Strategies of engagement: how racialized faculty negotiate the university system.
James, Carl E.
Abstract
The demands of the academic profession and the ways that
universities are increasingly shaped by the neoliberal ideologies of
competitiveness, individualism, and conformity, influence how racialized
faculty perceive their experiences within universities and position
themselves to effectively navigate and/or resist the assimilating
terrain. The findings from an analysis of approximately eighty-nine
interviews with racialized faculty members in universities across Canada
indicate that racialized faculty members employ three strategic
tendencies--compliance, pragmatism, and critical participation--to
maintain their presence in their universities and assert their role as
professors, and, in so doing, conform to, resist, and/or transform the
institution.
Resume
Les exigences de la carriere universitaire et l'orientation
des universites de plus en plus marquee par les ideologies liberales de
competitivite, d'individuaiisme et de conformite, influencent la
maniere dont le corps professoral racialise percoit son experience au
sein de son institution et se positionne afin de louvoyer avec quelque
efficacite et/ou de resister a ce terrain assimilateur. Les resultats de
l'analyse d'environ quatre-vingt-neuf entrevues avec ses
membres partout au Canada indiquent qu'ils suivent strategiquement
trois tendances--soumission, pragmatisme et participation critique--pour
maintenir leur presence dans leurs etablissements et affirmer leur role
de professeurs ainsi que, ce faisant, se conformer a l'institution,
y resister et/ou la transformer.
INTRODUCTION
If the equity statements on job postings are any indication,
diversity in faculty membership is something that is increasingly sought
by Canadian universities. In this regard, racialized faculty members,
with their various approaches to scholarship, should be a welcome
addition. But while universities are purportedly open to
"diversity," the culture and routines of academic work remain
persistently--and in some cases, become increasingly--individualistic,
competitive, retributive, alienating, routinized, and subject to
actuarial measures of performance rather than allowing for dialogue,
support, and transformation (see Dace 2012; Iverson 2012; Jackson and
Johnson 2011; James 2009). It is in this context that racialized faculty
members who manage to gain access to university positions are expected
to fit in and work. This article explores the various strategies that
these racial minority faculty members employ in negotiating their
presence in universities. This article also examines the role that race
and racism play in individuals' lives, motivations and actions,
given the a historical and "colourblind" or race neutral
notions and practices of neoliberalism (such as individualism, merit,
and academic freedom) which govern the institution's logic (see
Gillborn 2008; Henry and Tarot 2009; Milner 2008; Smith and Stovall
2008).
Noting that the term "diversity" is used instead of more
critical terms such as "equity" and "social
justice;' Sara Ahmed (2012), in her book, On being included, argues
that the language of diversity is predominantly understood within
institutions in marketing terms and as a "feel good" politics
in its "cultural enrichment discourse" (69). Diversity, she
points out, is used not only as a way "of marketing the university
but of making the university into a marketplace" (52-53). And while
the people who contribute to the diversification of the university are
seen as people to be "valued as a human resource," they are
also "to be managed" (53). Hence, contrary to
universities' job advertisements, websites, and policies, diversity
tends not to be something that is valued for the different knowledge and
experiences it brings to institutions. Indeed, as Ahmed suggests, the
language of diversity in academic institutions is often more about
changing only the perception of whiteness than it is about changing the
culture and organization of the institution (34).
DIVERSITY, NEOLIBERALISM AND TOKENISM
Diversity in faculty membership seems to be more for marketing
purposes and not as recognition of the additional strengths and
values--in terms of the different skills, viewpoints and practices--that
faculty members bring to the institutions. In fact, scholarship on the
experiences of racialized faculty members indicate that they are often
expected to conform to and comply with the existing culture of the
university--a culture shaped by neoliberalism, or what Janine Brodie
(2012) refers to as "an unrelenting anti-social doctrine." In
their article, "Bullying as intra-active process in neoliberal
universities," Zabrodska et al. (2011) write that
"Neoliberalism is a discourse that works on and through desire,
making each individual want to accomplish in its terms, despite its
negative effects on health, and its capacity to undermine collegiality
and open debate" (710). They suggest that "workplace
bullying" evident in the "ever-intensifying workload,
short-term contracts, job insecurity, funding pressures, excessive
competitiveness, the power imbalance between managers and academics, and
weakened union power" (710), are some of the characteristic
features of neoliberal universities. And as Shore (2008) adds, at a time
when government funding for universities has been declining,
universities have embraced a neoliberal "audit culture" that
has "transformed the traditional liberal and Enlightenment idea of
the university as a place of higher learning into the modern idea of the
university as corporate enterprise whose primary concern is with market
share, servicing the needs of commerce, maximizing economic return and
investment, and gaining competitive advantage in the 'Global
Knowledge Economy'" (282).
Davies (2005) also writes in "The (im)possibility of
intellectual work in neoliberal regimes" that through
neoliberalism, academic work is "no longer the life of the
intellect and of the imagination" (1). He goes on to say that
to critique is risky work, not just because it might alienate those
who are deeply attached to, or personally implicated in, the
discourses to he placed under scrutiny but also because to draw
attention to the very terms through which existence is made
possible, to begin to dismantle those very terms while still
depending on them for shared meaning making--even for
survival--requires a kind of daring, a willingness to envisage the
not yet known and to make visible the faults, the effects of the
already known (2).
