Faculty play crucial yet understudied roles in diversifying the professoriate. Rates of diversification across the pipeline to the professoriate have moved slowly. Guided by directed content analysis, this qualitative study uses data from interviews with 74 faculty at five different California State University institutions and explores the cognitive frames and paradigmatic views that faculty utilize to make sense of undergraduate student potential for the PhD. We were concerned with understanding how the cognitive frames and paradigmatic views from which faculty draw influence their perceptions of the potential of undergraduate Students of Color and their responsibility in mentoring and supporting access to the PhD. Our study reveals how faculty working within Bensimon's (2005) cognitive frames and Bensimon's (2007) dominant paradigm for student success hinder the diversification of the pipeline to PhD. Most importantly, the study contributes a new justice paradigm that holds the greatest potential for directing Students of Color into the professoriate pipeline and may serve as a sense-making tool to renew efforts to diversify the professoriate. Potential future research directions and implications are discussed.