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SPECIAL ISSUE
Transforming School Systems
education policy analysis
archives
A peer-reviewed, independent,
open access, multilingual journal
Arizona State University
Volume 33 Number 9 January 28, 2025 ISSN 1068-2341
When Equity Leadership Keeps White Leaders in Control: A
Whiteness as Property Analysis of District Equity Work
Jason D. Salisbury
&
Lakrista L. Cummings
University of Illinois at Chicago
United States
Citation: Salisbury, J. D., & Cummings, L. L. (2025). When equity leadership keeps white leaders in
control: A whiteness as property analysis of district equity work. Education Policy Analysis Archives,
33(9). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.33.8540 This article is part of the special issue Transforming
School Systems: Questions of Power, Resistance, Equity, and Community guest edited by
Caitlin Farrell and Vidya Shah.
Abstract: Globally, schools continue to espouse commitments to equity and racial justice, yet
racialized opportunity gaps continue to exist in schools, especially schools located in urban
communities. In this research, we offer an empirically based explanation for this phenomenon by
demonstrating how white district leaders resist enacting meaningful district improvement when it
could require them to relinquish white peoples’ control of leadership. Specifically, we draw on
critical race theory’s tenet of whiteness as property to reveal the ways white leaders work to maintain
their propertied interest in leadership and the related benefits as opposed to engaging in the types of
deep practice-changing equity work required to shift organizational practices in ways to generate
equitable learning opportunities for youth of color. Implications of this research call for researchers
and leadership preparation programs to invest in preparing leaders who are able to center shifting
professional practices over maintaining access to the benefits of leadership.
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
2
Keywords: critical race theory; whiteness as property; district leadership; race-conscious
improvement
Cuando el liderazgo en equidad mantiene a líderes blancos en el poder: Un análisis de la
blancura como propiedad en el trabajo de equidad a nivel distrital
Resumen: A nivel global, las escuelas continúan proclamando compromisos con la equidad y la
justicia racial, pero las brechas racializadas en las oportunidades persisten, especialmente en escuelas
ubicadas en comunidades urbanas. En esta investigación, ofrecemos una explicación empírica para
este fenómeno al demostrar cómo los líderes distritales blancos resisten implementar mejoras
significativas en los distritos cuando esto podría requerir que renuncien al control que tienen sobre el
liderazgo como personas blancas. Específicamente, nos basamos en el principio de la teoría crítica
de la raza que define la blancura como propiedad para revelar cómo los líderes blancos trabajan para
mantener su interés de propiedad en el liderazgo y los beneficios asociados, en lugar de
comprometerse con los tipos de trabajo en equidad que transforman prácticas organizacionales de
manera que generen oportunidades de aprendizaje equitativas para jóvenes de color. Las
implicaciones de esta investigación llaman a los investigadores y programas de formación de líderes a
invertir en preparar líderes capaces de priorizar la transformación de prácticas profesionales sobre el
mantenimiento del acceso a los beneficios del liderazgo.
Palabras clave: teoría crítica de la raza; blancura como propiedad; liderazgo distrital; mejora
consciente de la raza
Quando a liderança em equidade mantém líderes brancos no poder: Uma análise da
branquitude como propriedade no trabalho de equidade distrital
Resumo: Globalmente, as escolas continuam proclamando compromissos com a equidade e a
justiça racial, mas as lacunas racializadas de oportunidades persistem, especialmente em escolas
localizadas em comunidades urbanas. Nesta pesquisa, oferecemos uma explicação empírica para esse
fenômeno ao demonstrar como líderes distritais brancos resistem a implementar melhorias
significativas no distrito quando isso pode exigir que abram mão do controle do poder de liderança
pelos brancos. Especificamente, baseamo-nos no princípio da teoria crítica da raça que define a
branquitude como propriedade para revelar como líderes brancos trabalham para manter seu
interesse de propriedade no poder de liderança e os benefícios associados, em vez de se engajar nos
tipos de trabalho em equidade que mudam práticas organizacionais de forma a gerar oportunidades
de aprendizado equitativas para jovens de cor. As implicações desta pesquisa apontam para a
necessidade de que pesquisadores e programas de formação de lideranças invistam em preparar
líderes capazes de priorizar a transformação de práticas profissionais em detrimento da manutenção
do acesso aos benefícios da liderança.
Palavras-chave: teoria crítica da raça; branquitude como propriedade; liderança distrital; melhoria
consciente de raça
When Equity Leadership Keeps White Leaders in Control: A Whiteness as
Property Analysis of District Equity Work
Globally, educational leaders continue to struggle to meet the needs of historically
marginalized students. Our research centers leadership in urban districts that serve predominately
students of color while being led by predominately white leadership teams. Research demonstrates
that racialized inequities continue to exist within these schools despite increased focus on race-
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
3
conscious educational practices (Bertrand, 2014; Fass et al., 2018; Salisbury, 2020a; Sheth &
Salisbury, 2022). Scholars have posited this exists in part because educational leaders (typically white
men) receive praise for claiming engagement in equity-minded work as opposed to making
substantive changes in actual practices designed to disrupt racialized inequities in schools (Ishimaru
& Galloway, 2014; Salisbury, 2021). As a result, there is a need to understand the type of race-
conscious work that school leaders engage in, the motivations for this work, and the ways this work
actively disrupts white supremacist colonial practices deeply ingrained in educational institutions.
Throughout this manuscript, race-conscious leadership is defined as leadership that intentionally
centers white supremacy and racialized opportunity gaps in ways that place race at the center of
leadership action and decision-making (Irby, 2022). Our goal in this research is to demonstrate how
white leaders engage in shallow or espoused race-conscious leadership as a tool to maintain their
propertied interest in school leadership and maintain their access to the property benefits that are
tethered to being a school leader.
Drawing on critical race theory’s tenet of whiteness as property (Harris, 1993) enabled us to
interrogate the leadership practices of white district leaders that failed to disrupt inequities
experienced by students of color and simultaneously ensured white individuals maintained access to
leadership positions, power, and benefits. White leaders were concurrently attempting to lead in
race-conscious ways that could better support students of color while working to protect white
peoples’ propertied interest in leadership and the benefits that accompany possessing the property
of leadership. For example, as demonstrated in our findings section, white leaders engaged students
of color as convenient instruments to achieve recognition for equity work while simultaneously
excluding and marginalizing youth of color when transformative change was called for that
demonstrated the possibility of decolonizing white leadership practices towards racial justice. Placed
in an understanding of the bullying aspects of whiteness and white supremacy and the historical
reality of white people working to maintain their propertied interest in whiteness, this makes sense
(Harris, 1996; Leonardo, 2015; Salisbury, 2021)
In the following sections, we first discuss existing research on race-conscious school
improvement and white leaders leading race-conscious/equity-minded school improvement. Second,
we will discuss critical race theory's theoretical framework, whiteness as property, and racial fortuity.