It is into this neoliberal context that racialized faculty members
are expected to fit with little to no attempts made to accommodate,
respect or encourage their presence and differences in interests,
scholarships, ways of knowing and understanding the world. Nor is the
context one which values the community-informed work that these
professors often bring to the academy. In such instances, the presence
of racialized faculty members in the academy might be considered
tokenistic, or as Kanter (1993) puts it, "as symbols rather than
individuals" (208). Kanter's conceptual framework is useful
here. Writing about the place of women in a male-dominated corporation,
she points out that numerically dominant members of a corporation
dictate a group's culture. Subsequently, minorities (numerically
speaking) are so few that their presence positions them as
representatives of a category. Referring to the women in the corporation
as "tokens," Kanter notes that their rarity creates three
perceptual tendencies: visibility, contrast and assimilation. These
three tendencies generate what Kanter calls "token responses"
by which the women adopt specific strategies that variously highlight or
minimize their visibility within the corporation (212).
According to Kanter's tokenism framework, minorities face a
number of performance pressures due to the fact that what they do and
say will be watched, known and discussed. Typically, they perform
"their jobs under public and symbolic conditions different from
those of dominants" (212). In addition to feeling more known by
virtue of their "visibility," minorities--in this case,
racialized faculty members--are likely to be occasionally showcased to
highlight the institution's public image (213). In this regard,
minorities will become hyper-visible in any organization that purports
to value diversity; and such visibility, as well as their status, tends
to generate a higher degree of self-consciousness about their presence
and the decisions they make (Kanter 1993, 215). Ultimately, as Laden and
Hagedorn (2000) suggest, racialized faculty members are often expected
to adapt to the dominant culture of the university while simultaneously
experiencing a lack of full membership (64-65). On this point, Ahmed
(2012) writes:
People of color in white organizations are treated as guests,
temporary residents in someone else's home. People of color are
welcomed on condition they return that hospitality by integrating
into a common organizational culture, or by 'being' diverse, and
allowing institutions to celebrate their diversity (43).
A major mark of individuals' worth to university is being
granted tenure, and with this, the material and psychological benefit of
job security and affirmation of their membership in the scholarly
community (de Montigny 2011). But while everyone does "navigate the
perilous waters of promotion and tenure," as Knight (2010) writes,
underrepresented faculty members "experience the water differently
than their White counterparts and, as a result, face a number of
obstacles in the promotion and tenure process" (84). Some of these
obstacles are related to what Joseph and Hirschfield (2011) refer to as
"cultural taxation" which is defined as "the increased
expectations that faculty of color should address diversity-related
departmental and institutional affairs" (123). Hence, perceived as
"experts" on "diversity" (read, minority) issues,
racialized faculty members--on their own initiative or by
assignment--are often expected to undertake additional responsibilities
such as speak on minority issues, serve on "diversity committees,
mentor and advise racialized students" and/or handle
minority-related problems--all of which, according to Laden and Hagedorn
(2000), "are frequently undervalued when evaluating faculty for
promotion and tenure" (60). Furthermore, racialized faculty members
who are determined or feel obligated to address issues of diversity in
their teaching and scholarly work will often struggle to conform to the
demands of the job (see Knight 2010).
The inequitable and alienating university context is often quite
difficult for racialized faculty members, especially for those committed
to working on issues of equity and social justice. On the one hand, if
and when they speak up against the barrier to their inclusion or full
participation in the institution, they are likely to be silenced. As
Essien (2003) puts it, "the tyranny of silence is real and one who
attempts to rock the boat is promptly and firmly sanctioned" (69).
On the other hand, remaining silent in a context that values competition
and self-promotion often means that they are "perceived as
vulnerable and susceptible to attack" and, as a consequence, fewer
benefits will flow to them, since others will perceive them as
"institutionally vulnerable" (Essien 2003, 70). Having to
navigate this neoliberal terrain requires racialized faculty members to
adopt specific strategies, such as forming "an exchange
relationship with the organizational culture that results in their
acceptance or overlooking of discriminatory institutional
practices" in order not to jeopardize their careers (Aguirre 2011,
770). This approach to working within the institutional culture is part
of what Aguirre refers to as the "institutional self." He
writes:
We all have stories to tell about the institutional self one
performs in academia. For some, their institutional selves are
cloaking devices for rationalizing how the dominant group
privileges itself in faculty hiring, the allocation of office
space, or participation in academic senate committees. For others,
their institutional selves are tools for uncovering the abuse of
privilege practiced by the dominant group. I suspect minority
faculty often perform institutional selves focused on chronicling
dominant group practices that seek to silence them. Perhaps this is
why minority faculty tell their stories. It may be the only way
minority faculty have of cleansing their soul, and redeeming their
sense of who they are (771-772).
In what follows, I present the data-gathering process and follow
with a discussion of the findings.
GETTING THE STORIES
This article draws on interviews of about eighty-nine racialized
faculty members (see Table 1) working in universities across Canada. As
the Table indicates, most of the participants were in Social Sciences,
and in the ranks of Associate and Assistant Professor. They come from a
wide range of universities in different provinces and in large and small
institutions. In-person interviews were conducted with participants and
were transcribed and then coded using NVivo software to help with the
search for words and themes.
