“I Would Have Become Wallpaper Had Racism Had Its Way”: Black Female Professors, Racial Battle Fatigue, and Strategies for Surviving Higher Education

ABSTRACT

In 2019, AdvanceHE reported that there were just 25 UK Black female full professors in British universities. Black women are less likely to occupy a role at this level than their male and White counterparts. Despite this, Black women remain relatively absent in institutional initiatives to advance gender equality, and there is little commitment amongst UK universities to explicitly address structural inequalities of race as they affect the experiences of academic staff. Black female academics remain under-represented and invisible in UK higher education. This article draws on the first known qualitative study into the career experiences and strategies of twenty of these Black female professors. Specifically, it engages Critical Race Theory and Bourdieu as principal theoretical frameworks to explore how their academic journeys, shaped as they are by an existence at the intersection of race and gender, result in racial battle fatigue, feelings of isolation, and disillusion with the academy. The article demonstrates how, despite these challenges, these women have been agentic in their efforts to navigate higher education. They have developed and continue to deploy sophisticated strategies of analysis, hyper-surveillance, self-care, and resilience in order to carve out a successful career in the academy and remain within it.

Notes

¹ A first (1st) is the highest level of award available at undergraduate level in the UK, followed by a 2.1. Together these two grades are often referred to as a “good degree.” A good degree is a common requirement in advertised job vacancies.

² Refers to those of Black British African or Caribbean heritage or those of any other Black background.

³ Commonly referred to as Black and minority ethnic groups in the UK, or by their acronym BME, or more recently (and often contested by mainly marginalized groups), BAME.

⁴ When we refer to professors in the UK, it refers to the full professor equivalent in the United States. It does not include those who are professors at the assistant or associate level.

⁵ Refers to UK-domiciled and international data.

⁶ This is an online forum set up by Professor Iyiola Solanke (a Black female academic) as a way of connecting and highlighting the achievements of racially minoritized female professors: https://blackfemaleprofessorsforum.org (last accessed September 24, 2019).

⁷ The interviews were carried out during 2018.

⁸ Apple (2012, p. xxiv).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicola Rollock

Dr. Nicola Rollock is Distinguished Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge; Senior Adviser on Race and Higher Education to the VC at the University of Cambridge and Specialist Adviser to the Home Affairs’ Select Committee’s Macpherson: 21 Years On Inquiry. She is also a member of the Wellcome Trust’s Anti-racism Expert Group and the British Science Association’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Group.