Lastly, we discuss the methods and data analysis techniques we employed in conducting this
research. Finally, we discuss findings from the research and put those findings in conversation with
existing literature. It is essential to define some terms used throughout this manuscript. When using
the term “students or youth of color,” we refer to students who identify as Black, Latiné, Asian
American, Multi-racial, or Indigenous.
Equity-Minded Improvement
For schools to improve in race-conscious ways, leaders need to intentionally focus on equity-
minded improvement that explicitly addresses inequities such as racism present in their schools and
districts (Irby, 2021; Irby et al., 2022; Shah et al., 2022). While engaging in race-conscious
improvement work in K-12 settings is highly challenging, there are added complexities in doing this
work as district leaders due to heightened political pressures, leading large systems, and competing
accountability policies (Holme et al., 2014; Welton et al., 2015). As a result, socially-just and race-
conscious educational improvement work is less conceptually defined when looking at the district
level compared to the school level (Irby et al., 2022; Ishimaru et al., 2023). Understandings of district
leaders’ work related to equity is nebulous in large part because of their distance from classrooms;
this is especially true in larger urban districts. However, the literature clearly shows that district
leaders engage in specific tasks to shape district actions and policies related to equity. These include
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
4
developing organizational structures that prioritize equity and strengthen organizational capacity
around equity, promoting an understanding of equity-centered pedagogy, aligning district resources
towards equity goals, and communicating a clear message on the centrality of equity to the district’s
work (Anderson, 2022; Irby et al., 2022; Rorrer et al., 2008).
District leaders that center establishing organizational routines that prioritize equity and
strengthen organizational capacity ensure that all work in the district is aligned and coherent related
to equity goals (Anderson, 2022). This requires leaders to shift professional learning schedules,
reconceptualize the district organizational chart to ensure equity work is appropriately supported,
critically assess existing structures and routines for their alignment with new equity goals, and
establish routines that foreground equity talk (Anderson, 2022; Irby et al., 2022 Rorrer et al. 2008;
Salisbury, 2020b). District leaders intentionally focus on developing a shared understanding of
equity-centered pedagogy through leveraging the above-mentioned structures towards professional
learning, accessing external expertise related to pedagogical practices, and nurturing and recognizing
internal expertise (Rorrer et al., 2008; Turner, 2015).
Beyond establishing organizational routines and establishing a commitment to an equity
pedagogy, district leaders align district resources toward an equity agenda by increasing district-wide
coherence around equity in ways that limit the use of resources toward competing interests, center
equity in all district decisions and processes (i.e., hiring, budget, student conduct policies), and
strategically utilizing external accountability mandates to promote internal accountability (Anderson,
2022; Knapp & Feldman, 2012; Rorrer et al., 2008; Trujillo, 2012). Lastly, equity-minded district
leaders clearly communicate and prioritize the district’s commitments to equity to all stakeholders
and in all environments to establish a clear focus and purpose across the district (Anderson, 2022;
Trujillo, 2012).
White Leaders Taking Up Race-Conscious Work
Based on the overwhelming number of school districts and schools led by white individuals,
it is inevitable that white leaders are often the individuals leading race-conscious improvement
efforts. For example, in the United States, more than 90% of superintendents who reported their
race identified as white in the 2020 American Association of Superintendents’ The American
Superintendent 2020 Decennial Study (Tienken, 2021). White leaders leading schools through equity
work is not just a question of demographics; the power of whiteness is constantly at play and
impacting the ways that white individuals engage in equity-centered leadership (Radd & Tanetha,
2019; Salisbury, 2020a; Swanson & Welton, 2019; Theoharis & Haddix, 2011; Welton et al., 2019).
The impacts of whiteness on white leaders’ race-conscious work are far-ranging and deeply
impactful as they include who can be a school leader, the professional learning content, pre-service
and in-service school leaders experience, the capacity and comfort level of white individuals leading
the work, and the reward structures in place for white people leading work that espouses racial
justice.
From a structural perspective, research demonstrates how leadership standards align with
whiteness and concretize the understanding that leadership and whiteness are either synonymous or
tightly correlated (Davis et al., 2015). Further leadership practices, learning, and research have
privileged white norms of leadership and established those as the norms by which future leaders are
assessed (Gooden & Dantley, 2012). These two forces have created conditions where white
individuals who are charged with leading race-conscious improvement often lack the knowledge and
skills required for the work. Instead, these individuals end up drawing from cultural models,
professional standards, and professional learning that are incapable of supporting their work toward
the desired ends.
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
5
A burgeoning area of research related to white individuals leading race-conscious
improvement focuses on how white leaders benefit from claiming to engage in this work, the ways
in which white leaders benefit from the work, and how white leaders act to protect their status as
leaders through their equity work. Specifically, scholars have demonstrated that white leaders often
receive disproportionate benefits for enacting a race-conscious agenda where they receive substantial
benefits while students of color do not receive benefits or increased learning opportunities (Jones et
al., 2003; Salisbury, 2020a, 2021). Additional scholarship brings attention to white individuals'
leadership moves to maintain their status as leaders and the related propertied expectations (Khalifa,
2020; Ray, 2019; Salisbury, 2021; Salisbury et al., 2020). Overwhelmingly, this body of scholarship
demonstrates that white leaders are willing to promote equity or racial justice up to the point where
their status as leaders is called into question, at which point they engage protective maneuvers to
maintain ownership of leadership so they can continue to receive the benefits bestowed through the
positional power associated with leadership.
From a critical race theory in education perspective (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), these
phenomena make sense. Research relying on interest convergence (Bell, 2004) highlights how white
leaders are willing to engage in race-conscious leadership as long as they benefit from the action
(Daramola et al., 2023). But, once the benefits of race-conscious improvement stop for white
leaders, they cease to engage the practices any further. Daramola and colleagues (2023) highlighted
how this practice limited the depth of transformative change within districts—especially districts
with white leaders. Using racial fortuity—the understanding that race-conscious decisions made
without the contributions of people of color will always benefit white people (Bell, 2004), Salisbury
(2022) demonstrates how white building-level leaders center their needs over the needs of students
of color as a mechanism to promote their status as leaders and future professional goals.
