Román Liera

In ShortEquity-minded practice, developed for higher education by Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon, is ideally suited to aid the academy in meeting the challenges of the moment.Most equity-minded literatur...

In response to public incidents of police brutality and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, leaders at Historically White Research Universities (HWRUs) began publicizing their investments in racial equity as recently as 2020. These investments, however, often lacked the infrastructure necessary for substantive, systemic change. One prominent area of resource allocation was the recruitment and hiring of faculty with expertise and experience in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We examined how early-career tenure-track (ECTT) faculty of color interpreted their HWRUs’ framing of diversity concerning their reappointment, tenure, and promotion preparation. Using the sociological framework of diversity ideology, we analyzed longitudinal focus group data from eight ECTT faculty of color who entered academia during a period when race was positioned as a desirable commodity. Drawing on data tracing participants’ experiences with recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and advancement over their first two academic years at HWRUs, we found that these faculty recognized race as being “in vogue” but did not expect their organizations to possess the infrastructure to support meaningful racial equity efforts. While they anticipated surface-level DEI commitments, they encountered tensions between their own scholarly values and the types of impact their institutions expected them to make. Participants described vague tenure and promotion criteria as disempowering, enabling department chairs, deans, and senior leaders to exercise discretion to control faculty who challenged the status quo of whiteness. We offer recommendations for faculty and institutional leaders to disrupt the commodification and exploitation of ECTT faculty of color.

Dr. Chan’s The Limits of Diversity offers a critical analysis of how secular and evangelical universities define diversity in ways that reproduce inequities. Drawing on interviews with 78 students ...

This study explores how faculty of color describe their postdoc experiences, using the theory of racialized organizations as a framework. We interviewed fifteen faculty of color who previously held postdoc positions to examine their perceptions of racism in preparing for tenure-track careers. The findings reveal that whiteness operated through two main mechanisms: likability and ideal worker norms. Organizational practices either (re)produced or disrupted racial hierarchies that dehumanized Postdocs of Color. Postdoc supervisors emerged as key agents in fostering supportive environments that honor the racial identities and cultural values of Postdocs of Color. We conclude with recommendations for research and practice aimed at reversing racial barriers for postdocs of color on their path to tenure-track roles.

Guided by racial capitalism, interest convergence, and positioning theory, we analyzed focus group data from 30 racially minoritized PhD candidates to understand how they experienced and responded to racial com-modification in the academic job market. Although our participants perceived their hireability might be contingent on their performance of “the right type of diversity,” they decided to position themselves in authentic and humanizing ways. The study highlights how racial commodification incentivizes racially minoritized PhD students in the academic job market to position themselves such that Historically White Serving Institutions could exploit them while maintaining the status quo. We provide recommendations for faculty to identify and disrupt these positionings and instead support People of Color in navigating the job market with authenticity, dignity, and self-determination.