In keeping with the tradition of Critical Race Theory and its
emphasis on experiential knowledge and stories (Charles 2011, 63), I use
the stories of the respondents to construct how they made sense of their
engagement with the university, and "cast themselves as
protagonists in the stories they tell to explain their lives and make
meaning of their own thoughts, feelings, desires, and behaviors extended
over time" (McAdams 2006, 114). Attention was paid to both the
context in which the faculty members presented themselves as working,
the strategies they purported to employ in order to navigate the
context, and their descriptions of the different ways they responded to
similar experiences. How participants rationalized their unique
experience and acted upon the experience is important to this
discussion. Based on their stories, I identified three
strategies--Compliance, Pragmatism, and Critical Participation--which
participants tended to employ to establish themselves as part of their
university faculty, and the academic community generally. The strategies
are certainly not exhaustive, mutually exclusive or representative--in
terms of race, ethnicity, birthplace, rank, discipline or gender--of a
particular group of faculty members. Nevertheless, participants talked
of using different strategies based on a combination of institutional
contexts, circumstances, and career stage.
STRATEGIES OF ENGAGEMENT
The faculty members who participated in this study varied in their
understandings of the extent to which race, and, concomitantly, racism,
had an impact on their experiences in the academy. Some asserted that
their race had nothing to do with their experiences, motivations and
achievements, while others suggested that although race might operate in
the academy to affect individuals' lives, they had no experience of
it affecting them. As a result, these faculty members employ compliant
strategies. Those who saw racism as operating within the university
structure typically employed pragmatic and critical participation
strategies placing themselves in the role of change agents. In the
following section, I discuss these faculty members' experiences,
their perceptions of the expectations that are held of them, and the
strategies they employ.
Compliance
"... It doesn't make things easy for you but you have to
adapt to it."
A number of faculty members did not feel race and racism influenced
their existence in or progression through the university. These tended
to be individuals who tended to subscribe to the ideological principles
and practices of their institutions and who insisted that the university
hires and promotes on merit. They saw what was expected of them as fair,
reasonable, and applied equally to everyone. Hence, any
"problems" or "difficulties" that they experienced
in the university were seen as "similar" to those of their
white colleagues. For this reason, they were, at times, intolerant of
those who criticized or questioned the policies and practices of the
universities. As one participant said: "These people that want
these jobs, [should know] what they have to do to acquire them and then
keep them." Another said that his department hires "the best
applicants, but the best to date have been white." So to the extent
that their university faculty members might be a homogenous group, these
faculty members attributed that homogeneity to the quality of the
applicants for the job. One faculty member admitted to not having given
race identification much thought, since "we talk about these things
only when we hire, but after that, it's assumed that we're
doing the right thing and that there is no discrimination"-a
practice with which she seemed to agree. And on the question of tenure
and promotion, one participant insisted, "We are encouraged to
publish in certain kinds of journals. That is expected. I was told that
the journals have to be top and other criteria were told to me from the
very beginning. It applies to everyone then."
When asked about the lack of diversity in course offerings with a
diverse faculty whose scholarship and interests would suggest that this
would be the case, one sociology professor claimed that the lack of
diversity in courses is related to the unwillingness of faculty members
to follow appropriate or established protocol in proposing and
justifying the creation of new courses. In saying this, he challenged
his racialized colleagues' claims that racism in his faculty was at
the root of the lack of courses in his faculty.
But not all of the participants who claimed that race had no
bearing on their experiences in the university, admitted that it was
absent from the academy altogether. As one professor said, "Race
surely may play a role, I am not always aware because I tend to forget
these things in the academic environment." And there were also
those who perceived that racism might indeed have something to do with
other people's experiences: "I can believe it might play a
role in cases where these people in authority would have these kinds of
prejudices, I just haven't heard of them." For these faculty
members, racism and, by extension, discrimination, were constructed as
individual acts of prejudice--something they have heard about from
others; not something they have experienced. "I have never
personally experienced racism. I do not think that it is
pervasive," said one participant. Another claimed: "I am quite
sure that [discrimination] goes on in the university, but in my
department, we are a pretty inclusive bunch."
The perception is that the university is operating just as it
should. This sentiment was more prevalent, although by no means
exclusive, in disciplines like economics, sciences and engineering. In
large part, this was based on the perception that these fields have more
transparent and objective criteria for evaluating people. One economics
professor observed that racial discrimination existed in other
departments, but not in his--his department was colour-blind. "When
we deliberate on new faculty appointments, they're purely based on
merit, and discussions based on gender and race are not raised." He
made the case that the type of discrimination that existed in economics
is due to the nature of the discipline: "There are different kinds
of exclusion. I would be more worried if there were qualified Marxists
or feminists: their applications would not be taken seriously."
According to this associate professor, disciplines like economics do not
lend themselves to discrimination as easily as the humanities and the
other social sciences because there is less scope to disagree about the
merits of someone's work. Academic qualification is more clearly
defined. So, while economics may exclude what he called "heterodox
disciplinary approaches" it is not the same as the exclusionary
practices in other disciplines which are based on gender, ethnicity and
race. But generally, for many of the respondents who "do not
experience" racism or discrimination, there is often a sense that
academia is different. "Higher education gives you the space to do
what you want," said one faculty member, and proffered, "We
have been trained to argue and criticize. You have to understand that
and move on."
