Black and Female in Academia

Recently, one of my best and brightest female students told me that she wanted to pursue a career in academia—preferably in higher education as a professor. Before I could stop myself and craft an intellectual comment on her aspiration, I exclaimed “No!” Naturally, my student was taken aback by my response. After all, I am a Black, female academic. It is for this very reason that I could not, in good conscience, encourage her to take the necessary steps to pursue this dream. The truth of the situation is that Black female academics bear more burdens than we should. We often face bullying and harassment from other faculty, students, and occasionally parents. We receive little support with these issues, or even with our research, and, despite the appearance of an egalitarian environment, we face racial and gendered discrimination, the infamous misogynoir, in and outside of the classroom. Add to these problems the paucity of compensation, and I cannot imagine why anyone would pursue this career path if that person was both Black and female. This begs the question, sung by singer Rae Khalil, “Is it worth it? … Is it worth my … time?”¹

When examining these lyrics as a Black female academic, it is easy to repeatedly ask the question “Is it worth my time” about working in academe. Gender is behind a sizable portion of our issues, yet race continues to prove problematic—perhaps more so—for Black female academics. With the various issues that Black female academics face, it is difficult to analyze one particular element of this troubling situation. However, perhaps it is less tiresome to delve into the issue of being Black first as race seems to be the source of our issues.

Allen et al further note that “African Americans within the U.S. professorate are also concentrated at the lower levels of the academic prestige system … [comprising] 4% of professors and associate professors … [and a] larger share of the instructor and lecturer pool at 7%.”³ One might question how these statistics could be valid when, as late as 2022, 3,389 doctoral degrees were conferred on Black/African American graduates.⁴ When examining these statistics and comparing Black higher educational attainment and, as Allen et al identify, “the academic prestige system,” there is a very serious discrepancy between attainment and success among Black academics. At first glance, it appears that Black academics graduate, bravely clutching their doctoral degrees and proudly displaying their dissertations, and are shuttled into instructor and lecturer positions, which have typically been held by master’s degree holders who rarely have the research or the training to do much more than teach general education courses. With this knowledge of the discrepancies between Black higher educational attainment and career achievement, one might well revisit Rae Khalil’s song and wonder if reaching a doctoral degree—the highest degree available—is worth the necessary financial, time, and lifestyle commitments. To be Black and an academic, it would seem, is to be someone who is destined to hold a teaching job but to rarely be offered the opportunity to have a true career in academe. While the racial element of navigating academia is statistically troubling, the addition of gender to the equation may prove more so to many Black female academics.

The Black female academic should be a rather common fixture on college and university campuses as, according to JeffriAnne Wilder et al, “African-American women account for 64 percent of all the doctoral degrees, 72 percent of all master’s degrees, and 66 percent of all bachelor’s degrees earned by Blacks in the United States.”⁵ Yet, “African-American female professors make up only 2.9 percent of all faculty teaching in colleges and universities.”⁶ One might question how this could be with African American women comprising “64 percent of all doctoral degrees” awarded in the US. One explanation could be that, upon obtaining a doctoral degree, many Black women decide to pursue a career outside of academia. Given the limited number of academic jobs and the modest salaries, seeking employment in the public or private sector might seem preferable to pursuing an academic career. However, the statistics, when contrasting the number of Black female PhD awardees from the percentage of Black faculty, do not add up. I suspect another issue is at play, and that issue is, again, the problematic double bind of race and gender.

Lori Walkington observes that Black female faculty are in a particularly difficult predicament. On one hand, they are subjected to “Negative racial stereotypes,” which “disproportionately [impact them] … in ways gender discrimination alone cannot explain.”⁷ Furthermore, there is an unfortunate tendency to view Black female faculty as ‘Mammies’. The Mammy has long been a problematic representation of Black womanhood in the US. Depictions of Mammy are “usually [of a] big, fat, cantankerous”⁸ darker-complexioned woman who was originally “an imaginary figure created by White Southern families longing to become part of the Southern aristocratic class.”⁹ Mammy always served white people just as real Black women did in the antebellum period and well into the twentieth century, albeit in a (marginally) paid capacity. Patricia Hill Collins once observed that “Portraying African-American women as stereotypical mammies … has been essential to the political economy of domination fostering Black women’s oppression.”¹⁰ This oppression and mammification of Black female academics takes place in a variety of ways. Black female faculty are often “expected to give deference not only to white faculty, but also white students” while they “experience sabotage from their white peers.”¹¹ Black female academics are also expected to shoulder the responsibilities of unpaid work, such as by sitting on numerous committees or sponsoring various student activities, with the expectation that these tasks will lead to a promotion or tenure that never materializes as Allen et al’s research indicates. Nicola Rollock states that Black female professors in the UK “are saying is that their entire careers have been characterised by abuse and exclusion, and that their race has been the key to that,” which is why the conclusion was reached that “Black female professors have to overcome bullying, stereotyping and institutional neglect…to win promotion.”¹² The common observation from the prior mentioned research indicate that, regardless of how hard Black female academics work, the numerous contributions they make, or how willingly they engage in unpaid work, the outcome is rarely either positive or in their favor. They can expect few opportunities leading to promotion and even fewer instances of a simple ‘thank you’. In fact, they can expect the complete opposite.

