An exodus of Black women in academia hurts workforce
The burden that Black people, particularly women, in academia carry is rarely recognized by the outside world. But just weeks into 2024, it’s made national news.
First, it was the resignation of former Harvard President Claudine Gay after a prolonged public campaign of harassment that culminated with plagiarism allegations.
Now it’s the suicide of Lincoln University’s vice president of student affairs, Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey, who alleged she was “intentionally harassed and bullied” by Lincoln University President John B. Moseley after disclosing her mental health struggles.
To be sure, Gay created some of her own problems with her legalistic congressional testimony on antisemitism, which was roundly critiqued. The plagiarism allegations, which she’s addressed, also hurt her.
But we would be remiss if we discounted the extent to which racist and sexist undertones, rooted in antagonism of what her appointment represented, played a role.
The public experiences of Gay and Candia-Bailey have compelled other Black Americans in higher education to share their own stories. Take a scroll through social media, and you’ll see Ph.D. candidates and graduates sharing stories of feeling depressed, being passed up for tenure, and leaving programs because they were mistreated.
It’s no wonder why only about 6 percent of all faculty in colleges and universities are Black (it gets lower as you go up the ladder). And it’s no wonder the number hasn’t moved much since the early 1980s, when it was 4.2 percent.
Black faculty navigate the typical academic hurdles and many invisible yet consequential ones, such as managing implicit and explicit messages about their belonging and bearing a disproportionate responsibility for supporting students of color. Add unprecedented levels of public scrutiny to the already high invisible costs of leadership, and as Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores notes, “This is how Black women leaders do not survive.”
As businesses reconsider their commitment to diversity and look to colleges and universities as partners to develop and recruit diverse talent, these troubling trends jeopardize their aims. Not only does seeing Black leaders on campuses affirm that Black students belong and are a source of inspiration for what they can aspire to. But for White and nonBlack students of color, it helps counter the default belief that leadership can only be synonymous with whiteness. This is a subtle impression, of course, but an important one.
College plays an outsize role in educating and mentoring the next generations of the workforce and shapes their workplace expectations. And since many U.S. students have never had a Black teacher — much less a principal — throughout elementary and high school, encountering them as leaders in higher education is an opportunity to challenge unconscious biases with exposure.
Yet our paucity of Black leaders at present inhibits this aim, and we risk a new generation of leaders witnessing this moment and sitting leadership out. We must figure out how to attract and keep Black leaders in academia. A good place to start is acknowledging that the adage, Black people work twice as hard to be recognized half as much, is not from a bygone era.
Sexism, for Black women, and racism have kept that expectation alive and, unfortunately, well. If you need proof, I’d start by considering how many reports you’ve seen in recent years that still include “the first Black woman to…”
But recognizing the uneven playing field without actively working to level it is, to borrow loosely from biblical scripture, faith without works. After organizations shed a race- and gender-blind approach to a genderand race-specific reality, they must be prepared to offer support and guidance to ensure the success of the candidates they recruit.
When it comes to bringing Black women into predominantly and traditionally White male spaces, this means anticipating challenges that may stem from the change and not treating biased attacks as an opportunity for them to demonstrate that they can do their job.
If not, in addition to Gay and Candia-Bailey, we’ll have more stories like Lesley Lokko, who called her decision to step down as dean of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at City College of New York “a profound act of self-preservation.”
Anna Branch is a professor of sociology and senior vice president for equity at Rutgers University. She serves on several diversity and inclusion advisory boards and is the co-author of “Work in Black and White: Striving for the American Dream.” This column was published in the Bloomberg News and distributed by Tribune Content Agency.