Abstract
Using a short story fiction counter-narrative, this critical race study examines how faculty of color within higher education and student affairs doctoral-granting programs bring critical epistemologies to their decision-making in the student admissions process and work to decolonize the academy despite neoliberal pressures. Faculty of color depart from current accounts of faculty decision-making in doctoral education in two key ways—by disregarding standardized measures of success and by considering diversity throughout the entire admissions process—leading us to important insights about how faculty of color differ from white faculty in their perception of and in their emphasis on diversity, equity, and justice in the admissions process. The implications are both broad and specific for creating dynamically diverse campus climates in an era of persistent challenges to affirmative action. The findings speak to the ways that those concerned with educational diversity and equity can support diversity and equity efforts in a neoliberal, color-blind environment. In a world defined by such policy and practice and a country that determines options and opportunity based on race, this study centers the voices of faculty of color in their institutions and analyzes how identity and institutional logics influence behavior.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Latinx is a gender-neutral racial/ethnic identifier for participants who are from or are descendants of Latin American countries.
References
ACPA/NASPA. (2010). Envisioning the future of student affairs. Washington, DC: Author.
Agosto, V., Karanxha, Z., & Bellara, A. (2014). Battling inertia in educational leadership: CRT praxis for race conscious dialogue. Race Ethnicity and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2014.885420.
Aguirre, A. (2005). The personal narrative as academic storytelling: A Chicano’s search for presence and voice in academe. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,18(2), 147–163.
Ahmed, S. (2012). On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Attiyeh, G., & Attiyeh, R. (1997). Testing for bias in graduate school admissions. Journal of Human Resources,32, 524–548.
Baez, B. (2000). Race-related service and faculty of color: Conceptualizing critical agency in academe. Higher Education,39, 363–391.
Barone, T. (2007). A return to the gold standard?: Questioning the future of narrative construction as educational research. Qualitative Inquiry,13(4), 454–470.
Berrey, E. (2015). The enigma of diversity: The language of race and the limits of racial justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2009). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Bonilla-Silva, E., & Dietrich, D. (2011). The sweet enchantment of color-blind racism in obamerica. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,634(1), 190–206.
Bowen, W. G., & Rudenstine, N. L. (1992). In pursuit of the Ph.D.. Cambridge, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Butin, D. W. (2001). If this is resistance I would hate to see domination: Retrieving Foucault’s notion of resistance within educational research. Educational Studies,32(2), 157–176.
Butner, B. K., Burley, H., & Marbley, A. F. (2000). Coping with the unexpected: Black faculty at predominantly White institutions. Journal of Black Studies,30(3), 453–462.
Cabrera, N. (2018). Where is the racial theory in critical race theory?: A constructive criticism of the crits. The Review of Higher Education,42(1), 209–233.
Caulley, D. N. (2008). Making qualitative research reports less boring: The techniques of writing creative nonfiction. Qualitative Inquiry,14(3), 424–449.
Deakin, H., & Wakefield, K. (2014). Skype interviewing: Reflections of two doctoral researchers. Qualitative Research,14(5), 603–616.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory. New York: New York University Press.
Delgado-Bernal, D., & Villalpando, O. (2002). The apartheid of knowledge in the academy: The struggle over “legitimate” knowledge for faculty of color. Equity and Excellence in Education,35, 169–180.
Dixson, A. D., Rousseau Anderson, C. K., & Donner, J. K. (2017). Critical race theory in education: All God’s children got a song (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
DuBois, W. E. B. (2005). The souls of Black folk. New York, NY: Bantam Dell.
Eddy, P. L., & Gaston-Gayles, J. L. (2008). New faculty on the block: Issues of stress and support. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment,17(1–2), 89–106.
Espino, M. M. (2012). Seeking the “truth” in the stories we tell: The role of critical race epistemology in higher education research. The Review of Higher Education,36(1), 31–67.
Freeley, T. H., Williams, V. M., & Wise, T. J. (2005). Testing the predictive validity of the GRE exam on communication graduate student success: A case study at the University of Buffalo. Communication Quarterly,53(2), 229–245.
Fries-Britt, S., & Kelly, B. (2005). Retaining each other: Narratives of two African American women in the academy. The Urban Review,37(3), 221–242.
Garces, L. M. (2012). Racial diversity, legitimacy, and the citizenry: The impact of affirmative action bans on graduate school enrollment. The Review of Higher Education Fall Supplement,36(1), 93–132.
Garces, L. M. (2013). Understanding the impact of affirmative action bans in different graduate fields of study. American Education Research Journal,50(2), 251–284.
Garces, L. M., & Jayakumar, U. M. (2014). Dynamic diversity: Toward a contextual understanding of critical mass. Educational Researcher,43(3), 115–124.
Gee, J. P. (2014). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York, NY: Routledge.
Giroux, H. (2015). Democracy in crisis, the specter of authoritarianism, and the future of higher education. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs,1(1), 101–113.