Theoretical Framework
We draw on critical race theory (Bell, 1992; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995) as our theoretical
framework in this research. Critical race theory (CRT) centers on understanding how white
supremacy negatively impacts the lived realities of communities of color (Crenshaw, 1988). Within
educational contexts, CRT enables scholarship to investigate how educational systems, practices, and
beliefs structurally marginalize communities of color and privileged white communities (Ladson-
Billings & Tate, 1995). Broadly, CRT draws on the permanence of racism, interest convergence,
intersectionality, whiteness as property, critique of liberalism, and counterstorytelling (Decuir &
Dixson, 2004). Within our research, CRT provided a mechanism to interrogate leadership practices
in the Plains City School District (PCSD) and question how those practices worked to disrupt white
supremacy and maintain privileges for white stakeholders.
In this research, we drew most heavily from CRT’s tenet of whiteness as property as it
created opportunities to delve deeply into the practices of the almost exclusively white leadership
team of PCSD and to unearth how much of the district’s race-conscious leadership advanced the
interests of white people over the interests of communities of color. Whiteness as property contends
that whiteness operates as property within U.S. society and, as a result, provides material benefits to
those who possess it (Harris, 1995). Further, whiteness as property contends that white people
operate in specific ways to maintain their propertied interest in whiteness and its related
manifestations—school leadership, in this research. Specifically, Harris (1995) demonstrates that
whiteness meets the definition of property because it meets the following four legal definitions of
property: (1) Right of disposition—a recognition that not all property is transferable/sellable but still
provides the owner with the expected benefit. For example, a teaching or principal certification,
which the process of earning through higher education is steeped in white supremacy, offers the
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
6
owner access to certain professions and related benefits, but they cannot be sold. (2) Right to use
and enjoyment—an understanding that possessing an object ensures the owner can use and enjoy
the property. For example, being able to fully experience and enjoy the privileges of being a district
leader because of societal conceptualizations of leaders being white males (Salisbury, 2021). (3)
Reputation and status property—an understanding that an individual's status and reputation provide
access to resources and protection from specific negative experiences. For example, white people are
not being followed in a department store or white leaders benefiting from their reputation as an
equity warrior. (4) Absolute right to exclude—the ability to exclude individuals from accessing a
given property or its associated privileges and, for example, discrediting or ignoring the leadership
work of youth of color because they do not “hold” a formal leadership position. Understanding
whiteness as property supported us in conceptualizing and unpacking the leadership moves of white
individuals that excluded people of color while simultaneously benefiting them as white leaders.
Critical scholarship in educational leadership is beginning to rely more on whiteness as
property as a framework to unearth the reasons that white leaders struggle in enacting race-
conscious improvement efforts (see Salisbury 2019, 2020, 2021; Daramola et al., 2023). Whiteness as
property allows scholars to begin their inquiry from a place of understanding that racism is
structurally permanent and that white people have invested in maintaining their propertied interests
in whiteness (Harris, 1995). This starting point provides a meaningful jumping off point to
understanding why so many equity initiatives led by white people fail to meet their espoused goals.
As a theoretical framework, whiteness as property pushed us to dig into the leadership practices
deployed in PCSD that espoused race consciousness. Specifically, it provided a lens to question the
impacts of leadership practices within the district and to tease out how white leaders espoused race-
conscious actions solidified their ownership of leadership.
Methods
In this research, we drew on a critical qualitative methodology to understand how
commitments of leaders in Plains City School District (PCSD) to race-consciousness were
overshadowed by their investment in maintaining their propertied rights in school leadership.
Specifically, we engaged in a case study design (Stake, 1995) to understand leadership actions across
the district. This study spanned three years when PCSD was actively involved in implementing an
equity agenda stemming from community and school board pressure. Sources of data included
interviews with district leaders, focus groups with youth leaders, observations, documents, and
publicly available media.
Context
Prairie City is a medium-sized urban community in the Midwest region of the United States.
At the time of this study, approximately 250,000 people lived in Prairie City, and PCSD served
around 35,000 students across almost 40 schools. Like many mid-sized urban communities across
the globe, Prairie underwent substantial demographic shifts over the decade before this study,
shifting from a predominantly white community to a predominately of color community. PCSD
mirrored this demographic shift during the decade yet lagged in making shifts to professional
practices. Instead, it was common to hear veteran district employees situate students of color from
larger urban cities and refugees from around the globe as the primary issue facing PCSD.
While PCSD's student body was racially diverse at the time of this research (see Table 1 for
details), leadership (district and school) and teachers were predominantly white. At the district level,
the superintendent and the four associate superintendents were all white; 10 were white amongst the
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
7
12 highest-ranking leaders. Further, almost 90% of building leaders were white, and more than 80%
of teachers were white.
Table 1
PCSD Student Demographics (Race)
1
Race
Percentage
Asian
7%
Black
19%
Indigenous
1%
Latiné
26%
Multiracial
6%
White
44%
PCSD was purposefully sampled for this research because they implemented equity-based
work and had a district vision grounded in equity. As our study began, PCSD identified the
following initiatives as their “equity work.” First, an instructional framework from a nationally
known consulting firm. The framework was not grounded in culturally relevant practices and instead
focused on increasing academic rigor and shared practices across classrooms. The instructional
framework was the centerpiece of the district’s equity improvement work in large part because of
the immense financial commitment from the district—above $5,000,000, which was partially funded
through a grant. Aligned with the instructional framework, the district implemented a standards-
based grading system. This system was seen as a way to ensure that students were assessed in ways
directly connected to what was being taught in classrooms. As with the instructional framework, the
model of standards referenced grading PCSD implemented was not grounded in equity or cultural
relevance; instead, it advocated that assessment was a technical task that needed to be aligned to
curricular standards.
Beyond instructional improvement, PCSD’s equity work centered on implementing a youth
voice initiative to increase district leaders’ access to youth experiences. The youth voice initiative
essentially included sizing up an existing program from a single school to the entire district. Within
this work, students from the PCSD’s five high schools met weekly to work on improving the district
with the support of two teachers. Finally, PCSD implemented a model of cultural competence
through a book study and professional learning led by two university faculty members. This work
targeted building leadership teams and district leaders, not including the superintendent or associate
superintendents. Professional learning sessions occurred once per month, with approximately 200
people attending. It is important to note that the cultural competence work did not center on
organizational practices and instead centered individual actions and beliefs.
Sources of Data
Data sources included focus groups, observations, interviews, documents/artifacts, and
publicly available information; all data were collected across three years. All data collection focused
on how PCSD leadership conceptualized and enacted equity-minded leadership practices with an
espoused goal of supporting youth of color.
