Long regarded as the "great equalizer" across all social identity categories, including race/ethnicity, class, and gender, the education system plays a pronounced role in the curation and dissemination of knowledge on social stratification. In contemporary times, this role is perhaps no more evident than in academia's gatekeeping role in…

Continued racial and social injustices--including hate crimes against Asian Americans and other racially minoritized groups; the mounting loss of Black lives from police violence; mass shootings that affect communities of color; efforts to disenfranchise voters of color; and the unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic--are heightening awareness…

In this conceptual essay, the author argues that bad faith is a valuable concept in understanding and challenging racism in higher education. The philosopher Lewis Gordon argues that racism is a manifestation of bad faith. For the actor who sees Black people as less than human, for example, no evidence will allow the actor to see otherwise. Bad…

This volume explores mindfulness and other contemplative approaches as strategic tools for cultivating anti-oppressive pedagogies in higher education. Research confirms that simply providing students with evidence and narratives of economic, social, and environmental injustices proves insufficient in developing awareness and eliciting responses of…

Institutions of higher education have authority over academic content and learning environments, which confers responsibility on them to produce anti-racist curricula, policies, and standards of educational practice.Absent an understanding of historical and contemporary manifestations of the White supremacist campaign of terror and control of…

"We Hold These Truths: Dismantling Racial Hierarchies, Building Equitable Communities" describes the work of Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at colleges and universities across the country to dismantle the tools that perpetuate oppression and entrenched racial hierarchies. By creating positive narratives…

Due to wildfires in the fall of 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, Sonoma State University lost 50 service-learning courses and, as a result, almost 900 fewer students completed a service-learning course than in the previous year. During the summer of 2020, the Center for Community Engagement began developing service-learning…

Using a decolonial and Black-feminist-inspired analytical lens, this paper explores the dilemmas and challenges that Black academics face in trying to bring about change in universities within the British higher education system. Higher education-focused campaigns such as "Why Isn't My Professor Black?" "Why Is My Curriculum…

The present study contributes to a vast body of empirical research on the importance of the sense of justice in education. It examines the mediating role of perceived injustice (grades and lecturer-student relations) in ethnic/racial differences concerning trust and identification. The focus is on an ethnically and racially mixed higher-education…

Media educators must address their personal teaching philosophies to adequately participate in anti-racist pedagogy. Using critical media literacy principles, educators can be aware of student's bodies and performance in relation to reinforced systems of whiteness in the media classroom. This article proposes ways for higher education media…

The intersection of COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd has refocused attention on the hitherto hidden, but pervasive, impacts of race and racism in the US. As this essay will argue, examining anti-Asian racism and anti-Blackness in the context of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter movement, allow a deeper understanding of how white supremacy…

This paper draws on the compelling example of a political movement in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s to explore both how epistemic justice conditions of possibility and of failure play out in practice. It provides a springboard to understand how and why failures of epistemic justice matter tremendously for democratic and inclusive lives and…

In this article, the authors reflect on a storytelling tunnel book project, from their interdisciplinary course Art & Social Justice for nonmajors at Nazareth College, a small, private, liberal arts college in New York. The authors argue that in an era of increased political polarization, rising racism, and xenophobia, storytelling is a…

I highlight the importance of paying attention to the affective strategies of abolition pedagogies in higher education to mobilize abolitionist praxis. Affective strategies can make a contribution in either changing or reproducing the affective culture that has long been established at the colonial university. In the analysis here, I argue that…

As the rhetorical performances of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work continue to proliferate and sell a movement towards more equitable institutions, the authors challenge this rhetoric as merely a new mode of epistemological and territorial expropriation. Instead, the authors put forth the concept of shadow work, which happens as a…