Author
Listed:
- LaWanda W.M. Ward
- Candace N. Hall
Abstract
In tenure and promotion denial lawsuits against historically White institutions, Black professors submit evidence of discrimination based on implicit and explicit bias and gendered racism, yet legal redress rarely occurs because many courts will not recognize structural inequities as a persisting reality in academia. Informed by intersectional theory and methodology, this qualitative study synthesized data from legal documents of four tenure denial lawsuits filed by Black professors, with the results presented as a fictionalized composite counternarrative affirming these professors’ lived experiences. Drawing on scholarship about tenure and promotion, the study identifies intersectional barriers to tenure attainment for Black professors that include inadequate institutional support, divergence from established institutional tenure and promotion policies, inconsistent application of tenure and promotion guidelines, and problematic academic politics. The study findings illuminate how inequitable, often haphazard tenure and promotion processes can result in litigation and extend scholarship about the retention of Black professors in the academy. The project delineates a path toward more humanity-affirming academic work environments with unequivocal institutional commitments to faculty retention. To translate these values into practice, the authors assert the need for a new approach to tenure and promotion policy anchored in anti-discrimination, referred to as critical procedural justice.
Suggested Citation
LaWanda W.M. Ward & Candace N. Hall, 2022.
"Seeking Tenure While Black: Lawsuit Composite Counterstories of Black Professors at Historically White Institutions,"
The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 93(7), pages 1012-1036, November.
Handle:
RePEc:taf:uhejxx:v:93:y:2022:i:7:p:1012-1036
DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2022.2082760
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:uhejxx:v:93:y:2022:i:7:p:1012-1036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/uhej .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.