Racial Equality Research Articles

Messing with the Master Narrative: The Challenges of Challenging Meritocracy in Undergraduate Education “Diversity” Coursework

Higher education is working to diversify the undergraduate curriculum to support critical thinking and promote racial justice—pressing work, particularly at predominantly white colleges and universities. To support students’ critical thinking, we need to better understand their awareness of systemic inequities as they enter and exit undergraduate diversity courses. To inform the development of undergraduate curricula, we use iterative comparative analysis of students’ written work to investigate patterns in their thinking regarding issues of systemic inequalities in U.S. public schools before and after an undergraduate diversity course. We examine patterns in student language as they make sense of systemic inequities using course data that centers historic and systemic inequities in U.S schools. We find that students consider these data within their already-held narratives of meritocracy and individuality, resulting in troubled text regarding the role of race and class privilege, and the responsibility/culpability of systems versus individuals in educational attainment.

“#AsiatiquesDeFrance”: confronting anti-Asian racism in contemporary France through digital media

Anti-Asian racism and violence have escalated around the world, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, in France, racially motivated violence against people perceived as “Asian” was already on the rise, even before the pandemic. Frustrated by the lack of public outrage and the inaction of government authorities, people of Asian heritage in France – who have come from a diverse range of countries, over several generations – have begun mobilizing collectively in new and more ambitious ways. Young people, in particular, have taken to the internet. Using social media platforms, they have not only organized in-person events, including protest marches in central Paris that have numbered in the tens of thousands of people, but have also cultivated online communities focusing on racial solidarity with just as many followers. Social media accounts, hashtags, YouTube webseries, podcasts, and internet-based projects aiming to combat anti-Asian racism while also promoting intersectional racial justice, have thus proliferated in the past few years. This article examines a few prominent examples of these works, including the viral video “#AsiatiquesDeFrance” (2017), to argue that all of these forms convey common messages that deal explicitly with issues of cultural assimilation, national belonging, racial othering, and racism faced by people of Asian heritage in France.

The Racial Justice Dilemma: Examining the Enforcement of Capital Punishment in Contemporary Legal Systems

This research aims to discuss the dilemma of racial justice that arises in the enforcement of capital punishment in various contemporary legal systems. Although legal principles mandate justice and equality before the law, the enforcement of capital punishment often reflects glaring racial imbalance. This study analyzes the factors causing racial disparities in the application of capital punishment, as well as its impact on public trust in the legal system. The research also investigates various reform efforts that have been proposed or implemented to address the issue of racial justice in the enforcement of capital punishment. Referring to various reports, studies, and official sources from Indonesia, it can be concluded that urgent reforms are needed to address this dilemma. Measures such as racial awareness training for legal professionals, increased access to legal aid, and a review of law enforcement policies are key to improving racial justice and rebuilding public trust in the justice system. Thus, this analysis not only provides a deeper understanding of racial justice issues in the context of capital punishment in Indonesia but also highlights the efforts needed to create a fairer, more inclusive legal system respected by all members of society.

“A Wound That Was Already Festering”: The Burdens of a Racial Justice Program on Teachers of Color

Background: Research that documents the influence of anti-racism programs on teacher practice shows some desired outcomes, including developing critical consciousness to support students of color and educate others about stereotyping; understanding how racial bias affects one’s teaching and relationships with students; and implementing anti-racist approaches in schoolwide policies and practice. At the same time, research on anti-racist professional development (PD) also highlights the challenges of engaging in this work when white teachers, in particular, respond defensively or dismissively. Studies have shown how these responses can reinforce stereotyping behavior among white participants and reinscribe unequal social relationships. Research Questions: This article aims to answer the following questions: (1) How do white educators, if they do at all, display resistance to racial justice work? (2) How does resistance among white educators, if it does so at all, shape the experiences of educators of color? (3) How can schools reduce the potential burden of racial justice work on educators of color? Research Design: This article draws on data from a case study of a New York City elementary school that participated in a yearlong racial justice program. Data sources include semi-structured interviews with school and program leaders; focus groups with members of the racial equity committee and other teachers; observations of professional development sessions, racial equity committee meetings, and other program activities; and artifacts related to the implementation of the program to deepen our understanding of the program’s implementation and responses from multiple stakeholders. Recommendations: Grounded in critical race theory (CRT), the findings from this study paint a complex picture of the behaviors that white teachers may employ that derail racial justice work, the emotional and professional burden of that resistance on educators of color, and promising approaches for confronting resistance in order to advance racial equity. Beyond identifying the potential costs of engaging in racial justice work, our findings also offer schools and educators promising approaches for challenging white resistance while not perpetuating racial harm. We propose an implementation model that intentionally shields educators of color from the remonstrations of white resistors and the additional toll they can take on their time and well-being. Moreover, given what we know about the outsized role school leaders play in shaping school environments and professional cultures, it is essential that school leaders show commitment to organizational transformation, while developing the skills required to confront varying degrees of white resistance.

