“Coalition of the Willing”: Promoting Antiracism Through Empowering Community College Campus Members

Introduction

Research about racism perpetrated by White collegians against Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) on university and community college campuses is well documented (Cabrera, 2012; Evans-Winters & Hines, 2020; Harris, 2019; Harwood et al., 2018; Katz et al., 2019; Truong et al., 2016) The range of racist acts experienced by BIPOC students are multidimensional and comprised of microaggressive attacks, blatant anti-Blackness, challenges to citizenship, expectations to assimilate and cultural erasure, which are interpreted as dehumanizing (Cabrera, 2014; Dancy et al., 2018; Davis & Harris, 2016). To illustrate, recent Blackface occurrences at the University of Oklahoma and Colorado State University where none of the perpetrators were expelled (Hernandez, 2019a; Kirker, 2019a,b), coupled with noose hangings at University of Illinois and Stanford University (Beachum, 2019; Shalby, 2019) provide clear examples of how racism permeates the public sphere for Black students (Breaux, 2017; Hurtado, 1992; Mustaffa, 2017). At Highland Community College in Kansas, institutional leadership were accused of discouraging black students from enrolling and explicitly asking athletic team coaches to cut Black players (Margolies, 2022). Inequities in treatment, outcomes, funding, and support of students of color in general has been found repeatedly in studies of community colleges (Rios-Aguilar & Deil-Amen, 2019; Smith & Fox, 2019).

Sadly, many of these heinous acts go unchecked. In a recent study focused on university president responses to racist events Cole and Harper (2017) found that many presidents “mention the racial incident itself, regularly address the group or individual who committed the racist act, but usually do not acknowledge the systemic or institutional issues that foster racial hostility on college campuses” (p. 318). This approach shows that institutional responses to racism can be both frequent, yet inadequate. Further, Davis and Harris (2016) found that institutional actors, or those “allegedly responsible” (p. 63) to formally respond after occurrence of racial incidents were typically noncommittal in their stances against racist acts. They found that statements were outwardly communicated due to interest convergence (Bell, 1980) in an effort to situate university acknowledgments as necessary.

While many studies have found problematic responses, scholars have long called for more proactive leadership approaches to combatting racism, especially at community colleges (Aquino, 2016; Baber et al., 2015; Kezar et al., 2008; McNaughtan et al., 2021). Baber et al. (2015) posit that institutional leaders of community colleges need to increase efforts to close institutional inequity gaps, which involve more active leadership in both program development and calling out racism as it occurs. To demonstrate how university presidents enacted leadership to advance on-campus diversity agendas Kezar et al. (2008) found highly interrelated non-linear strategies allowed for the construction of transformative networks. Strategies included purposeful hiring of people of color, mentoring faculty of color, developing transformative faculty partnerships, and creating safe spaces for institutional constituents—strategics that could be adapted for community colleges, as well.

These studies provide nuanced perspectives about how institutional actors may purposefully communicate responses about racial incidents that constitute ethnoviolence (Davis et al., 2022; Ehrlich, 1994; Perry, 2002; Rios-Aguilar & Deil-Amen, 2019), hate crimes (Rodriguez, 2015; Stotzer & Hossellman, 2012) and racial microaggressions (Pierce, 1969; Sue & Constantine, 2007). Institutional acts include “those racially marginalizing actions and inertia of the university evidenced in structures, practices and discourses that endorse a campus racial climate hostile to People of Color” (Yosso et al., 2009, p. 673). Kezar et al.’s (2008) study focused on systemic utilization, diversity creation, and student interactions: “every president mentioned the pivotal role of their relationship with students as a way for them to help support students of color by checking their assumptions, reminding them of their passion, and asking for input in guiding their work” (Kezar et al., 2008, p. 88). It is important to note that in the majority of studies mentioned the focus was on Historically White Institutions (HWIs) where few presidents were of African descent. We acknowledge that HWIs are a function of settler colonialism created for the sole purpose of only educating White Americans (Fanon, 1961). Furthermore, we understand that White Institutional Presence (WIP) is used to maintain “White cultural ideology in the cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge” (Gusa, 2010, p. 464) by excluding faculty, students, administrators and staff of color who otherwise benefit from on campus diversity agendas (Adserias et al., 2017).

In this research, we recognize that institutional preparedness to respond to racism on campus is predicated on the experiences of community college leaders, in this case presidents. Moreover, while community college presidents of varied racial backgrounds have attempted to create antiracist campus environments, this research focuses on community college presidents of African descent ¹ (Bradley, 2019; McNaughtan & Hotchkins, 2021; Phelps et al., 1997; Vaughan, 1989). To this point, the purpose of this study is to unpack the experiential knowledge and actions of six Black community college presidents by highlighting how antiracism is communicated, and the rationale for creating opportunities to disrupt racism within predominantly White campus environments. Our study was guided by the following two research questions:

Utilizing critical race theory (CRT) as an interrogational lens, we applied a basic qualitative study methodological approach (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Finally, since the subject matter we broached is timely and critical in community college literature and practice, we offer this nuanced perspective to further broaden the scope of research about this topic.

