“Failing to respond”: Black graduate students’ perceptions of a university president’s responses to racialized incidents.

Abstract

Guided by Hurtado et al.'s (2012) Multi-Contextual Model for Diverse Learning Environments, this qualitative case study examined Black graduate students' perceptions of a university president's responses to racialized incidents. Data were analyzed on an institutional level through institutional documents and presidential statements and individually through interviews with 12 Black graduate students from the University of Maryland, College Park. The findings were displayed through narrative summaries and demonstrate how Black graduate students felt othered, marginalized, and silenced due to the president's responses to racialized incidents. Findings show the lack of institutional response strategies that the president used and how participants viewed the president's responses to racialized incidents as untimely, inadequate, and inappropriate. The president's responses through campus statements underscored nonperformative and anti-Blackness rhetoric from the participants' vantage point, displaying a lack of actionoriented language, next steps, and strategies to assist them during the aftermath of the incidents. This study further illustrates the significance of the presidency's role when addressing race and racism issues and how their responses have the power to disrupt or harm the personal lived experiences of Black graduate students. Broader implications for practice and recommendations for theory and future research are offered.

“We need to see action”: An institutional case study of the Summer of Hate and Black student resistance.

“…Furthermore, while students acknowledged that some faculty and administrators engaged in dialogues about campus history after the rallies, most of these conversations failed to translate into veritable action. This is consistent with other evidence that institutions use official statements from senior-level administrators to ease negative publicity without concomitant attention to measurable change (Briscoe, 2022). Given the power and privilege within positions of university leadership (i.e., the president, the executive board, and deans and provosts), their commitment and collaboration around institutional antiracism are essential for campus change (Arellano & Vue, 2019; Kezar, 2013).…”

“Against all odds”: A collective Black feminist autoethnography of Black women doctoral students’ experiences in higher education programs.

“…Overall, our findings point to an undeniable need for the deconstruction of socialization to reimagine more inclusive practices along the doctoral journey. Indeed, Black graduate students have experienced chilly hostile racial climates (Briscoe, 2022(Briscoe, , 2023a(Briscoe, , 2023bK. A. Griffin et al, 2012;Slay et al, 2019); however, Black women doctoral students specifically have had arduous doctoral experiences (Grant, 2021;C.…”

Challenging the dominant narratives: faculty members’ perceptions of administrators’ responses to Critical Race Theory bans

“…For example, Cole and Harper (2017) found that through their response statements to racist incidents, presidents often addressed the broader campus community in generic ways rather than the individuals directly impacted. In addition, when administrators respond to racialized incidents, they often approach racism as an individual act blamed on the perpetrator, failing to acknowledge the presence of systemic racism on their campus (Briscoe, 2022). This ability to control institutional narratives through rhetoric has significance because when administrators emphasize the value of dominant ideals such as free speech over condemning racism, they may reinforce white ideologies (Jones, 2019).…”