Reflecting on Race, Racism and Transitional Justice

ABSTRACT∞ Following the racial justice uprisings of 2020, our world order continues to reel from the consequences of the systemic racism that is the product of colonial projects past and present. In this introduction to the International Journal for Transitional Justice’s (IJTJ) Special Issue on Race, Racism and Transitional Justice, we ruminate on key disciplinary critiques of the bounds of transitional justice. We analyze the IJTJ’s record of addressing race and racism, relying on data from a coding project of almost all its publications. We find that the explicit discussion and engagement with race and racism has been wanting in the Journal. This volume helps us to consider what it would mean for the field to begin to take race, racism and racial justice seriously. Our hope is that it will help catalyze the remembering, exposing and reimagining of the role of race and racism in transitional justice and beyond.

Carrying the Weight of Campus Change: The Role of Student Equity Leaders in Community College

ABSTRACT This article uses in-depth interviews to explore the experiences of four community college administrators leading policy efforts to advance racial justice efforts. Through a critical organizational lens, we document the unacknowledged labor associated with being the central figure driving institutional equity efforts and the primary person on campus responsible for overseeing and carrying out racialized organizational change. Our analysis yielded two themes: Feelings of taxation, isolation, and being burned out and the difficulty of navigating spaces of resistance to improve racial equity. The findings from this work have implications for policy and practice related to enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, reframing community college leadership, and understanding racialized organizational change.

Ideological Connections: An Integrated Humanistic-Social Psychological Approach to Examining the Relationship Between Controversial Opposing Opinions

The social, economic, political, and civil unrest surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 United States election, and the increased activity of the racial justice movement has seemingly divided not just the nation but the world. Thoughts and behaviors are guided by ideological beliefs—collections of ideas or philosophies associated with power structures. I examined the overlap between positions on controversial topics and identified how ideological alignment, values, and identity characteristics influenced the holders’ views. I found significant relationships among the variables categorized as social, political, health and medical, and safety, security, and legal ideologies. The results indicated that participants’ views in one ideological category were similar to those in the other ideological categories. Finally, the current study presents models of integrating worldviews in which ideological viewpoints in the various categories align, supported by the Moral Foundations Theory, Ideological-Conflict Hypothesis, and the Rigidity-of-the-Right Hypothesis.

(Re)Placing Personalis: A Study of Placement Reform and Self-Construction in Mission-Driven Contexts

Recent movements in higher education have opened many opportunities for writing program administrators to reform first-year writing placement procedures, including continued development and adaptation of Directed Self Placement (DSP) models alongside ongoing research into their potential to foster student agency and advance linguistic, racial, and social justice in the academy. Our study traces and compares the efforts of two writing program administrators to reform flawed placement processes at their two mission-driven liberal arts institutions—one, a small Lasallian university and Hispanic-serving Institution in Northern California; the other, a private research Jesuit university located in New York City. Using inter-institutional, grounded theory research, this study examines students' reflections on their placement choices to understand “substantive validity,” inquiring intentionally into ways that students self-locate with regard to their self-placement assessments and connecting to the mission-based language of personalis, what belongs to the person. Findings indicate that students use four rhetorical moves to personalize their placement: proliferating, riffing, importing, and qualifying. Specifically, the study calls into question current understandings of under-placement in DSP models, complicating DSP’s fundamentals of choice, guidance, and justice.