There was also the notion that racism is something of the past and
universities, like other institutions, are trying in earnest to correct
this historic problem but it takes time (James 2009). Pointing out that
the lack of diversity in universities is due to historical inequality,
one professor explained that with time things will improve. "There
was someone standing in the way of that for a long time," she said,
but considering that it takes "about twenty years" to
"create a university professor," you will now start to see an
increase in the number of Black professors. She claimed that "there
are lots of changes but for those changes to catch up to the general
population, it will take a lot of time and a lot of proactivity."
The implication here is that universities are not standing in the way of
the recruitment, hiring, and retention of Black professors, but because
of historical practices, there is a limited pool of qualified racialized
people from which to draw. Another professor similarly commented that
"[T]here is still room for improvement, but I think this university
has gone a long way....It's a work in progress."
Where race and racism were acknowledged, participants tended to
minimize their impact, saying, "You get treated differently because
your language or culture is different. I mean, it's fine. People
don't say, you are different, they will look down on you....This is
based on abilities. It is not racism to me." Others attributed lack
of experience with racism to cultural adaptability, claiming, "I
haven't really experienced any racism, probably because I have
adopted most Canadian customs and so forth?' Still others
attributed the extent to which they were able to "fit in" to
the academy to their own abilities or inabilities to handle cultural
differences, disclosing, "I am too shy to go to conferences--which
I feel is a cultural thing." This idea of their culture being a
weakness was explained in the following way:
I have had jobs that I didn't get, not because I was a minority,
but because I didn't perform as well in interviews. I think this is
our weakness....We don't answer the questions the way they want us
to answer....Our emotional intelligence is less developed and we
don't know how to sell ourselves. We have never learned this. Maybe
now that I am more Canadian, I am better at it. I am hoping that my
kids will be more Canadian and not have these weaknesses.
For a number of these faculty members, their personal
characteristics, such as shyness (3) and accents, were things that they
believed they must work to overcome if they are to succeed in the
academy. One participant said it this way: "What I did have to
overcome personally is my culture....I just thought I didn't do
well and have to work harder." This suggests that the pressure to
conform to the culture of the institution tends to render irrelevant
different culturally informed knowledge and experiences that racialized
faculty members bring to the academy (Delgado Bernal and Vlllalpando
2002; Jawitz 2012).
Faculty members who argued that race had nothing to do with their
experiences in accessing or working in the academy tended to adopt
strategies that would minimize their visibility, downplaying any
perceived differences between them and their colleagues, and in cases
where racialization might be an issue, their strategy was to "suck
it up." When asked whether race was ever a factor in her career,
one assistant professor answered, "Truthfully I don't know. I
try not to make it. If someone has an issue with me, I don't care.
I look at myself as a scientist." Ironically, in explaining why she
chose to become a scientist, she said: "I think subconsciously I
wanted to show people that I could do it no matter what....If
you're not competitive you fall into complacency." So while
this participant claimed not to have experienced racism in her
university career, she did acknowledge that stereotyping or racialized
assumptions were, in part, responsible for her career choice. Despite
her claims to the contrary, this shows that racialized faculty
experience the institution differently than their white peers (Laden and
Hagedorn 2000).
The research participants who saw race and racism as not related to
their experiences seem to have concluded that living with the status
quo--that is, complying with the policies, practices and expectations of
their universities, were their best option. The idea is not to raise
issues or cause problems. According to one participant, "If you
have issues, being a racialized teacher, and raise them, it may reflect
poorly on your evaluation. If you have issues and keep them to yourself
and go along with the mainstream, your teaching evaluation will not
suffer in the same way." But this is not to say that participants
were always in compliance with what was expected of them, and at times,
they suffered the consequences. For example, one faculty member
hypothesized that being "seen as someone who wouldn't
complain" made it easy for her to be "turned down" for
tenure and promotion. And contrary to her chair's expectation, she
complained--something she preferred not to have done, for doing so left
her with questions such as: "Is it better to not draw attention to
yourself and expel so much energy and effort? Is it better just to be
satisfied with what you have and not demand more? Is it worth the
personal sacrifices?" She noted that standing up for yourself often
makes people "even angrier." Another faculty member told us
that his actions related to taking up issues with his administration and
union left him "feeling alienated in this department;'
something which drove him to "talk[ing] to a therapist." He
continued to say: "It's not so much the aloneness, it's
the feeling that people don't understand. I used to be
sociable." (Laden and Hagedorn 2000).
Besides these faculty members who took a complaint approach to
negotiating the academy, a far greater proportion of those we
interviewed saw racism and discrimination as part of the hypocrisy of
the institution. On this basis, they often adopted strategies that were
consistent with their desires to bring about changes in the institution
where their scholarship, identities and community connections are
recognized. In the words of one professor: "... because if I do
not, nothing is going to change. This work takes courage." These
faculty members were satisfied with, and, in some cases, promoted the
visibility and difference that they brought to institutions. They spoke
deliberately about the systemic barriers in institutions: referencing
the hegemonic culture of whiteness, the persistence of the neoliberal
agenda, the absence of efforts to address marginalization, stereotyping,
colonialism, racism and discrimination, and the lack of respect for
communities and the community-affiliations of faculty members. These
change agents employed pragmatic and critical participation strategies.
