Your title is no exception: the racial constraints of African-American Chief Diversity Officers

ABSTRACT

The Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) position has a unique responsibility to drive diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across college campuses, however, it does not award individuals serving in these roles an exemption from racial ostracism. In this study, the author investigates how anti-blackness prevents African-American CDOs from fulfilling the most crucial function of the position – coalition building – which is the principal driver of social movement and change in higher education. Findings revealed anti-blackness to produce racial constraints that force African-American CDOs to deprioritize strategic imperatives and instead redistribute time, effort, and focus toward addressing the racialization of their identities. Racial constraints were found to be race-based limitations that inhibit effectiveness of the CDO role and situate African-American CDOs to suffer through the exact same experiences they are hired to fix.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education administration
• Chief Diversity Officers
• African-American adminstrators
• anti-blackness
• post-racial narratives
• PWI

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Correction

Acknowledgments

The author is indebted to the participants of the study. Words cannot convey the level of gratitude the author has for participants’ vulnerability to share their struggles, tears, hopes, humour, and honesty. Their contributions to both social science and organizational research is invaluable, but this comes only second to their dedication for social justice and change. Thank you for entrusting the author with your voice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2023.2281118)

Notes

1. The racial classification of ‘White’ is not utilized in this article as it is a fabricated and oppressive social construct used entirely for invalidation of the African and ‘does not describe a group with a sense of common experiences or kinship outside of acts of colonization and terror’ (Dumas 2016, 13; Roediger 1994). Instead, the racial classification Euro-American is utilized to both identify and acknowledge those born in America whose bulk ancestry traces to one or more countries in Europe. The identifier ‘White’ is solely used in this article to reference a sociopolitical disposition characterized by intellectual arrogance, academic gatekeeping, manipulation, oppression, and racism.

2. Anti-Blackness is an umbrella term used to describe the discriminatory experiences of various African diasporic populations. The study focused on a specific subset of the diaspora – African-Americans. The term Anti-Blackness is only used to reference and describe the African-American experience in the United States and is not meant to general all populations of the African diaspora.

3. Institutional members were identified by participants as trustees, presidents, vice-presidents, chancellors, deans, department chairs, faculty, staff, and students. Racial composition included Euro-Americans (majority) and others with marginalized identities.