Furthering a social justice mission

Portia Allen‐Kyle's career has focused on advocacy and driving meaningful change. Her work has involved advancing equity through nonprofit organizations, government, and academia. Currently Chief of Staff and Interim Head of External Affairs at Color of Change (COC), an online racial justice platform, she works to advance the organization's vision, impact, and efficiency.

China in African American cosmopolitanism, 1919–29

Abstract The betrayal of the Western powers at the Paris Conference of 1919 directly led to the eruption of extensive anti-imperialism in China. This influenced Chinese politics throughout the 1920s and helped secure the return of tariff autonomy and the start of extraterritoriality talks at the end of the decade. The development, though not prominently anti-racist, struck African American observers as a notable achievement against white supremacy. Including it into their imaginary of a global offensive against racial discrimination, they regarded association with China as a unique opportunity to strengthen themselves and weaken white racists. But because of the ineffectiveness of China, African American reactions stemmed mainly from empathy rather than admiration. China, for its part, served as a resolute co-fighter for racial equality in a relationship of mutual usefulness.

An evaluation of a public partnership project between academic institutions and young people with Black African, Asian and Caribbean heritage

BackgroundThis project (named Reinvent) aimed to promote Public Involvement (PI) in health research. Academics worked with a community group, the Eloquent Praise & Empowerment Dance Company, to develop a community partnership with young people from Black African, Asian and Caribbean heritage communities. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the Reinvent project for key learnings on how to engage and build partnerships with young people from Black African, Asian and Caribbean heritage communities.MethodsReinvent developed a steering group which consisted of five young people, one academic, a Race Equality Ambassador and the Director of Eloquent. The steering group co-produced an agenda for two workshops and the evaluation tools used. The content of the workshops included drama exercises, discussions on physical and mental health, nutrition and school-life, short introductions to the concepts of research and PI, and group work to critique and improve a video currently used to promote PI in health research to young people. The evaluation tools included using the ‘Cube’ evaluation framework, video-blogging and collecting anonymous feedback.FindingsThe responses to the ‘Cube’ evaluation framework were positive across all four domains (agenda, voice, contribute change) in both workshops. A few of the young people described having a better understanding of the meaning and practice of PI in a video-blog. The anonymous feedback suggested that the workshops had increased young people’s confidence in sharing their thoughts and opinions about health and PI.ConclusionReinvent has shown that academic institutions and young people from an under-served community can partner to co-design workshops and apply evaluation tools. Working with young people in an environment in which they were comfortable, and by researchers joining in with the activities that the young people enjoyed (such as dance), enabled more informal and open conversations to develop. More work is needed to build upon this project so that young people can feel confident and supported to get involved in PI activities relating to research.

Evaluating the impact of the race equality charter on diversity staff outcomes

ABSTRACT The Race Equality Charter (REC) was established with the main objective of tackling persistent racial inequalities in the UK Higher Education sector. There are currently over 100 REC member institutions holding close to 50 awards between them. While the sector uptake of the REC is notable, there are currently no empirical studies evaluating its impact. Using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), this study uses a matched difference-in-difference approach to investigate the effect of the REC on the proportion of staff from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups, their corresponding share of total staff in professorial or senior academic posts, as well as their corresponding share of total staff holding permanent contracts. The results reveal non-significant treatment effects which indicates that there is no difference in diversity staff outcomes between REC and non-REC institutions.

A Summer of Protest: Using Event System Theory To Test an Intersectional Leadership Advantage

Widespread social unrest occurred in the United States in the Summer of 2020. Citizens took to the streets to challenge the prevailing social justice framework. According to event systemstheory, these Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests were high-strength, as they represented novel, critical, and disruptive events. They were also mega-threats as they focused on threats to the social identities of the marginalized communities. Because different approaches were taken in navigating the BLM protests by authorities, it was unclear what constitutes effective leadership during these events. We integrate insights from event-oriented literature with intersectionality of gender and race research to introduce an intersectional leadership advantage (ILA). This framework suggests that Black women, owing in part to the rich tapestry of their social experiences, tend to develop a distinct leadership style characterized by sensitivity to racial injustice, leaning into risk, and commitment to the community. These qualities enable Black women leaders to be effective during events like BLM protests. Utilizing data from six public sources covering 11,540 protests across 3,338 U.S. cities from May to August 2020, we hypothesized an interaction of city police chiefs’ gender and race in relation to protest-related violence (measured in three ways). Results revealed that protests in cities with Black women police chiefs were associated with the lowest levels of violence compared to other groups. This study provides insights into qualities associated with leadership effectiveness in high-strength mega-threat events, and it connects diversity in leadership roles to favorable outcomes.