Pragmatism
"... understand how to navigate this very complex maze."
For the most part, faculty members who adopt pragmatic and critical
participation strategies did so based on their structural critique of
the technologies of inequity that operate to maintain, among others,
racism, colonialism and discrimination in universities. Their strategies
for navigating their universities were informed by their similar reading
of the cultural contexts they had to navigate, as well as the prevailing
assumptions and related expectations universities have of them; in the
words of one professor: "They see me as a racialized professor who
is pursuing my own interests." That interest, according to one
associate professor, is thought to be informed by race. "When you
are a Black person like I am, the assumption is that [diversity] is all
you care about....! feel a sense of pressure that as the only non-white
person, people may see me as pushing my agenda. It's
uncomfortable." An Aboriginal professor similarly stated:
I am not sure how I feel about the declarative nature of being an
Aboriginal. I think there are a lot of assumptions made about
someone like me in this position ... I would hate to be judged
adversely. I am tenure track. This is something that is on my mind.
If I care about this job, there are hoops I have to jump through."
And noting how the stereotypes tended to operate for Asians like
herself, one participant scrutinized how Asian faculty tend to be
perceived as "good at producing academic work but they're not
really good administrators, decision makers, or leaders."
Other faculty members talked of becoming "preoccupied with
questions" related to how well they fit "their stereotype and
image," which in turn contribute to their marginalization. In
relating how the stereotype plays out in how and when she is expected,
or might choose, to take up issues of race and gender, one participant
observed:
Your voice becomes immediately marginalized in those [academic]
sorts of conversations. You become both the person who is a visible
minority and a woman who has a bone to pick. Or you become the
person who they see as the voice of some bureaucrat who's trying to
dictate how to act. You feel like you are the voice who has to say
these things because no one else is at all.
In reflecting on the "subtle things" with which they have
had to contend in their attempts to make their voice heard and
recognized, another female faculty member revealed:
When I am in a room and am the only woman and the only one of
colour who speaks English with an accent, I am assumed not to know
much. It is difficult to get a chance to speak. I try to survive
and voice my opinion but it took time to get where I am at now. It
still happens frequently--little subtle things. It is not always
coming from the opposite sex, it can come from fellow females.
One participant talked of making attempts, while difficult, to
"ignore" the marginalizing processes, electing instead to
"have my work recognized as a valuable thing." For this
professor, pragmatically employing a strategy of avoidance enabled her
to escape the stress that would be experienced if she "subscribed
to the identity of a marginalized person"--an identity that
influenced interactions with her colleagues, who in "daily
conversations" with her tended to become "overly
defensive" Saying "I would call my strategy a strategic
indifference" this assistant professor went on to say, "When I
hear negative comments from students I immediately think: is it my race
or my accent? I try to suck it up and not think about it." And in
jest stating: "I wish I could behave more like my colleagues"
she admitted, "even if I act like them, I don't look like
them. If I act like an old white male, that's going to confuse my
students and they would see me as an Asian bitch? I would consider
myself a shy person. In this North American context, that doesn't
pay off very well." Concluding this point, she said "I really
don't care how they perceive me....Even if they don't see me
as how I think I am, as long as it doesn't hinder the progress of
my work ..., then that's fine with me" (see also Laden and
Hagedorn 2000).
The stories that these racialized faculty members tell about their
experiences in universities represent struggles, discomfort, isolation
and silencing. And as Kanter (1993) notes, they often feel
self-conscious over questions of when and how to exert themselves (215).
For instance, one faculty member recalled being "the only
racialized person" on a Committee and saying that there was a need
to incorporate African studies into their program. "You could hear
a pin drop, because," she said, "of course, I wasn't
supposed to mention Africa....To me, that is an example of racism.
It's not in what they said; it's in the discomfort and the
silence." This faculty member went on to explain that when the
minutes of the meeting were reported, her "words were not
included" Other research participants agreed that diversity for
their institutions did not mean having programs geared to the realities
of particular groups. The experience of an Aboriginal professor can be
referenced here. It was expected that his approach to Indigenous
education would be to highlight culture rather than inequality or
colonialism. In commenting, he said," I thought I was going there
to do justice, but when I arrived they were like: 'No you're
doing knowledge'."
A recurring theme among research participants was the stress of
being "the only" racialized faculty member raising issues of
representation and/or challenging the essentialization of them, their
students, and minority communities. As one person noted, "Every
time I bring up something [related to race] here, they tell me to join
the committees and do the work." But many participants agreed that
they had a responsibility to take up the issues. Some faculty members,
who were schooled and worked in the United States, indicated that the
absence of "reliable data" made it difficult for them to make
their case about diversity. They saw this as a necessary component of
"an accountability system--they have to keep numbers and
data." Talking about her "surprise" that she was unable
to get data (from the website or colleagues) about the racial diversity
of the university, this faculty member approached the equity office
asking for information. And as she said: "I received an email
telling me that we're not like the States; we don't collect
this data because it's too controversial." This practice helps
to explain why we repeatedly heard comments like the following: "I
was the only person around the table who was not of European descent.