Background

Theoretical Framework

This study is part of a 3-month research endeavor where we used basic qualitative methodology, coupled with CRT, to examine the epistemological perspectives of six presidents of African descent who preside over predominantly White community colleges while utilizing their positions to promote antiracism on campus. Previous research used CRT as a counternarrative to oppose majoritarian deficit perspectives about people and students of color who were situated as invaluable not only higher education, but also society (Davis, 2016; Garcia et al., 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Parker, 2019). We applied the following CRT tenets (Howard, 2008; Matsuda et al., 1993): (1) CRT acknowledges that racism is endemic; (2) CRT challenges legal notions of meritocracy, objectivity, neutrality and colorblindness; (3) CRT insists on a contextual/historical analysis of the law while being in opposition to ahistoricism; (4) CRT foregrounds experiential knowledge of people of color when analyzing society and law through counterstory telling; (5) CRT is interdisciplinary; and (6) CRT seeks to eliminate racial oppression by ending oppression. Furthermore, we undergird this study with interest convergence (Bell, 1980) where “the interest of blacks in achieving racial equality will be accommodated only when it converges with the interests of whites” (p. 523) and racial realism (Bell, 1991) which “requires us to acknowledge the permanence of our subordinate status. That acknowledgement enables us to avoid despair and frees us to imagine and implement racial strategies that can bring fulfillment and even triumph” (pp. 373–374). Finally, CRT served as the lens for the analysis of participants’ perceptions about antiracism and their preparedness to facilitate opportunities for campus community members to engage in anti-racist practices.

Data and Methods

Six community college presidents of African descent participated in three semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 75 minutes each. Further, archival documents and publicly available institution information about individual community colleges were included in the data to help understand the context of the campus for the president. For example, the demographics of the student body, urbanicity of the surrounding community, and structure of the community college in relation to the state higher education system were reflected on as part of the data analysis process. The sample included three men and three women who were selected using a snowball sampling approach (Creswell & Poth, 2017). To illustrate, President Gabe participated in a previous study about university presidential leadership and agreed to provide a list of potential participants for our study. According to Yin (2017) and Creswell and Poth (2017) four to six participants “provide ample opportunity to identity themes of the cases” (p. 160) so we settled on the latter number to conduct the study. Each of the interviews were conducted over Zoom as web-based interactions that were recorded, transcribed and the data corpus underwent a cross-case synthesis (Yin, 2017).

The study criteria were: (1) self-identify as a person of African descent; and (2) be a president of a community college. Presidents had an average of 5.6 years of experience ranging from over 10 years for one president and just under 2 years for another. Four of the six presidents oversaw campuses of more than 10,000 students while the remaining two presided over campuses with approximately 5,000 students. The first interview focused on the role of the president in communicating with campus community members about racial tensions, with an emphasis on how the president’s identities (e.g., race and gender) influenced decisions and ability to support campus stakeholders. The second interview focused on the president’s role in defining antiracism and how students are empowered to combat racism. The final interview focused on the concept of racial battle fatigue and how presidents perceived its influence on their leadership. Each interview was conducted in a semi-structured format to capture detailed lived experiences about being college presidents (Yin, 2017).

Findings

Guided by CRT, this study focused on the experiences and perceptions of community college presidents of African descent who navigate racism, so the overarching emerging codes elucidate their perceptions of how to promote antiracism on college campuses, which resulted in three themes. Three salient themes emerged: Accountability matters, Space creators and Student “critical” mass. The results of this analysis are represented by theme specific quotes from study participants. For convenience, we identify each of the six respondents by pseudonyms and avoid specific campus details in connection with each president to protect the anonymity of participants.

The first theme focused on identifying racism through active approaches to antiracism by applying accountability to whomever and they discussed the need to be proactive through using their position, which confirmed CRT tenets racism as endemic and elimination of racial oppression.

Discussion

The overarching purpose of this study was to unpack the experiential knowledge and actions of six Black community college presidents by highlighting how antiracism is communicated, and the rationale for creating opportunities to disrupt racism within predominantly White campus environments. Through the use of a basic qualitative approach, guided by critical race theory (CRT), the emergent themes centered on how Black presidents promote antiracism and empower campus community members to engage with anti-racist programs and practices. Similarly, participants discussed how they created spaces and utilized the cultural capital of network members to advance campus diversity agendas to the benefit of their institutions (Kezar et al., 2008). Furthermore, our study presidents posited that although community college leaders were likely motivated to participate in anti-racist practices due to bettering the institutional image, which is a function of interest convergence (Bell, 1980), participants still applied a proactive approach to addressing endemic racism despite knowing it would occur in perpetuity, an example of racial realism (Bell, 1991).