Human rights cities and the expanding global toolkit for decolonization and racial justice

Amid a growing white backlash against racial progress that is rolling back voting rights and restraining public discourse and education about the history and legacies of slavery and colonialism, a global “George Floyd effect” has amplified efforts outside the United States to address systemic racism and engage growing numbers of US activists in the UN human rights system. Global institutions provide opportunities for US activists to expose US human rights violations linked to systemic racism, expand support and legitimacy for their claims, and attract influential global allies. Today’s activism builds on the earlier internationalism of US advocates, which helped build international legal and institutional foundations for combating systemic racism. Within this globalized context of antiracism activism, local human rights city advocates in the United States have leveraged treaty reviews and mobilized around the newly created Permanent Forum on People of African Descent to heighten attention to systemic racism and broaden their analyses and alliances. These new global modes of engagement can help neutralize and roll back some of the threats to human rights that proliferate today.

Student activists for racially equitable change: lessons for higher education leaders from a critical participatory action research project

ABSTRACT Student activists, and particularly student activists of Color, have contributed significantly to campus change movements for decades. Yet resistance to student activism from higher education leaders has remained consistent. This article presents findings from a critical participatory action research (CPAR) project comprised of student activists at a predominantly white institution in the southern United States. It traces the group’s collaborative work to create and advance a comprehensive set of recommendations and empirically supported justifications for racially equitable institutional change. The purpose of the CPAR project was to draw institutional attention to the racial injustices and inequities on campus, create structured guidance for the necessary solutions, and to spark action for collaborative change. Despite the CPAR group’s intentional and thoughtful approach in developing and presenting their recommendations, the response from institutional leaders was tepid and disconnected, demonstrating the historical pattern of higher education leaders’ responses to student activism. Outcomes of the CPAR group’s efforts are described and implications for higher education leaders are explored.

The Impact of COVID-19 and Racial Injustices on Resilience of Incoming Medical Students

Medical students (MS) are at higher risk for depression than their peers. Incoming U.S. MS completed a survey that included the validated RS-14, which measures resilience and its two subcomponents: self-assuredness and drive. Surveys were administered before classes started in 2019 (pre-pandemic-cohort; n = 178) and 2020 (pandemic-cohort; n = 181). Resiliency, self-assuredness, and drive were not different between cohorts. Demographic subgroup analyses revealed that underrepresented in medicine (URiM) MS in the pre-pandemic-cohort scored higher on drive (p = 0.007) than non-URiM MS (6.07 ± 1.00 vs. 5.59 ± 0.97); however, this difference was not significant in the pandemic-cohort. Additionally, students in the pandemic-cohort were more likely to agree that peer discussions about emotional challenges would be beneficial (p = 0.014). Qualitative analysis revealed that 45.9% of pandemic-cohort respondents felt more motivated to pursue medicine. This is the first study to report differences in drive between URiM MS cohorts matriculating before and during a pandemic, a positive correlation between multiple-mini-interview (MMI) scores and drive, and a negative correlation between MCAT scores and drive. Collectively, these results suggest that the circumstances of 2020 may have negatively influenced the drive of URiM students, positively impacted the receptivity of MS to peer discussions, and motivated students to pursue medicine.

Reckoning With the “Other” Pandemic: How Teachers’ Unions Responded to Calls for Racial Justice Amidst COVID-19

After George Floyd was murdered by police, teachers, alongside the leaders of their unions and professional associations, confronted urgent calls to address racism in their communities, schools, and classrooms, just as they were concluding an academic year rendered chaotic by COVID-19. This article leverages four waves of semistructured interviews with teachers’ union and association leaders embedded in 14 states and 45 school districts to investigate how and why teachers’ unions responded to those calls during 2020 and 2021. Local leaders were more likely to have taken concrete steps if they were serving urban or suburban and predominantly Democratic communities. Most commonly, unions offered symbolic gestures of support or sought to develop their capacity to recognize and understand bias.