Not even Chinese; which is really interesting, given the number of
Chinese people in this university."
Taking into consideration their understanding of how institutions
operate, their experiences with racism within the institutions, and
their commitment to engaging with the institutions in ways that will
bring about equity, the faculty members who employed pragmatic
strategies did so in ways that would minimize the personal risks and
stresses associated with confronting the system (see Kanter 1993, 217).
Their strategies were primarily aimed at two interrelated goals:
ensuring their work was beyond reproach, and engaging with the informal
power structures of the university in their efforts to bring about
changes that would benefit current and future racialized faculty and
students--in the words of one participant: "I want to give
back" (see also Jawitz 2012). Their strategy involved combining an
institutional critique with what one professor described as a
"survival strategy."
The professors who employed pragmatic strategies were the most
explicit about the strategies they were employing to engage and navigate
the university. One of these strategies involved recognizing that they
would only be taken seriously if they could demonstrate that they were
able to succeed, or even excel, in the current structural and cultural
milieu of the university. Hence, like those who used compliant
strategies, they emphasized their need to work harder, not to compensate
for any perceived shortcomings, but to advantageously position
themselves in ways to command respect by demonstrating their high
intellectual abilities and capacity to work within the existing
structure. Speaking of this need to work harder, one professor
commented: "I'm conscious of it all the time. I have to work
harder." Another concurred: "Minority faculty need to work ten
times harder to get where they need to be."
One engineering faculty member spoke of being hindered by the many
racism-related "issues" he encountered in his career. A full
professor, he concluded that "the reason they are non-issues is
because I work twice as hard as my other colleagues." He spoke with
some satisfaction about feeling safe because he had made sure to
insulate himself from criticism through hard work, saying, "I have
made my life such that I can do what I like to do. But for that I had to
work my rear end off and there are a lot of people who would not like to
see me in the position that I am." Similarly, reflecting on how she
prepared for tenure and the promotion process, one associate professor
said that she made sure that her profile was unassailable. "I knew
I hit those benchmarks and exceeded them. I didn't want to be the
marginal case." It was noted that scholars who work on issues of
race and racism tend to be more scrutinized and, as such, experience
pressure to meet expectations. Commenting on this practice, one
participant talked of how she deliberately protected herself from claims
that her work was not sufficiently academic by ensuring that all of her
publications were in well-recognized journals. She proffered: "I
responded to it by finding mainstream outlets that were accepting and
open.... I looked very hard for journals that were both respected, and
could accommodate my work without me having to make compromises."
What distinguished these professors' strategies was their
insistence on establishing themselves as legitimate under the gaze of
the institution and, at the same time, making every effort to maintain
their ideological stance. Ironically, despite their increased visibility
within white organizations, as Kanter (1993) notes, minority members
have to work harder to be noticed--specifically in terms of their
knowledge, abilities, potentials and achievements.
The engineering professor mentioned earlier also alluded to how
hard work combined with a pragmatic strategy could bring about needed
change. He cited his time as an administrator in his department when he
managed to bring about diversity in his faculty. As he stated: "The
only reason we have had these minority hires is because when I was head,
I hired them." But he ultimately found the work frustrating in the
face of much resistance; and left the position because "[T]he
reality is I do not believe in pushing an agenda for the sake of the
agenda itself.... I decided to change my strategy." This idea of
engaging in advocacy that is effective and would yield the desired
outcomes speaks to these faculty members' active and continuous
assessment of structural factors and possibilities for change--sometimes
getting into positions that enabled them to carry out their objectives.
Some professors advocated strategies that engaged the informal
networks of power, believing such networks to be more influential and
therefore potentially effective in transforming the institution. This is
consistent with Aguirre's (2011) notion of the "exchange
relationships" which faculty members form (770). As one faculty
member said, "The more and more I think about these issues, the
more I see it is about the existing friendship networks.... It's
about how you break into those corners of power. It's not about
formalizing the system--it's the informal networks--go golfing with
the right people." This professor emphasized getting to know the
right people--specifically, forming relationships with older colleagues
who have influence, but are sufficiently established that they are not
threatened by junior scholars. She maintained that these types of social
and influential relationships could be mutually beneficial. Her words
were: "There is a reverse mentoring process where they [older
colleagues] are learning something new about issues of diversity from a
young faculty of colour. It benefits them." On the same point,
another faculty member mentioned that there is a need to be both
strategic and open, saying, "You find allies in unexpected places
and this is for me the argument against forms of ghettoisation."
Critical Participation
"... trying to get people to care."
While the faculty members who employed pragmatic and critical
participation strategies had similar understandings of the principles
and assumptions upon which universities operate, those who subscribed to
critical participation strategies tended to be somewhat more steadfast
in their commitment to challenge and address issues of inequity within
the institution which they regarded as an unfriendly and hazardous place
(see Henry and Tator 2009). They tried to avoid the risks of getting
caught in the clutches of neoliberalism, thereby losing their commitment
to working on needed institutional changes. Interestingly, they seemed
to remain optimistic that, ultimately, their efforts would yield the
changes they sought; for otherwise it would be pointless to engage in
the activities which they did. What they sought then, as one participant
put it with reference to the diversity that one sees on
universities' websites, is that one day, "What you see on the
website might become the norm."