As recently as January 2024, Black female academics at PWIs were under what can only be described as an ‘attack’ by far-left leaning politicians, who were then struggling to retain their power by pandering to a base that is far more undereducated than initially suspected.

Dr. Gay is not wrong as “rancor and vituperation” have become the standard today—even in academic discourse. That she was accused of plagiarism is, in short, a disgusting accusation as anyone who actually wrote a dissertation can concur that, during the process, exhaustion and frustration are close friends. With the academic rigor needed to complete the often 300+-page document, it is easy to slip and leave a quote uncited. It does not happen often, but it does occur. Even when Dr. Gay offered to revisit her dissertation and correct the uncited material, it was too late in the eyes of her critics. She was a ‘plagiarizer’ and, therefore, unqualified to be the president of Harvard University.

In confirming Walkington’s position, one might also contend that the experiences for Black female faculty at HBCUs is no different. Even in an environment that should be racially welcoming, we are still ‘mammified’, marginalized, and dismissed, both verbally and professionally, even at the HBCUs. Take, for example, the death by suicide of Dr. Antoinette ‘Bonnie’ Candia-Bailey, who was formerly the VP of Student Affairs at Lincoln University of Missouri. A mere five days before committing suicide, Dr. Bonnie was terminated by the president of Lincoln University, Dr. John Moseley—a man whose ‘experience’ includes being the athletic director and prior to that a coach, both at Lincoln. Dr. Moseley was awarded his PhD in the spring 2021 in, of all ‘subjects’, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.¹⁴ Less than a year after completing his doctorate, Dr. Moseley, a white, male former coach with a questionable degree, was the president of an HBCU. When contrasting Dr. Moseley’s meteoric rise against the slow and steady progress of Dr. Gay, one would hope that someone would begin to ask pertinent questions about the state of Black women in academe.

When re-examining Dr. Bonnie’s case, it appears that, in the months prior to her suicide, she had filed several complaints against Dr. Moseley, citing his overly aggressive administrative style towards her. She had also requested a leave of absence for mental health reasons, which was denied because she had not been at the university for a year. In the aftermath of her death, Dr. Moseley took a paid administrative leave while an external auditor examined the case. Of course, Dr. Bonnie’s mental decline was not laid at the feet of the man whose treatment of her in that supposedly professional setting exacerbated her condition because, as a Black woman in academia, she was expected to weather any storm and withstand any workplace harassment—particularly if it was at the hands of an administrator who also happens to be white and male.

It would not be difficult to conclude that, in addition to coping with hostility from white peers, Black female academics can expect hostility from Black male peers and other Black female academics. After all, Dr. Bonnie did work at an HBCU and, theoretically, should have had Black colleagues to confide in and who supported her. While it is impossible to quantify ‘support’, stories, like Dr. Bonnie’s and the previously mentioned research, indicate that harassment and hostility comes to Black female academics from all sources and that there are rarely safe spaces for us, even among our ‘skinfolk’ and our ‘sisters’. Therefore, promoting the belief that, somehow, an HBCU is a more welcoming environment to Black female academics ignores the fact that this issue is not one of location but of an overall marginalization and dehumanization of Black female academics in academia.