Griffin, K. A., Bennett, J. C., & Harris, J. (2011a). Analyzing gender differences in Black faculty marginalization through a sequential mixed-methods design. In K. A. Griffin & S. D. Museus (Eds.), Special issue: Using mixed-methods approaches to study intersectionality in higher education, Issue 151 New Directions for Institutional Research (pp. 45–61). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Griffin, K. A., Pifer, M. J., Humphrey, J. R., & Hazelwood, A. M. (2011b). (Re)defining departure: Exploring Black professors’ experiences with and responses to racism and racial climate. American Journal of Education,117, 495–526.
Guinier, L. (2003). Admissions rituals as political acts: Guardians at the gates of our democratic ideals. Harvard Law Review,117, 113.
Guinier, L. (2015). The tyranny of the meritocracy: Democratizing higher education in America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Haag, P. (2005). Is collegiality code for hating ethnic, racial, and female faculty at tenure time? The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education,2005, 57–62.
Hagedorn, L. S., & Nora, A. (1996). Rethinking admissions criteria in graduate and professional programs. New Directions for Institutional Research,92(1), 31–44.
Hamer, J. F., & Lang, C. (2015). Race, structural violence, and the neoliberal university: The challenges of inhabitation. Critical Sociology,41(6), 897–912.
Hartley, M., & Morphew, C. (2008). What’s being sold and to what end? A content analysis of college viewbooks. Journal of Higher Education,79(6), 671–691.
Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Holvino, E. (2010). Intersections: The simultaneity of race, gender and class in organization studies. Gender, Work and Organization,17(3), 248–277.
Hooks, B. (2009). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston, MA: South End Press.
Humes, K. R., Jones, N. A., & Ramirez, R. R. (2010). Overview of race and Hispanic origin. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau.
Jones, S. R., Arminio, J., & Torres, V. (2014). Negotiating the complexities of qualitative research in higher education (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Jones, S. R., Kim, Y. C., & Skendall, K. C. (2012). (Re-)framing authenticity: Considering multiple social identities using autoethnographic and intersectional approaches. The Journal of Higher Education,83(5), 698–723.
Joseph, J., & Holley, K. A. (2013). Increasing diversity in doctoral education: Implications for theory and practice: New directions for higher education, number 163 J-B HE single issue higher education 163 (163rd ed.). US: Jossey Bass Ltd.
Kelly, B. T., & McCann, K. (2013). Women faculty of color: Success stories from the margins. Journal of the International Association for the Study of the Global Achievement Gap,1, 29–44.
Kuncel, N. R., Hezlett, S. A., & Ones, D. S. (2001). A comprehensive meta-analysis of the predictive validity of the Graduate Record Examinations: Implications for graduate student selection and performance. Psychological Bulletin,127(1), 162–181.
Ladson-Billings, G., & Tate, W. F. (2017). Toward a critical race theory of education. In A. D. Dixson, C. K. Rousseau, & J. K. Donnor (Eds.), Critical race theory in education: All God’s children got a song (pp. 11–31). New York, NY: Routledge.
Lamont, M. (2009). How professors think: Inside the curious world of academic judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Levinson, B. A. U., Gross, J. P. K., Link, J., & Hanks, C. (2011). Forerunners and foundation builders: Origins of a Western critical social theory tradition. In B. Levinson (Ed.), Beyond critique: Exploring critical social theories and Education (pp. 25–50). London, UK: Paradigm.
Liu, A. (2011). Unraveling the myth of meritocracy within the context of U.S. higher education. Higher Education,62(1), 383–397.
McCann, K. I. (2014). Master’s students’ experiences in a graduate preparation program: Multicultural competency and social justice curriculum (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Loyola University Chicago, IL.
McDonough, P. M. (1997). Choosing colleges: How social class and schools structure opportunity. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Medina, C., & Luna, G. (2000). Narratives from Latina professors in higher education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly,31(1), 47–66.
Morrison, T., & Morrison, M. (1995). A meta-analytic assessment of the predictive validity of the quantitative and verbal components of the graduate record examination with graduate grade point average representing the criterion of graduate success. Educational and Psychological Measurement,55(2), 309–316.
National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES]. (2017). Doctor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and field of study: 2014–2015 and 2015–2016. See Digest of Education Statistics 2017, table 324.25. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_324.25.asp.
National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES]. (2018). Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctor’s degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions by field of study: Selected years, 1970–71 through 2015–2016. See Digest of Education Statistics 2017, table 318.20. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_318.20.asp.
Nespor, J. (2000). Anonymity and place in qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry,6(4), 546–569.
Okahana, H., & Zhou, E. (2018). Graduate enrollment and degrees: 2007–2017. Washington DC: Council of Graduate Schools.
Osei-Kofi, N., Torres, L. E., & Lui, J. (2013). Practices of whiteness: Racialization in college admissions viewbooks. Race Ethnicity and Education,16(3), 385–405.
Patel, L. (2015). Decolonizing educational research: From ownership to answerability. New York, NY: Routledge.
Patitu, C. L., & Hinton, K. G. (2003). The experiences of African American women faculty and administrators in higher education: Has anything changed? New Directions for Student Services,2003(104), 79–93.