Interviews were conducted with 21 district leaders and teachers, with two interviews
conducted with 9 of those individuals— all of whom were district leaders. Each interview lasted
1
Percentages in Table 1 add up to more than 100% due to rounding and adjusting data to maintain the anonymity of
PCSD.
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
8
between 60 and 90 minutes and was transcribed for analysis. All interviews were open-ended and
focused on PCSD’s equity work and the individual’s role in the work. Beyond interviews, three focus
groups were conducted with 38 youth in the district’s youth voice initiative. All but one of the youth
identified as a person of color. Each focus group lasted more than 90 minutes and centered on the
district's equity issues, youths’ ideas of addressing those inequities, and the youth voice work in the
district. The first 15 minutes of each focus group were spent developing trust between the youth and
the first author. Additionally, through ongoing participant observations, the youth had an existing
relationship with author 1. While 21 district leaders were interviewed for this study, Table 2
highlights the leaders quoted throughout this manuscript; Prairie City and all individual names
presented throughout this manuscript are pseudonyms to maintain the confidentiality of
participants.
Table 2
Quoted Participants
Name
Role
Race
Jeff
Superintendent
White
Steve
Associate Superintendent of Academics
White
Chris
Associate Superintendent of Secondary Schools
White
Ben
Associate Superintendent of Elementary Schools
White
Tim
Associate Superintendent of Culture and Climate
White
Mike
Secondary School Principal Coach
Black
Kelly
Youth Voice Coordinator and Teacher
White
Observations were conducted across the three-year study, with the majority being participant
observations (Musante & DeWalt, 2010). Participant observations were conducted of the youth
voice initiative, cultural competence training, and district leadership team meetings; non-participant
interviews were conducted of professional learning sessions related to the instructional framework,
standards-referenced grading, and school board meetings. There were more than 1,000 hours of
observation across the three years; typically, the first author was engaged in observations multiple
times weekly. Data from all observations were collected via field notes.
Documents, such as PowerPoint decks, meeting agendas, or school improvement plans,
were collected during all observations. Additionally, publicly available documents and resources were
collected, such as past school board meeting agendas and minutes, mission and vision statements
from district websites, and local media coverage. More than 200 documents were collected across
the three years of data collection.
Data Analysis
Data analysis started with data reduction, where we read all interview and focus group
transcripts, field notes, and documents. The first author relied on NVivo to conduct data reduction
and analysis. During data reduction, our inclusion criteria were if the data source was broadly talking
about equity-minded work, inequities within PCSD, an individual's work towards equity, or the
vision and mission of the district. Data reduction allowed us to gain intimate knowledge of the data
and be immersed before analysis. Once our data reduction was completed, we conducted a two-cycle
analysis (Saldaña, 2011) across all data sources.
Our first analysis cycle started with a priori codes aligned with Harris’s (1993)
conceptualization of whiteness as a property outlined in our theoretical framework. This stage of
analysis demonstrated leadership moves being made within PCSD that advanced racial justice in
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
9
name only while actively maintaining leadership as the propertied interest of white individuals.
During our second round of analysis, we relied on an understanding of racial fortuity and unwilling
sacrifice (Bell, 2004) to understand how marginalization continued for communities of color despite
supposed equity-driven district leadership. Throughout both cycles of data analysis authors 1 and 2
constantly compared analyses of the same pieces of data to ensure shared understanding and to
refine analysis codes and strategies when alignment was not present.
Findings
White leaders in Prairie City School District engaged in race-conscious leadership practices
that prioritized maintaining leadership as a propertied interest of white people over disrupting
historical white supremacist practices within the district or calling their personal leadership practices
into question. Through this prioritization, white leaders ensured their access to the benefits of
school leadership while not substantially working towards shifting educational opportunities for
youth of color. Using the propositions of whiteness as property (Harris, 1993), we demonstrate the
ways white leaders upheld leadership as the property of white people while espousing a race-
conscious agenda. This is significant because anger over inequities within PCSD had placed the
white superintendent’s possession of leadership in jeopardy.
Maintaining Their Rights of Disposition
White leaders maintained their rights of disposition by controlling the equity agenda in two
ways that ensured their dispositional rights of leadership were not questioned. First, PCSD leaders
enacted equity work that remained firmly within their area of expertise and comfort to not disrupt
their status as leaders of the district. Second, leaders initiated equity work that positioned the
individual actions of others as the target of change as opposed to calling their personal leadership
decisions and actions into question as a cause of racial inequities in the district.
Maintaining Expertise
High-level leaders in PCSD positioned the new instructional framework and standards-
referenced grading as the key levers in their equity agenda. As all four of the top-ranking district
leaders had risen from the ranks of building principals in PCSD and were known as successful
instructional leaders, these initiatives were squarely situated within their recognized areas of
expertise. Furthermore, both the superintendent and associate superintendent of academics (the
second highest ranking leader in the district) regularly highlighted their expertise in this area and
their ability to lead the district in this type of work. It was common during professional development
sessions with building-level leadership teams to hear both Jeff and Steve reference their experiences
as instructional leaders in PCSD. At one point, Steve commented, “This [instructional framework] is
the work. Trust me, I’ve done it and done it well; it makes a difference.” Both leaders continued to
rely on their previous work and status as experts in leading the work.
While actively maintaining their personal expertise, white district leaders also advanced the
dispositional status of leadership as situated within whiteness broadly through their placement of
external white leaders via the instructional framework and standards-referenced grading initiative.
Through relying on external professional learning consultants who were all white, PCSD leadership
further entrenched notions of leadership expertise as a dispositional right of white people. Mike
noted that this was not lost on leaders of color, “yeah, people [building leaders] see that all these
outside people are white. It doesn’t align with what we say we’re doing.” Mike’s comments were a
common sentiment amongst the few leaders of color across PCSD.
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
10
Through their focus on maintaining the dispositional rights of leadership for whites by
focusing espoused race-conscious work on areas of white leader expertise, PCSD leadership invested
district time and resources in improvement efforts that failed to support district personnel in
developing their capacity to meet the needs of youth of color. Further, by keeping district-level
leadership practices within the realm of white expertise, district leaders ensured their dispositional
status would not be questioned because they (as white leaders) never had to assume the vulnerable
position of being learners while ceding expertise and leadership to individuals of color.