At this point, it is perhaps helpful to reexamine Rae Khalil’s lyrics, particularly the line “I can’t keep up with this passive aggression.”¹⁵ Rae Khalil raises an important issue for Black female academics at any institution, whether a PWI or HBCU. Coping with passive aggression is par for the course for any Black female academic when discussing our research. Traci Palmer Baxley notes that, as a Black academic writer and researcher, her aim is “not to provide more evidence from an African American scholar about the role of academic institutions as bastions of White privilege.”¹⁶ Little additional research is needed, elucidating this point. However, Baxley, like many other Black female scholars, writes with the intention of examining how “borders are created, navigated, and crossed within spaces that engage in counter-hegemonic praxis at the micro levels of the institution.”¹⁷ Within the institutions that all Black female academics work, there are not only the persistent microaggressions, impossible expectations, and an overwhelming lack of support, there are also spaces to be created— much needed liminal spaces in which we can survive while we thrive, hopefully supporting ourselves first, each other, and the younger sisters who will follow us into the academy. Even these small tasks, which may be as simple as a kind word or a pleasant and legitimately interested inquiry about one’s research project, seem like overwhelming burdens to bear when there are so many pressures weighing us down. These burdens, as well as the underlying hopefulness, are well articulated by Rae Khalil when she sings “I’m still tryna move up while I’m rootin’ for us.”¹⁸ Black female academics often expend an excessive amount of energy being supportive of colleagues and students, but we are still also working on achieving our own successes. We attempt to lift as we climb, but the weight that we carry is often immeasurable. The acknowledgement of the burden of being a Black female academic brings me back to my initial question—the title of this essay—‘what’s a girl to do’.

There is no question more difficult for a Black female academic to answer than if her career choice is worth it. Given our status in academe, I cannot answer that question in a straightforward manner. Being a Black female academic, standing in front of a classroom filled with young people, makes an important statement because representation matters. It is critical that the front of the classroom reflects its student population. However, it is also critical that the front of the classroom provides a radical new image for those students—one that they have not seen before, that is an unexpected and pleasant surprise. As Black female academics, we attempt to “always be righteous, although it’s tough.”¹⁹ We speak truth to power, fight for our students, and still manage to hold it down as researchers and teachers. There is little that we will not do to support and help others achieve. All that we wish and hope for is that someone—anyone—would offer us the same consideration. So, at the end of this discussion: is being a Black female academic worth the trouble? I will leave the resolution of that question to “many far wiser than”²⁰ me. What I can state without reservation is that without an effort on the part of administration, other faculty, parents, and students, Dr. Bonnie’s outcome will not be an outlying statistic. It will become the norm in higher education. Walk good, Dr. Bonnie.

References

1.    Rae Khalil et al, “Is It Worth It?” CRYBABY, 2024.
2.    Walter R. Allen et al., ‘‘The Black Academic: Faculty Status Among African Americans in U.S. Higher Education,” Journal of Negro Education 69, no. 1/2 (2000): 112.
3.    Allen et al, “The Black Academic,” 112.
4.    “The Number of African American Doctorates Reaches an All-Time High,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (2024), https://jbhe.com/2024/02/the-number-of-african-american-doctorates-reaches-an-all-time-high/.
5.    JeffriAnne Wilder et al., “A Profile of Black Women in the 21st Century Academy: Still Learning from the Outsider-Within’,” Journal of Research Initiatives 1, no. 1 (2013): 27.
6.    Wilder et al., “A Profile of Black Women,” 29.
7.    Lori Walkington, “How Far Have We Really Come? Black Women Faculty and Graduate Students’ Experiences in Higher Education,” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 1, no. 39 (2017): 52.
8.    Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks (New York: Continuum, 2008): 9.
9.    Yvonne D. Sims, Women of Blaxploitation: How the Black Action Film Heroine Changed American Popular Culture (Jefferson: McFarland & Co, 2006): 31.
10.    Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1991): 6.
11.    Walkington, “How Far,” 52.
12.    Cited in “Black Female Professors Must Deal with Bullying to Win Promotion, Report Finds,” The Guardian, 3 Feb. 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/04/black-female-professors-report.
13.    Cited in Matt Egan, “Harvard President Claudine Gay resigns after Plagiarism and Campus Antisemitism Accusations,” CNN.com, 3 Jan. 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/02/business/claudine-gay-harvard-president-resigns/index.html
14.    “President’s Bio,” Lincoln University Missouri, https://www.lincolnu.edu/about-lincoln/presidents-office/presidents-bio.html.
15.    Khalil et al, “Is It Worth It?”
16.    Traci Palmer Baxley, “Navigating as an African American Female Scholar: Catalysts and Barriers in Predominantly White Academia,” International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 4, no. 1 (2012): 48.
17.    Baxley, “Navigating as an African American,” 48.
18.    Khalil et al, “Is It Worth It?”
19.    Khalil et al, “Is It Worth It?”
20.    Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee,” line 29, https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/annabel-lee.