Piper, H., & Sikes, P. (2010). All teachers are vulnerable but especially gay teachers: Using composite fictions to protect research participants in pupil-teacher sex-related research. Qualitative Inquiry,16(7), 566–574.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. Qualitative Studies in Education,8(1), 5–23.
Poon, O. A., & Segoshi, M. S. (2018). The racial mascot speaks: A critical race discourse analysis of Asian Americans and Fisher v. University of Texas. Review of Higher Education,42(1), 235–267.
Poon, O. A., Segoshi, M., Tang, L., Surla, K., & Squire, D. (Forthcoming). Asian Americans, affirmative action, and the political economy of racism: A multidimensional model of raceclass frames. Harvard Educational Review.
Pope, R. L., Mueller, J. A., & Reynolds, A. L. (2009). Looking back and moving forward: Future directions for diversity research in student affairs. Journal of College Student Development,50(6), 640–658.
Posselt, J. R. (2013a). The merit-diversity paradox in doctoral admissions: Examining situated judgment in faculty decision making (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Posselt, J. R. (2013b). Four homophilies in graduate admissions: Patterns and dynamics of faculty tastes. Paper presented at the annual meeting for the Association for the Study of Higher Education, St. Louis, MO.
Posselt, J. R. (2014). Applicant evaluation as admissions practice: A socio-cognitive framework of faculty judgment in U.S. doctoral admissions. Handbook of Higher Education Admissions Policy and Practice.
Posselt, J. R. (2016). Inside graduate admissions. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Posselt, J. R. (2018). Trust networks: A new perspective on pedigree and the ambiguities of admissions. Journal of Higher Education,41(4), 497–521.
Sedlacek, W. E. (2004). Beyond the Big Test: Noncognitive Assessment in Higher Education. Indianapolis, IN: Jossey-Bass.
Solórzano, D., & Yosso, T. (2002). A critical race counterstory of race, racism, and affirmative action. Equity and Excellence in Education,35(2), 155–168. https://doi.org/10.1080/713845284.
Squire, D. (Forthcoming). The neoliberal and neoracist tendencies of international doctoral student of color admissions in graduate education programs. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education.
Squire, D. D. (2015). Shifting narratives in doctoral admissions: Faculty of color understandings of diversity, equity, and justice in a neoliberal context (Doctoral dissertation, 1972). Retrieved from http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1972.
Stake, J. E. (2006). Minority admissions to law school: More trouble ahead, and two solutions. St. John’s Law Review,80(1), 301–321.
Stapleton, L. D. (2014). The unexpected talented tenth: Black d/Deaf students thriving within the margins. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Iowa State University, IA.
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist,52(6), 613–629.
Steinberg, J. (2002). The gatekeepers: Inside the admissions process of a premier college. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Stewart, D.-L., & Nicolazzo, Z. (2018). The high impact of [whiteness] on trans* students in postsecondary education. Equity & Excellence in Education,51(2), 132–145.
Stockdill, B. C., & Danico, M. Y. (2012). The ivory tower paradox: Higher education as a site of oppression and resistance. In B. C. Stockdill & M. Y. Danico (Eds.), Transforming the ivory tower: Challenging racism and homophobia in the academy (pp. 1–30). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
Stricker, L. J., & Bejar, I. I. (2004). Test difficulty and stereotype threat on the GRE general Test. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,34(3), 563–597. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02561.x.
Thomas, G. D., & Hollenshead, C. (2001). Resisting from the margins: The coping strategies of Black women and other women of color faculty members at a research university. The Journal of Negro Education,70(3), 166–175.
Tierney, W. G., & Clemens, R. F. (2011). Qualitative research and public policy: The challenges of relevance and trustworthiness. In J. C. Smart & M. B. Paulsen (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 57–84). New York, NY: Springer.
Turner, C. S. V. (2003). Incorporation and marginalization in the academy: From border toward center for faculty of color? Journal of Black Studies,34(1), 112–125.
Vaseleck, J. (1994). Stop working and put down your pencils: The use and misuse of standardized admission tests. Journal of College and University Law, 20(4), 405–415.
Vickers, M. H. (2010). The creation of fiction to share other truths and different viewpoints: A creative journey and an interpretive process. Qualitative Inquiry,16(7), 556–565.
Wendler, C., Bridgeman, B., Cline, F., Millett, C., Rock, J., Bell, N., et al. (2010). The path forward: The future of graduate education in the US. Washington, DC: Educational Testing Service.
Wicherts, J. M., Dolan, C. V., & Hessen, D. J. (2005). Stereotype threat and group differences in test performance: A question of measurement invariance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,89(5), 696–716.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Kate Gallagher for all her support and insight in reviewing a prior version of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the University of Denver Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study of (in)Equality (IRISE) for their support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Squire, D.D. “It’s Pretty Essential”: A Critical Race Counter-Narrative of Faculty of Color Understandings of Diversity and Equity in Doctoral Admissions. Urban Rev 52, 173–197 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-019-00523-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-019-00523-4