture' (29).
Other studies looked at the publication process
and editorial review. This one suggests
quantitative research as an example, especially
because it seems to be more reliable and easier
for decision-making bodies, while research that
uses qualitative methods centred on race often
find that 'scholarship [is] critiqued a subjective
and non-scholarly' [well you can see why]. This
particular study looked at feedback of six
reviewers for a work submitted for publication and
the analysis showed 'an "adherence to the master
narrative"' which the analyst interpreted as 'an
editorial process steeped in white privilege and
research that was deemed valid only with a
comparison group of white faculty members' (30)
[this looks good too — Stanley 2006].
CRT allows for 'a thorough and robust analysis of
higher education policy and legal jurisprudence',
for those wanting to challenge racism and remedy
it. It offers a proactive framework to pursue
equal educational access especially for
'historically underrepresented populations'.
One example is affirmative action. Opponents say
that this discriminates against white people, and
there are advocates of colour blind ideology or
'race neutral meritocracy', but this adversely
affects student of colour, according to CRT, and
one advocate has offered a detailed discussion of
the strategies employed by opponents of
affirmative action.
In another example, apparently the US supreme
court ruled that the separate but equal doctrine
was no longer legal so that public schools had to
desegregate. However, CRT questions the effects,
and some theorists have argued that racial
inequality was reconfigured rather than dismantled
by this decision, for example by bringing about
effective segregation in urban communities, the
persistence of 'separate and unequal educational
spaces', with some states and districts even
'closing schools instead of integrating' (31)
In another case a white male applicant claimed
he'd been discriminated against because a
university had reserved some places for
historically underrepresented students, but lost
the case because the consideration of race was
legal as a remedy. However, some CRT scholars
think that these legal decisions are being
gradually eroded.
In another case still, another white student
claimed that race-based admissions policies at the
University of Michigan discriminated against more
qualified white applicants. She lost the case, but
the judgement was not particularly grounded or
extended to other areas.
Why is change so slow in higher education? CRT can
help explain why because it explains the
pervasiveness of white superiority and its
'performative discourse of whiteness' as 'the
cornerstone of higher education delivery which
shapes people of colour is experiences.
The tenets of CRT and its focus on the counter
story is central, both as a theoretical framework
and as a methodology. It shows the complex power
differentials and helps us critique
colourblindness and meritocracy. It also shows how
the law and institutional programs and policies
support whiteness. There may be no systemic
escape, but CRT offers much promise, offering
'both tension and possibility' how well
[Further chapters promise to discuss these issues]
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