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Racial Disparities in Academic Leadership: Beyond the Numbers
Exploring the Underrepresentation and Scrutiny of Non-White Faculty in U.S. Colleges
I wrote an earlier article about the The Myth of Black Excellence: Navigating the Double-Edged Sword. In it, I used the resignation of Professor Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University after six months of being there as one of my examples of the loss of skills due to the growth of racial and patriarchal aggression. It sparked this article. The issue of scrutiny on white academics in U.S. colleges compared to their non-white counterparts has been the subject of various studies, which reveal disparities in the treatment and representation of faculty members based on race and ethnicity.
A report by The Myth of Black Excellence: Navigating the Double-Edged Sword highlighted the representational disparity among faculty in U.S. colleges. It noted that faculty members from underrepresented populations are less likely to be represented and ascend the ranks than their white counterparts, particularly in research-intensive (R1) institutions. No wonder when I watch programs like National Geographic, I can’t see many non-white people as research scientists.
The analysis showed that about 75% of not-for-profit institutions and 95% of R1 institutions had…