The barriers to advancing race equality in Scottish local authority employment

PurposeThis paper critically evaluates potential barriers to employment opportunities for ethnic minority (EM) individuals in Scottish Local Authorities – both in terms of access to job and development opportunities. It provides a fundamental discussion of concepts around race and ethnicity, and the levels of social injustice, with an explicit focus on institutional racialisation, discrimination and segregation. The paper explores organisational approaches towards recruitment, including positive action and workforce development.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a subjectivist (ontology) and interpretivist (epistemology) stance, based on a small-scale, in-depth investigation. The data have been gathered through semi-structured interviews with equality diversity and inclusion (EDI) officers in four Scottish Local Authorities, utilising thematic analysis.FindingsThe finding suggests that participating local authorities have a long way to go to ensure the elimination of barriers to employment for EM people. This is largely based on concerns around limitations in the application of positive action and elimination of disadvantages in recruitment and access to career and development opportunities?Originality/valueThe paper aims to contribute by exploring the availability of employment opportunities for EMs through the eyes of EDI Officers in four local authorities. Their thorough understanding, over- and insight into potential equality issues from an employment perspective are invaluable, focussing on more tangible organisational issues and approaches.

“An Opportunity to Reclaim a Place”: A Critical Analysis of Media, Memory, and BLM Plaza DC

In June 2020, protestors in Washington, D.C. gathered peacefully outside the White House fences to protest George Floyd’s murder. Instead of acknowledging George Floyd’s murder or the racist policies that too often result in the death of Black men, women and children, former President Donald Trump staged a photo outside of St. John’s Church. Just a couple days later D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned local D.C. artists and D.C. government officials to paint in massive yellow letters on 16th Street just outside the White House, “Black Lives Matter.” Lipsitz (2011) asserted that Black expressive culture, like street murals, can function as “repositories of collective memory,” (pg. 60), and can also transform and activate community. Mass media play a critical role in the construction of sites of memory and repositories of collective memory, like Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C. Informed by both Stuart Hall (1997) and Henry Lefebvre’s (1991) concepts of representation, this research will explore the role of newspaper, specifically the Black Press, in the representation of Black Lives Matter Plaza DC (BLM Plaza DC) and its formation of BLM Plaza’s collective memory. My analysis conveyed that the Black Press represented BLM Plaza DC, a site of Black expressive culture, as a Black spatial imaginary. The Black Press’ representation of BLM Plaza DC helped construct BLM Plaza DC as a Black memory-making project that decentered the white gaze and recalled the names of Black people from our past and present that have fought for social and racial justice.

Legacies of Colonial Violence in Contemporary Transitional Justice: Memories of Mau Mau, the ‘Kapenguria Six’ and the ‘Ocampo Six’ in Kenya

ABSTRACT∞ This article assesses the enduring impact of colonial violence in responses to modern conflict by transitional justice mechanisms. It presents an example of how societies continue to be structured by racial and colonial injustice and how this influences contemporary transitional justice. This is done through an analysis of the popular memory of the Mau Mau insurgency from 1952 to 1960 in Kenya, the trial of the six Kenyan nationalists known as the ‘Kapenguria Six’ by the British colonial administration and the trials of six Kenyans alleged to be most responsible for orchestrating the 2007–2008 post-election violence in Kenya, known as the ‘Ocampo Six’ before the International Criminal Court (ICC). In the Kenyan context, the influence of memories of colonial violence enabled the promotion of political agendas and arguably coloured public debate surrounding the two Kenya cases before the ICC. Transitional justice mechanisms such as the ICC do not operate in an ahistorical vacuum and international criminal trials as a form of transitional justice may be contested where there is no genuine accountability, redress or reparations for victims of colonial crimes. However, the juxtaposition of colonial crimes and the ICC prosecutions in Kenya also raises important questions relating to accountability for historical crimes in former colonies, the temporal limitations of transitional justice mechanisms and their unequal application.