Positioning Others as Needing Improvement
Connected to maintaining their expertise and avoiding needing to be learners, when white
leaders at PCSD initiated improvement work beyond their expertise, they still maintained their rights
of disposition by ensuring other peoples’ actions were the causes of racialized outcomes. Jeff’s
selection of a model of cultural competence that was led by two university faculty members targeted
the actions of individuals as the needed lever of change as opposed to district-wide organizational
improvements that have been demonstrated to disrupt inequities present in schools (Irby, 2021). In
discussing the work, Steve offered a moment of honesty about how the work was pushed down the
organizational chart in a way that allowed district leadership to avoid taking responsibility for
shifting their practice:
It's not a central office expectation that we gather around in 5 departments, and we
talk about policies, procedures and look through that through like culturally
proficient lens and take some of our conversations and then say alright now where
does this fit actually in our work, let's break that down. We don't have those kind of
conversations around cultural proficiency. But yet we have asked every building to
engage in this work…and so I guess to call it out, right, it feels very hypocritical in
many respects.
Throughout Steve’s response and the rollout of the cultural proficiency model, the responsibility and
accountability fell on building leaders, which was a more racially diverse group of individuals than
district leaders.
High-level white district leaders further maintained their rights of disposition related to
leadership by introducing professional learning sessions on cultural competence. Through their
introductions, Jeff and Steve ensured they communicated their expertise as leaders, distracted from
the meaningful work through humor, and excused themselves from the learning session. Specifically,
they would take the first 45-60 minutes of each three-hour session highlighting their
accomplishments as district leaders, noting any shifts in district data to support their status as leaders
- for example, showing data that attendance rates ticked up a small amount for students of color.
Further, during these introductions, Jeff would insert funny slides into his PowerPoint decks that
were completely unrelated to the work at hand, offering comments about how “we need to
remember to laugh.” Introductions typically ended with Steve delivering an impassioned speech
calling this “the most important work we are doing.” then he excused himself, Jeff, and the other
high-level district leaders because they “had a pressing meeting to attend.” All these moves worked
to distance white district leaders from the work at hand and avoid the possibility of their expertise as
leaders being called into question.
These protective moves were not lost on audience members—especially individuals of color.
Oftentimes, audience members would interject questions related to the internal coherence (Forman
et al., 2021) of the race-conscious improvement work in the district. These questions were typically
along the lines of, “We don’t see how all of this [instructional framework, standards-referenced
grading, and cultural competence] fits together and is aligned?” Inevitably, Jeff would offer,
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“Cultural competence is the plate that the rest of our work rests on.” As individuals became
unsatisfied with such a nebulous response, Steve would position the university professors leading
the session as the individuals to answer that question. While this could demonstrate that white
district leaders did not understand the concept of internal coherence, a more plausible explanation is
that white district leaders were actively working to position others in need of improvement and
maintaining their status as leaders. This plausibility is undergirded in the ways that district leaders
engaged in numerous behaviors to protect their expertise and position others as in need of
improvement.
These protective moves also resulted in lower-level district leaders, especially individuals of
color, having to defend Jeff and Steve's leadership moves and capacity. On multiple occasions,
principal coaches were pressed by building leadership teams on why the work was so focused on
their actions as opposed to the work of district leaders and why higher-level district leaders seemed
to avoid scrutiny under the improvement work. Principal coaches responded with statements of
support for Jeff and Steve and reminded building-level leaders that they were the ones in direct
contact with students. During an interview, Ben shared his frustrations with and how it positioned
district leaders as above everything, “it is a hard sell sometimes, it’s basically, ‘you change what
you’re doing and let us be because we are good.’” Ben was offering insights on how white high-level
district leaders maintained their rights of disposition related to school leadership and provided them
continued access to the benefits of owning the property of leadership.
Maintaining Their Status and Reputation
District leaders upheld white ownership of leadership by maintaining their status and
reputation as leaders by seeking personal recognition for their equity work. Mike offered insights
into this during an interview, “to some extent, the policy [district equity work] is about maintaining
the status quo, to some extent, right. The powers that be and the decision-makers have their own
self-serving interests.” Through effective recognition seeking, white leaders ensured their status and
reputation as good white leaders was upheld and that questions around white individuals’ leading
equity work in a predominantly of color district were never publicly debated. White leaders were able
to maintain their and other white leaders’ status and reputation as leaders through work internal to
PCSD and external to the district.
Maintaining Internal Status and Reputation
Jeff and other white leaders strategically maintained leadership as a possession of white
individuals, including themselves, by securing their status as leaders within the PCSD community.
For example, once youth of color developed the Teacher Code of Conduct as a mechanism to
support the implementation of culturally relevant teaching practices, Jeff offered to create an
opportunity for the youth to present the Code of Conduct at a school board meeting. However, Jeff
made sure that he introduced the youth, the two white teachers directly supporting the youth of
color, and took half of the allotted time talking about how he and other white district leaders created
space for the Code of Conduct to be established and how this work “demonstrates the type of work
the district is doing to support students of color.” As the school board began to ask questions to
students about how the Code of Conduct would be implemented, Steve subtly yet effectively took
over the Q&A and deflected questions about implementation with vague statements such as, “They
[the youth] will probably present this at one of your building leadership team PD sessions in the
future. We want to make sure it connects with the topics of the session.” At the end of the
presentation, board members thanked the students and Jeff for their hard work on the Code of
Conduct; interestingly, Jeff was not at a single youth leadership meeting where the Code of Conduct
was created.
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
12
Jeff and Steve further maintained internal status and reputation by regularly highlighting their
and other white leaders' work at all levels of district and community meetings. This often took the
form of Steve highlighting his and Jeff’s work while simultaneously highlighting the work of a white
leader they promoted. For example, in multiple meetings with building-level leaders, Steve shared
how the new focus on equity led Jeff to create new leadership positions that operated as coaches for
building principals, and these new coaches were supported by three new upper-level leaders (all of
whom were white). Then, Steve would create space for one of these three individuals to address the
meeting and share success stories of the work. Steve would typically introduce this with something
along the lines of, “Jeff invested a lot in this new model that really focused on getting support to
building leaders as opposed to out-of-touch district offices. Let’s hear about this new work from
someone doing the work.” Through this interaction, Steve was securing his and Jeff’s status and
reputation as leaders and ensuring that the newly created positions of principal coaches and principal
coach supervisors were granted status and reputation as white leaders. Importantly, at no point did
Jeff or Steve actually share how principal coaches and coach supervisors were engaged in race-
conscious leadership.
Maintaining External Status and Reputation
Beyond ensuring that leadership remained the propertied of whiteness through internally
upholding white leaders' status and reputation, PCSD leaders also engaged in this work externally.
