Plantation Politics and Neoliberal Racism in Higher Education: A Framework for Reconstructing Anti-Racist Institutions

Abstract

Overcoming the deeply embedded anti-Black racism and colonial heritage of North America is an ongoing project. Scholars have yet to explicate fully the ways that racism and colonialism are foundational to the construction of institutions of higher education. Plantation politics provides the opportunity to reveal parallel organizational and cultural norms between contemporary higher education institutions and slave plantations. To better explore the applicability of this theory, the authors share an example of the parallel between slave plantations and contemporary universities called “The Oxymoronic Social Existence of Whites (or Neoliberalism as the New Slave Code)” and its implications for campus practice toward racial liberation. The authors argue that the institutional logics of colonialism and imperialism— which were essential to the establishment of this country and led to the creation of plantations and the enslavement of Black bodies—exists within higher education institutions today.

STEM validation among underrepresented students: Leveraging insights from a STEM diversity program to broaden participation.

“…The validating process acknowledges and amplifies these strengths through educators who proactively serve as institutional resources for students. Validation is particularly valuable for students who experience stressful incongruency between their culturally centered strengths and institutional norms grounded in dominant perspectives—for example, forms of hypercapitalism, patriarchy, and/or whiteness (Squire et al, 2018). This is particularly important in postsecondary STEM education, which often restricts forms of agency that fall outside “traditional” cultural norms of science.…”

Are We in This Alone? Examining the Cost of Health & Wellness by Surviving the Neoliberal Academy for Multiple Minoritized Faculty

“…Neoliberalism continues to be pervasive across higher education, and more scholars today are documenting its destruction on those who occupy the academy, particularly for college and university faculty members who are held to strict neoliberal metrics and expectations (Bell, 2019;Gildersleeve, 2017;Gonzales & Núñez, 2014;Hurtado, 2020;Levin & Aliyeva, 2015;Museus & LePeau, 2019;Squire et al, 2018;Wright-Mair & Museus, 2021). As we move towards understanding the many negative consequences of neoliberalism, we cannot ignore the blatant disregard for, and rapid decline in, faculty health and wellness.…”

“…As research on neoliberalism in the academy increases (Darder, 2012;Gildersleeve, 2017;Giroux, 2008;Gonzalez & Núñez, 2014;Hurtado, 2020;Levin & Aliyeva, 2015;Marine et al, 2019;Museus & LePeau, 2019;Squire et al, 2018;Wright-Mair & Museus, 2021), there is a need to understand the specific impacts of not only neoliberal ideologies, but also the consequences of neoliberal environments on faculty, specifically those who hold multiple minoritized identities. Neoliberalism is a set of ideas and/ or logic that regards higher education as a vehicle for revenue generation and competition rather than a public good (Antonio, 2013;Darder, 2012;Giroux, 2008;Slaughter & Leslie, 1997).…”

Does a University’s Enslavement History Play a Role in Black Student–White Faculty Interactions? A Structural Equation Model

“…The afterlife of slavery connects directly to higher education as Black people were material goods for colleges in the Colonial Era and have continued to experience anti-Blackness across eras of U.S. higher education history [19]. According to Dancy et al (2018), higher education and the "academic model is still essentially a colonial one" [58] (p. 178) as Black students today face similar systemic configurations of anti-Black violence and trauma as those in the enslavement and Jim Crow era (e.g., microaggressions and tokenism) [59]. Additionally, Womack (2016) argues how the multigenerational oppression suffered by enslaved Africans and their descendants continues to affect the well-being of Black college students today as they fight to exist in their full humanity on college campuses [60].…”