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Everyday Resistance Strategies by Minoritized Faculty
Javier F. Casado Pérez
Portland State University
This article presents the results of a critical in-depth phenomenological interviewing (CIPI) method
conducted with minoritized faculty (N⫽6) in the discipline of Counselor Education at predominantly
White research-intensive institutions. The purpose of the investigation was to ascertain strategies used by
these faculty when confronting institutional forms of oppression. After conducting a connective and
generative analysis of full phenomenological profiles resulting from CIPI, 5 distinct strategies emerged:
(a) sustained service, (b) self-love, (c) mentoring as resistance, (d) talking back, and (e) subversive
(re)readings. These strategies are viewed through a critical race feminist theoretical lens and discussed
in connection to existing literature. Participants’ strategies hold unique implications for institutional
response to enduring forms of oppression, developments in doctoral training and professional develop-
ment, and innovative approaches to mentorship programs.
Keywords: faculty diversity, oppression, resistance, critical qualitative inquiry
Resistance needs a system. Not only people with similar experiences,
but also people who are different from us. And although changes are
not going to happen in one day, we should keep the hope.
—Participant Hope, Interview 3
Turner and Myers (2000) were pivotal in demonstrating how
accomplishments in faculty diversification can often feel bitter-
sweet. While producing a more representative, innovative, and
intellectually diverse professoriate, scholars have shown that di-
versification has also given rise to themes of isolation, occupa-
tional stress, institutional racism, tokenism, accent discrimination,
challenges to intellect and credentials, and biased recruitment,
promotion, and tenure practices (Chesler, 2013;Gasman, Kim, &
Nguyen, 2011;Turner, González, & Wong (Lau), 2011;Turner,
González, & Wood, 2008). Rather than problematizing diversity,
the works of these scholars functioned as a rallying cry that
incentivized national scholarly attention to the realities faced by
minoritized faculty in often icy and unwelcoming institutional
climates and the critical need for change (e.g., Louis et al., 2016;
McCoy, 2017;Misawa, 2015;Monzó & SooHoo, 2014). Minori-
tized denotes the socially constructed nature of underrepresenta-
tion and disadvantage (Harper, 2012). In lieu of using “minority”
as a categorical trait, minoritized recognizes that individuals are
positioned into minority status only in given contexts and by
marginalizing and oppressive processes that sustain the overrep-
resentation and dominance of historically privileged social identi-
ties (Harper, 2012;Hoffman & Mitchell, 2016). This conceptual
shift refocuses attention on systemic forces rather than individual
characteristics resulting in oppression.
Networks of structural and systemic inequalities, oppression and
marginalization prevent the minoritized and disadvantaged from
attaining any form of individual, social, or political control and
threatening the supremacy of the status quo. Woven throughout
societal fabric, oppresson and marginalization readily manifest
across varying levels of academia. Recently, multidisciplinary
scholars have articulated forms of oppression and marginalization
affecting minoritized faculty, including (a) subtle discrimination
and microaggressions (Eagan & Garvey, 2015;Louis et al., 2016);
(b) cultural taxation, tokenism, and erasure (Joseph & Hirshfield,
2013;McCoy, 2017); (c) challenges to expertise, roles, and re-
search (Misawa, 2015;Turner et al., 2008); (d) bias in recruitment,
promotion, and tenure (Chesler, 2013;Gasman, Abiola, & Travers,
2015); (e) gendered and racialized meritocracies (Griffin, Bennett,
& Harris, 2013;Harper, 2012); and (f) different or unequal treat-
ment and expectations (Dancy & Jean-Marie, 2014). In this article,
I present findings from a critical qualitative inquiry (CQI; Can-
nella, Pérez, & Pasque, 2015) into the experiences of minoritized
faculty who encounter and resist these institutional forms of op-
pression and marginalization, aiming to answer the question: What
strategies do minoritized faculty use in resisting institutional forms
of oppression?
Faculty Diversity in the United States
Colleges and universities in the United States have historically
been and largely remain segregated (Monzó & SooHoo, 2014),
despite evidence of the vastly positive effects diversity has on
institutional achievement, student learning outcomes, and scholar-
ship innovations (Dancy & Jean-Marie, 2014). According to the
National Center for Educational Statistics (2013), only 21.5% of
full-time faculty positions in the United States are held by faculty
of color—of faculty at the rank of professor, 58% are White males,
and only 6% are Black or Latino. While women represent almost
half of all full-time faculty positions, most are White and hold
largely the ranks of untenured professors, instructors, and lecturers
(Gasman et al., 2015;Turner et al., 2011). Additionally, only 17%
This article was published Online First August 13, 2018.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Javier F.
Casado Pérez, Department of Counselor Education, Graduate School of
Education, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland, OR 97207.
E-mail: j.casadoperez@pdx.edu
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Journal of Diversity in Higher Education
© 2018 National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education 2019, Vol. 12, No. 2, 170–179
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