This work further cemented Jeff and Steve’s leadership reputation within Prairie City and PCSD and
the status of white leadership within the district. Steve and Jeff primarily accomplished this through
attendance and speaking engagements at national K-12 education organizations focused on
improving school districts located in urban spaces. At least once per month, one or both Steve and
Jeff were at a national conference where they shared about their leadership work in PCSD. Their
presence at these conferences was then shared broadly in PCSD and Prairie City. Jeff often
commented in meetings, “Sorry I missed the last meeting. I was at X conference, sharing the great
work we are doing here…People are really excited hearing about it.” Through highlighting their
status and reputation at national organizations, Jeff and Steve worked to increase their hold on
leadership within PCSD without needing to demonstrate actual race-conscious leadership expertise
or shifts in PCSD practices; instead, speaking at a national conference became a proxy to uphold
status and reputation. Also important here, at no point did Jeff and Steve bring a leader of color to
any of the national conferences they attended.
Ensuring Their Rights to Exclude
White leaders maintained leadership as a property right of whiteness by excluding others
from formalized leadership roles. The exclusion was enacted in two primary ways: first, by creating
new leadership positions in the district that were made available to predominantly white individuals.
Second, by espousing the value of student of color leadership while ensuring that white individuals
oversaw youth of color leaders. These two practices worked to entrench leadership as the property
of whites within PCSD.
Excluding through Distribution
Through their engagement in espoused race-conscious leadership, white district leaders
simultaneously maintained leadership as a property right of whiteness and limited their equity work
by increasing district leadership positions and excluding individuals of color from accessing those
roles. As Chris noted, a large part of PCSD’s equity work was to increase the number of district
leaders present to support building-level leaders by creating principal coaching positions:
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
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In most districts, the supervisor of principals has too many schools, so they don’t
have a lot of contact, or direct contact, with central offices. What we’re trying to do
is drop the principal-supervisor ratio to provide direct support to principals.
However, nine of the 10 new leadership positions created were filled by white people. When
discussing this, Steve offered the following, “We needed people with strong instructional leadership
skills; we can teach the other stuff [cultural competency]. They have to be able to support
instructional improvement if things are going to change.” When pushed during the interview on
how this practice was excluding people of color from leadership roles and whether or not the
district’s definition of instructional expertise was limited, Steve responded, “We don’t control who
has instructional expertise and we know it when we see it. Without it [instructional expertise] school
cannot improve, so we are getting those people.” Steve’s quotes can be seen as highly exclusionary
of people of color when connected to the district’s investment in a culture-blind instructional
framework. Knowledge of culturally relevant instructional practices was not seen as instructional
leadership under the district’s model of instructional improvement.
White district leaders also maintained leadership and its benefits as the property of white
individuals by exclusding individuals of color from engaging as building-level leaders as part of the
district’s equity agenda. All building principals were asked to create a building-level leadership team
(assistant principals, instructional coaches, etc.) to attend trainings related to the instructional
framework and cultural competence. As with district-level leadership positions, principals were
asked to prioritize instructional expertise in building their teams over expertise with cultural
proficiency. The result was that the overwhelming majority of schools created leadership teams that
were all white. In essence, district leaders used their espoused race-conscious work and the related
need to increase instructional leadership capacity within the district as a tool to increase the number
of leaders in the district and then used this process to further entrench that leadership in PCSD was
the possession of white people.
Excluding through Supervision
Leaders in PCSD maintained leadership as the property of whites by positioning white
individuals as the supervisors of leaders of color. A primary reason for Jeff’s focus on equity in
PCSD stemmed from the school board debating if his contract should be terminated due to
racialized inequities in the district—particularly a group of community members of color recently
elected to the board. Leveraging a politically active group of youth of color, Jeff green-lit a student
leadership initiative in the district. Jeff openly shared how he saw this group of youth as
transformative for the district:
The students have more awareness [than district personnel] and they are critical
thinkers and problem solvers, especially related to their schools. They really get at the
root of school issues in a way that is unquestionable and offer solutions.
However, Jeff excluded these youth from engaging in full leadership participation by supervising
them with two white teachers.
While the white teachers were well-versed in critical pedagogy (Freire, 1996) and seen as
social justice warriors in the district, they were also hired by Jeff when he was a building principal.
Furthermore, Jeff hired Kelly as an uncertified teacher by reclassifying her position. All of this
ensured that Jeff and other high-level white district leaders maintained a certain amount of control
and supervision over youth of color leaders. District leaders supported the youth in developing a
Teacher Code of Conduct to drive conversations about how teachers engaged with youth of color.
However, they removed support and legitimacy from the Code of Conduct once it was no longer
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
14
politically advantageous for them as leaders. In this way, Jeff was quick to share leadership with
youth of color tactically but equally fast to exclude youth of color from leadership and re-establish
leadership as the possession of whites when that leadership failed to support his political agenda.
White district leaders recognized how youth of color leadership in the district protected their
propertied interest and leadership and named how they actively took advantage of the optics of
youth of color leaders. Tim, as the culture and climate lead for the district, noted:
I think that as a district, I mean, it [youth of color leadership] gives us, it makes us
look really good. I mean, without, I'm not going to hold back, though I think the
district looks at that and goes, “Yeah, this, this makes us look like we got our shit
together.”
While having difficulty coming right out and saying it, Tim is acknowledging the district and its
leadership look good to the public. This aligns with the connection between increased school board
support for Jeff’s renewed contract and creating a youth voice initiative. Again, once the youth of
color leadership initiative served its purpose, ownership of leadership was re-established as the
property of white people in PCSD.
Preserving Their Right to Use and Enjoyment
Finally, white leaders in PCSD leveraged the district’s espoused race-conscious improvement
work to maintain white individuals’ right to use and enjoy leadership. While this seems natural for
leaders to do, white leaders in PCSD extended white peoples’ property rights of leadership through
the district’s race-conscious work by (1) inserting their leadership into situations where they had
limited expertise and (2) relying on their engagement in equity improvement work to extend their
right to use and enjoy the privileges of being a district leader. Together, these two moves solidified
leadership as something to be used and enjoyed by white individuals in PCSD.
Jeff and Steve regularly inserted themselves into areas where they had limited expertise to
ensure they could use and enjoy leadership. As previously mentioned, they both took substantial
periods of time during externally run professional learning sessions to engage in leadership activities
that were unrelated to cultural competence. Through these actions, they could use and enjoy their
status of leadership while diminishing the amount of time other leaders in the district had to learn.
Further, they relied on their ability to use leadership to leave these professional learning sessions
early. In both situations, white high-ranking district leaders capitalized on their ability to use and
enjoy leadership to negatively impact the district’s race-conscious work.