Talk of the pernicious effects of racism was a recurring part of
our conversations with faculty members for whom critical participation
was their strategy of engaging with their universities. According to one
faculty member:
When we are talking about racism in institutions, it is important
to recognize that the biggest worry is not the individual rabidly
racist person. The biggest problem is inertia. It is a historically
racist system and so you don't have to do any bad thing for racism
to perpetuate itself. All you have to do is do nothing. That is the
problem with 'colour-blindness.' The idea [should not be] that we
can just not pay attention to race, and then the problem goes away.
One faculty member spoke at length about how engaging with issues
of racism and discrimination entailed significant career risks:
... I see the ways in which my colleagues have been told to sit on
this committee, go after this and do this. I see that they have
been hand-picked. I call it hand-picked.... I believe it has to do,
not so much with the fact that I'm racialized--although I think
it's a part of it--but it has to do with my political orientation,
and it has to do with the fact that I'm unwilling to forgo these
issues.... I feel that again my research is the reason why I kept
being discounted.... And I feel that there are so many ways in
which the informal aspects of race are justified using formal
policies and formal procedures. And it's that hidden piece that I
feel is so insidious ...; it's so menacing. It's hard actually even
for someone like myself to point a finger and say I know one
hundred percent that that was because of race. I can't do it.
Another participant claimed that her experience, compared to that
of a colleague who did not talk about racism, demonstrated that it is
far more advantageous to resist speaking up:
I have a colleague who is Black who does have a PhD, and we speak
about our experiences and I can see that because she is more
willing to say that race plays no part in what she does and how she
experiences the university, it seems that we have a completely
different experience at the university.... I feel that I paid a
personal price in the academy for actually making a political stand
(see also Jawitz 2012).
A key component of many faculty members' discussion was how
the persuasive liberal multicultural notion of colour-blindness
functioned to maintain the status quo within universities, even as
racialized people join the academy (see Gillborn 2008). And as one
faculty member theorized, the expectation is that racialized individuals
too would become colour-blind. But as he argued, it is important for
people like him to resist becoming assimilated into such thinking.
Being colour-blind means that I have to stop being who I am or I
don't have the right to expect other people to have to interact
with me in terms of who I actually am. I have to pretend I am like
them.... It does a disservice to my parents--I am who they were and
are. I occupy a position now because of sacrifices they [parents]
made. Because of silent and petty injustices and indignities they
had to endure for my benefit. If I accede to a will of
colour-blindness, it's like they [parents] never did any of that. I
am in a position now, because of my job, to tell some of their
stories. Why would I agree not to do that? Just so somebody else
can feel more comfortable in the space they occupy?
Colour-blindness sanctions laziness. Universities should be places
where new knowledge is fostered and exchanged. If universities
can't figure out how to deal constructively with our differences
then you just have to give up hope generally. If we can't do it in
universities, then what hope does the rest of our society have?
For the most part, faculty members simultaneously emphasized
strategies of working within the system and challenging the system.
"If you don't change from inside, there will never be
change," said one professor, claiming that "[W]e have found
ways to work with some deans who are ready and keen to do
something." Similarly, another professor who was involved in issues
of equity contended: "I thought this would be a nice way, instead
of working on the outside, I could work on the inside of the system and
change a large segment of it in the right way." Yet another claimed
that, despite many frustrations, she "stayed so I could make
institutional change and transformation. That is my goal and I can find
allies to help me ... you have to be in some positions to he able to
influence change ... to have people on the inside who know what the
processes are." While working within the university, however, many
of these professors also expressed a willingness to challenge the
dominant structures both formally and informally. One situation where
this approach was mentioned was with reference to tenure and promotion.
A number of faculty members spoke of being granted tenure and/or
promotion after filing grievances with their union. One professor
related this very directly to the position of racialized scholars,
saying, "I got my tenure after a grievance. As minority professors
in this white world ..., it is our duty to make sure that our colleagues
respect us."
One of the dominant themes in the interviews of the faculty members
who employ these types of strategies, however, was the potential
negative consequences--personally, professionally, and
psychologically--of trying to engage an often resistant university in
matters of inequity, racism and discrimination (Jackson and Johnson
2011). One faculty member recalled reporting to administration an
incident in which a colleague made a disparaging remark to a racialized
student. Putting aside the outcome of the investigation of the incident
and the actions taken by the faculty association and administration,
this faculty member noted that the appropriateness of their intervention
was called into question because of their presumed similarity in
cultural background with the student. Other participants spoke of issues
they raised that were being constantly minimized or ignored. There was a
sense that while the university was eager to pay lip-service to
initiatives organized around the language of diversity, there was
resistance to real institutional change. And becoming too vocal an
advocate for these issues engendered potential career consequences. As a
faculty member explained, "I was recently told by a more senior
faculty member who acts as a sort of mentor to me ... that I spoke up
too much about Indigenous issues and that it's hurting me."
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Racialized faculty members are navigating a difficult terrain when
they enter the academy (Jackson and Johnson 2011). The demands of the
academic profession, and the ways universities are increasingly shaped
by neoliberal ideologies have created a context in which they are
expected to conform to a system that marginalizes them (Ahmed 2012, 53).
