In this conceptual paper, Diane Gusa highlights the salience of race by scrutinizing the culture of Whiteness within predominately White institutions of higher education. Using existing research in higher education retention literature, Gusa examines embedded White cultural ideology in the cultural practices, traditions, and perceptions of knowledge that are taken for granted as the norm at institutions of higher education. Drawing on marginalization and discrimination experiences of African American undergraduates to illustrate the performance of White mainstream ideology, Gusa names this embedded ideology White institutional presence (WIP) and assigns it four attributes: White ascendancy, monoculturalism, White estrangement, and White blindness. President Obama's election signifies a "momentous milestone in the history of America's most persistent domestic problem"-racism (Pettigrew, 2009, p. 290). Some media commentators and academics, as well as many Whites, believe the United States has made comprehensive progress in civil rights for minorities (Bobo & Kluegel, 1993; Kluegel, 1990) and deem this election as confirmation that the United States is now postracial (Wingfield & Feagin, 2010). This perception is advanced by the growing number of middle-class Black professionals (Allen & Farley, 1986) and an increasing number of Black elected officials (Sigelman, 1997). Though there have been significant racial changes in society, systemic, substantial, and racialized oppression has been sustained (Feagin, 2006). Systemic racism, with racial hierarchy at its heart (Wingfield