District leaders’ engagement in equity work provided a rationale to get their contracts
renewed and preserved their ability to use and enjoy leadership within Prairie City. Neither the
school board nor Jeff explicitly stated that his contract as superintendent was renewed because of
this race-conscious work in the district, there were no longer discussions of not renewing his
contract after Jeff initiated the espoused race-conscious work. Most notably, high-level district
leaders maintained their positions over the course of the study and beyond, even though outcome
measures for students of color remained surprisingly consistent across the three years of our
research, with slight increases or decreases each year. Interestingly, white students saw substantial
increases in their outcomes; for example, graduation rates amongst white students increased by
around five percent – an interesting result that likely speaks to the colorblind improvement work
related to the instructional framework and standards-referenced grading.
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Discussion
This study demonstrates how white leaders' commitments to maintain leadership as the
property of white people limited their ability to enact race-conscious district improvement. By
retaining their status as effective district leaders without comprising any perceived expertise, white
leaders in PCSD failed to engage in the type of disruptive change (Irby, 2021) required to
meaningful improve learning opportunities for youth of color.
We begin our discussion by demonstrating how the race-conscious improvement work taken
up by leaders in PCSD was insufficient and unaligned with existing scholarship. As noted above,
race-conscious district leadership needs to develop organizational structures that prioritize equity
and strengthen organizational capacity around equity, promote an understanding of equity-centered
pedagogy, align district resources towards equity goals, and communicate a clear message on the
centrality of equity to the district’s work (Anderson, 2022; Irby et al., 2022; Rorrer et al., 2008; Shah
et al., 2022). The work led by Steve and Jeff failed to address any of these aims in deep ways. For
example, PCSD leaders selected a colorblind instructional framework and standards-referenced
grading not grounded in culturally relevant practices. Further, they undermined their communication
about the district’s race-conscious agenda by making jokes during professional learning sessions,
wasting valuable time in meetings with meaningless updates, and leaving professional learning
sessions. Jeff did not center race consciousness by creating new district-level leadership positions
and reorganizing the district structure; instead, he established more leadership opportunities for
white people. Potentially most problematic, district leaders’ largest expenditure was for the
instructional framework, so few new financial resources were available for the disruptive changes
necessary for race-conscious improvement. Lastly, Steve and Jeff struggled to communicate how the
district’s cultural proficiency work connected to its broader race-conscious work, resulting in it
appearing as an afterthought and violation of internal coherence (Foreman et al., 2021).
Placing Our Findings in Broader Context
While our research was conducted in a specific place and time grounded in understandings
of U.S. urban contexts (Irby, 2015), our findings also speak to global issues of race-conscious and
equity-centered school leadership. Forces of oppression, whether white supremacy, colonization, or
religionism, enable a group to maintain property interests in educational leadership. Maintaining
ownership of educational leadership allows individuals with oppressive power to control resources
and educational opportunities for historically marginalized students and limit access to positional
power for members of historically marginalized groups (Salisbury, 2021; Salisbury et al., 2020).
Institutional policies, practices, and norms work to conserve these property rights in ways that
normalize oppressors maintaining leadership positions (Ray, 2019; Salisbury, 2020). For example,
Ray (2019) highlights how whiteness in organizations legitimizes leadership structures while masking
this process as a neutral organizational practice. Globally, this practice is not limited to the
oppressive forces of white supremacy; all systems of power work to maintain their power in these
structural and discursive ways (Khalifa, 2020). In other words, access to the property rights of
leadership can be excluded based on religion, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
Whiteness as Property as a Sensemaking Tool
There are essential points to discuss within this research—were leaders in PCSD acting in
typical self-interest? Or were PCSD leaders skilled in protecting the broader rights of white people
to own school leadership? While there is no definitive way to answer these questions, we argue the
latter. When looking across the leadership moves that Jeff and Steve made, the moves
overwhelmingly extended beyond maintaining their personal interest in leadership. Instead, the
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
16
moves actively maintained district leadership as the possession of white people. For example, when
new district leadership positions were created, white people disproportionately filled those positions.
The same with the hiring of external experts and the placement of teacher-leaders to run the youth
leadership program. In essence, when allowed to champion race-conscious improvement in ways
that could de-couple leadership as a possession of whiteness and still maintain their personal
investment in leadership, Jeff and Steve did not take the opportunity.
Whiteness as property and its propositions of property (Harris, 1993) offers a meaningful
model to further understand how and why white district leaders’ espoused race-conscious
improvements failed to engage in disruptive improvement actions while working to maintain district
leadership as the exclusive property of white people. Specifically, the right of disposition, the
absolute right to exclude, the right to use and enjoyment, and reputation and status. Whiteness as
property has been used in research on leadership to understand how white leaders resist sharing
leadership with youth of color (Salisbury et al., 2021; Sheth & Salisbury, 2022), maintain a sense of
comfort in their equity work (Radd & Grossland, 2019), and create links between educational
opportunities and white students (Salisbury, 2019). Our research adds to the growing body of
scholarship by providing specific examples of how white leaders maintain their propertied interest in
leadership while being recognized as equity-minded leaders. It is important to note that our
argument is not about intentionality on the part of white leaders; rather, it is about how white
supremacy manifests in leadership work to maintain the inequitable distribution of resources.
Through maintaining their expertise and positioning other people in the district as needing
improvement, white district leaders upheld their rights to disposition related to leadership. It is well-
documented that leading race-conscious improvement requires humility and vulnerability (Irby,
2021; Theoharis & Haddix, 2011). However, PCSD leaders resisted taking on this vulnerability and
instead found ways to ensure their expertise remained. While this likely undermined the race-
conscious work in the district, it ensured that Steve and Jeff sustained their status as experts and
knowers. Additionally, maintaining their rights to disposition minimized school board members,
community members, and families from questioning the ability of a predominately white leadership
team to lead race-conscious work. These actions further cemented district leadership in PCSD as the
property of white individuals, which allowed white people to maintain the property benefits of
district leadership.
Steve and Jeff nurtured their internal and external reputation and status to maintain their
status and reputation as leaders. By highlighting small shifts in outcomes for students of color or
calling attention to their inclusion in national conferences, they actively elevated their reputation as
race-conscious leaders in the Prairie City community, putting them above reproach. More
importantly, it put their leadership decisions related to equity above reproach. Understanding the
power of status and reputation helps us to comprehend why a colorblind instructional framework
could be championed as race-conscious work throughout the district that serves a student
population that is predominately of color. Through highlighting their national status as race-
conscious leaders and minor shifts in student outcomes—while minimizing the large gains by white
students—Jeff and Steve deepened the status and reputation of white district leaders in PCSD,
further bonding leadership as the property of white people within the district.