While some complied, others resisted conforming to institutional and
disciplinary expectations, and in pragmatic and critical ways resisted
and/or sidestepped the pressures that they experience as racialized
professors. Critical Race Theory indicates that supposedly race-neutral
or colourblind institutional practices can really perpetuate
racialization and marginalization (Gillborn 2008). And as Kanter's
(1993) theory of tokenism suggests, racialized faculty's rear
presence in the academy positions them as tokens which mediate and
structure their experiences and occupational identities as minority
faculty. Indeed, as Ahmed (2012) argues, diversity in institutions
represents an opportunity for institutions to symbolically celebrate
their supposed commitment to representing the changing population.
As discussed, some racialized faculty members did not see race as
influencing their experiences in their universities. This likely has to
do with a fear of disclosing that they were indeed having problems
fitting in, and the fact that they were engaging in a form of
self-preservation whereby denying that race, and not their stellar
academic record, intellectual abilities, and disciplinary qualification,
has something to do with their place in the academy (Joseph and
Hirshfield 2011). Foreign-born faculty members, particularly those
recently immigrated, were more likely to perceive cultural differences
as contributing to their difficulties in the institution. They were more
hesitant to name racism, and tended to focus on how they were not yet
able to fully adapt to so-called Canadian culture. Academics trained in
Canada and the U.S. tended to be far more forthright about identifying
racism and a culture of whiteness in universities as something to be
challenged and as something that must be changed.
The tenure and promotion process was of much concern to faculty
members; and many at the pre-tenure stage simply did not want to
"rock the boat." So where a faculty member was located in the
tenure and promotion process or was ranked in the hierarchy of the
professorate had something to do with the strategies he or she employed
in navigating the academy (de Montigny 2011). Some of those who agreed
that the institution's expectations of them were reasonable
(compliant strategy) attributed the struggles they had in accessing
their positions in the academy, or the difficulties they experienced in
the tenure and promotion process, to their cultural shortcomings that
they must overcome in order to be successful. Others, taking a pragmatic
or critical participatory approach, deliberately calculated how and how
much they could critique the system, while still ensuring that their
work and conduct would be considered acceptable within it.
Academic discipline also had an effect on the strategies that
faculty members employed. It is the case that a professor's
discipline influences their identification and status within the
academy. It may not be surprising that faculty members in the social
sciences and humanities were more likely--although not exclusively--to
adopt and advance critical perspectives with respect to diversity and
equity within the institution. Comparatively, professors in sciences and
engineering were more likely to emphasize a pre-known consensus on what
constitutes good scholarship. While this trend was strong in our
findings, it is significant to note that it was not absolute. Some of
the most knowledgeable critiques of the university came from individuals
who were in the sciences and engineering, while some social scientists
adopted strategies that were quite conformist and/or compliant with the
dominant logic and culture of the institution.
Ultimately, faculty members, particularly those committed to being
change agents, had to decide upon a course of action that could
accommodate their varying desires for institutional change while
protecting their often vulnerable positions (Aguirre 2011). This means
that racialized faculty members were influenced both by their subjective
assessments of the culture and structures of the academy and by their
assessments of how to best work within the institutions to affect
change, if they so desire (Knight 2010).
The idea that faculty members adopt specific strategies of survival
draws attention not only to the racialized experiences of professors,
but recognizes the agency these individuals exert. Giving attention to
the experiences, interpretations, and strategies of racialized faculty
members in different faculties and disciplines in academic institutions
across Canada, can facilitate further discussion on effective ways to
achieve the type of institutional transformation in which diversity
becomes more than a brand, but something that can prove meaningful
through the diverse and enriching discourses, scholarship, and
experience it brings to Canadian universities.
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NOTES
(1.) Unfortunately, this information was either not provided,
incorrectly coded, or represents those respondents who were in long-term
contact positions.
(2.) The category represents cases where the disciplines were
unclear, not provided by respondents, or less common.
(3.) One participant told us that a committee was formed to help
internationalize the university, but "as a female minority"
who was too shy to speak on committees, she did not join.
(4.) With reference to Asian women in the academy, Lin et al (2006)
claim that this navigation is made all the more difficult by the fact
that speaking up can result in being perceived as being angry or
"incessantly narrating your own suffering" (75).
CARL E. JAMES, a former Affirmative Action Officer at York
University, is currently Director of the York Centre for Education and
Community, and a Professor in the Faculty of Education and Graduate
Programme in Sociology at the university. His research interests include
the examination of issues of access, equity, and inclusion for
racialized individuals in terms of their education and employment
opportunities, retention and achievements.
TABLE 1. Research Participants by Selected Characteristics
Race/ # Gender # # Rank # Discipline #
Ethnicity
South 20 Female 45 Full 26 Social 24
Asian Sciences
East Asian 21 Male 44 Associate 17 Education 11
Black 19 Assistant 16 Engineering 10
Indigenous 16 Other/ 30 Medicine/ 6
Unknown (1) Health
Middle 6 Science 6
Eastern
White 6 Indigenous 4
Studies
Mixed 1 Law 3
Other/ 25
Unknown (2)
Total 89 89 89 89 89