The themes identified in the data were intertwined with CRT tenets: racism as endemic, elimination of racial oppression, foregrounds experiential knowledge of people of color, resistance of dominant ideologies and challenges notions of meritocracy, objectivity, neutrality and colorblindness (Howard, 2008; Matsuda et al., 1993). And we now better understand the relevance of why community college presidents of African descent purposefully engage in anti-racist work as both professional and personal due to recognizing they are “expected to be Black by Black people and to decide for Blacks, by all others, mostly White” (President Gabe). Examples like this not only confirm that community college presidents of African descent have experiences that their White colleagues never have to navigate, but also reminds us that a DuBois (1948) “double consciousness” still applies. Based on the shared narratives, we find it important to frame the anti-racist actions of participants as representative of not only an example of data-based leadership application, but also as racism responsive preparedness. This framing is now unpacked with a clearer understanding that the racialized identity of presidents informed why they acted for the greater good despite knowing the gaze of Whiteness expected them to never have an explicit agenda for Black faculty, students, administrators and staff.

Consequently, participant narratives are coupled with a need to shift institutional priorities and practices (e.g., recruitment and hiring of a diverse pool of candidates, creation of institutional support centers for marginalized groups, and making equity a campus priority) in similar ways that coincide with the findings of Kezar et al. (2008) and Davis and Harris (2016). However, these actions also deviate when it pertains to how personal and institutional accountability is actualized prior to hiring while being simultaneously modeled directly to campus community members with the expectation they embody anti-racist behaviors. Our participants used the presidency in a premediated manner that attempted to integrate antiracism practices into the institutional ethos and expected to see it manifest throughout the campus ecology. For example, although participants were mindful that being president did nothing to change the fact that racism is endemic, they understood that being of African descent mattered since each participant had influence concerning the increased representation of faculty, administrators and staff of color. Finally, participants were keenly mindful that in order to empower students to view themselves as able to overcome systemic racism, direct yet purposeful outreach needed to be conducted in a face-to-face manner to establish a narrative that college presidents too were not beyond reproach.

These findings stand in contrast to the Cole and Harper (2017) study that found responsive presidential communications, to a racially charged incident, rarely called out the systemic challenges connected to incidents and also failed to consistently provide proactive ways to educate their campuses on anti-racist programing. Our study provides an important step toward better understanding how presidents of African descent enact and embody leadership as it pertains to positively informing the racialized functionality of a community college campus by systemically challenging an overarching White Institutional Presence (Gusa, 2010) that is highly contextualized at PWIs. Secondly, the proactive ways in which study participants engaged in anti-racist programing and policy formation were counter to the findings of Harper and Hurtado (2007) where despite knowing campus environments were racist, administrators refused to intervene due to fear of retaliation. Third, this finding allows for additional research about how presidents of color, generally, engage campus communities (i.e., faculty, staff, administrators and students) about the institutional operationalization of antiracism. To illustrate, one of our study participants discussed how their approach to faculty empowerment about issues of racism was inherently nuanced when focusing on students, which serves to lessen aversions to racial trauma that is endemic on PWI campuses (Gusa, 2010; Harris, 2019; Harwood, 2018; Katz et al., 2019; Solorzano et al., 2000) and aligns with the McNaughtan et al. (2018) finding that university president’s communication varies when directed at students and administrators.

The unique perspective of our sample including only presidents of African descent at community colleges provides an important and unique contribution to literature and practice given the historical inequities and challenges present at PWIs (Delgado & Ozuna Allen, 2019; Martin, 2020; McNaughtan et al., 2021) and the voice of presidents of African descent being mostly absent in much of the literature. The themes of this study highlight four specific implications for practice. First, presidents in this study repeatedly discussed how their presence on campus provided strength to students that led to altered practices to increase inclusion. Secondly, broadening role of the community college presidents to include enacting an anti-racist leadership agenda that leads to a more inclusive and anti-racist campus community should be the bar. Third, in order to be an impactful president who approaches racism with a responsive preparedness one must possess the leadership competency of promoting and cultivating an anti-racist campus culture. Finally, the increased representation of faculty and staff of color has the potential to mediate the disturbing increase in racist incidents across the country (Katz et al., 2019; Truong et al., 2016) by providing students a more realistic view of the diversity that exists in the world and providing students of color with mentors where they can see themselves—as one president participant so eloquently discussed.

Conclusion

The lack of antiracism training for new community college presidents is well known and this study highlights the need for enhanced training for presidents pertaining to best practices to pre-plan for racism and recognize it systemically in order to adequately respond when it occurs on campus. In addition, community college presidents in this study posited that the majority of administrators, faculty and students on their campuses were ready to lead and be taught about how to further develop anti-racist programs and practices. This type of training is not only needed to support students, but also important to recruit and retain a more diverse student body (Garza Mitchell & Maldonado, 2015; Martin, 2021; Stotzer & Hossellman, 2012). Finally, this study confirms that institutions need to develop stronger and more systematic ways to call out racism while actively promoting anti-racist programing, policies and practices since participants believed that while it is good to engage students after an incident, the best approach is to act on foresight before racially charged incidents occur.