White leaders in PCSD strategically engaged their right to exclude others from leadership as
a tool to maintain their control over access to leadership. First, they included students of color as
leaders as a mechanism to maintain their personal control over leadership, then youth of color
leaders stopped serving a purpose Steve and Jeff found a way to exclude youth of color. In many
ways, this was doubly harmful because it exploited youth of color as a tool to uphold the whiteness
of leadership. Additionally, white district leaders created new leadership positions throughout the
district but defined the needed skills for those leadership positions as skills that white individuals in
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the district possessed. This act of exclusion simultaneously barred people of color from leadership
and increased access to the property of leadership for white people in the district. Through these
acts of exclusion, white leaders ensured that their leadership actions would not be questioned
through the lenses of leaders of color and cemented the future status of district leadership as the
property of whites by creating a white pipeline of future high-ranking district leaders.
Finally, white leaders in PCSD found ways to ensure their rights to use and enjoy the
benefits of leadership in ways to maintain district-level leadership as the property right of white
people. Jeff and Steve inserted themselves into leadership situations where they had limited expertise
to continue their existing enjoyment of leadership. They also relied on their shallow race-conscious
work to maintain their future rights to use and enjoy leadership by having their contracts renewed.
As mentioned above, they were both championed for doing equity work in the district, even though
that work failed to substantially shift learning outcomes or opportunities for youth of color.
Broadly speaking, white district leaders in PCSD were able to leverage their existing property
rights to school leadership to solidify the right of white people to own district leadership and its
related benefits (i.e., pay and status). The end result was that students of color attending PCSD
continued to receive inequitable educational opportunities disguised as race-conscious improvement.
Students of color were forced to involuntarily sacrifice (Salisbury, 2020) their right to a high-quality
education to allow white leaders to maintain control of their property. Unfortunately, we all know
the long-term consequence of this situation is the concretization of racist views about students and
families of color being disinvested and uninterested in learning as opposed to a recognition that
white individuals with positional power failed to disrupt white supremacist systems.
What Could Have Been Different?
While this research might offer a bleak view of the enactment of race-conscious
improvement in an urban school district, we also feel it offers meaningful implications for future
work within race-conscious improvement and any improvement efforts attempting to disrupt
structural inequities present within educational organizations. A simple yet meaningful solution
emerges based on notions of racial fortuity (Bell, 2004). Bell (2004) argues that there are two sides to
the coin of racial fortuity: Interest convergence and the involuntary sacrifices of communities of
color. Interest convergence, which is regularly used in educational research, states that the benefits
of racial justice work will stop for communities of color once white people no longer benefit from
that same work (i.e., affirmative action). According to Bell, involuntary sacrifice refers to what
happens when communities of color are not present at the table when issues of inequity are
addressed. In those instances, Bell argues that communities of color are forced to sacrifice because
the proposed solution will offer no meaningful benefit for communities of color. For example, the
Emancipation Proclamation was conceived and written exclusively by white people as a mechanism
to win the Civil War, so it freed enslaved African Americans in the South but not the North.
Drawing on understandings Bell’s (2004) notion of involuntary sacrifice and its relation to
the absence of people of color at the table, it is easy to see how white leaders in PCSD advanced
equity work that deepened their ownership of leadership and failed to shift opportunities for youth
of color radically. What would it have looked like for Jeff and the rest of PCSD leaders to
significantly engage students of color, families of color, communities of color, experts of color, and
leaders of color in their equity planning and implementation? Our guess is that the work would have
been more radical and disruptive in nature and may not have required youth of color to continue the
long history of sacrificing equitable learning opportunities.
When equity leadership keeps white leaders in control
18
Conclusion
We would be remiss if we did not bring to the fore the real-world implications of the work
done in PCSD. Students of color in the district were denied equitable, culturally relevant learning
opportunities because white district leaders centered reserving leadership as white propertied interest
over disrupting existing district policies and practices that were white supremacist. Further, potential
leaders of color were denied access to leadership opportunities that would have promoted the
“influential presence of Black and Brown voices” necessary for structural change (Irby, 2021). It is
not relevant to the argument if white leaders were acting from a place of intentionality or misguided
understandings of race-conscious improvement; instead, it is essential that these leaders’ attempts at
district improvement worked to reify the status quo of leadership being owned by dominantly
situated people and that equity improvement “in name only” is enough to show districts are working
to support historically marginalized students and communities.
Outside of a U.S. context, our research still holds promise for understanding how to move
towards more equitable educational spaces. While our study was focused on white supremacy in an
urban U.S. context, the underlying principles of our study hold in other spaces. There is
overwhelming evidence that systems of oppression work in self-sustaining ways to strengthen
themselves and use bullying forces to dismiss attempts at disruption (Leonardo, 2015). As such, in a
context where the goal is to disrupt oppression related to ethnicity or religion, educational leaders,
policymakers, and scholars need to be cognizant of how the given system of oppression is operating
in structural, dialogic, and normalizing ways to maintain the status quo of inequity.
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About the Authors
Jason D. Salisbury
University of Illinois at Chicago
jsalis2@uic.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3814-1306
Dr. Salisbury is an associate professor in the Educational Policy Studies Department and Co-
Director of the Center for Urban Education Leadership at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His
scholarship focuses on race-conscious school leadership in urban spaces, in three interrelated areas:
(1) understanding the role of youth leadership in race-conscious school improvement; (2)
interrogating the competing interests of white individuals leading race-conscious and various
accountability systems; and (3) advancing leadership practices that support teams of teachers in the
implementation of culturally relevant instructional practices. Dr. Salisbury’s research has been
published in educational leadership, policy, and broad-field educational journals.
Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 33 No. 9 SPECIAL ISSUE
21
Lakrista L. Cummings
University of Illinois at Chicago
llcummi2@uic.edu
Lakrista Cummings is a doctoral student in the Educational Policy Studies Department at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the experiences of Black women attending
predominately white universities.
About the Editors
Vidya Shah
York University
vidshah@edu.yorku.ca
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3413-9994
Dr. Vidya Shah is an educator, scholar and activist committed to equity and racial justice in the
service of liberatory education. She is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at York
University, and her research explores anti-racist and decolonial approaches to leadership in schools,
communities, and school districts.
Caitlin C. Farrell
University of Colorado Boulder
caitlin.farrell@colorado.edu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7589-4921
Caitlin C. Farrell is an associate research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder School of
Education. Her work focuses on the dynamics of school district policymaking and the relationship
between research and practice for school improvement and transformation.
SPECIAL ISSUE
Transforming School Systems
education policy analysis archives
Volume 33 Number 9 January 28, 2025 ISSN 1068-2341
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