Institutional Courage in Action: Racism, Sexual Violence, & Concrete Institutional Change

“I don’t know what most White people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions.” – Baldwin, 1968

Hosted and co-sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University in the U.S., the 2022 Center for Institutional Courage: Racism, Sexual Violence, and Institutional Courage Workshop (The Workshop) was held on 18 March 2022. Gathering 27 scholars and advocates, the first half of the day consisted of research presentations on institutional courage (Freyd), the theory of racialized organizations (Ray), and cultural betrayal trauma theory (Gómez). The latter half applied this basic knowledge through a fireside chat discussion of institutional courage in action across inequalities and institutions: employing anti-racist approaches in research with Black families (Weathington), addressing campus sexual violence with male college athletes (Tracy), tackling salary inequity in academia (Delva), and addressing racism and sexism in the workplace using the small wins model (Nishiura Mackenzie). The goals of both The Workshop and our editorial include foci on institutionalized racism and sexual violence, as well as tangible, systemic change through institutional courage (Freyd, 2014, 2018) regarding racist and sexist inequalities across institutions. As such, our editorial follows the above format, with a closing message of validation, hope, and perseverance through institutional courage.

Institutional Courage

Institutional courage (Freyd, 2014, 2018) was inspired by the research on institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2013). Institutional betrayal grew out of research on betrayal trauma theory (BTT; Freyd, 1996). A betrayal trauma occurs when the victim is mistreated by a more powerful, close, and trusted other (e.g., a parent abuses their child). Decades of research have revealed that betrayal traumas can harm people psychologically and physically (e.g., Freyd & Birrell, 2013). Betrayal blindness, a key concept of BTT, is the unawareness, not-knowing, and forgetting of betrayal traumas (Freyd, 1996). Victims, perpetrators, and witnesses may display betrayal blindness to preserve the relationships, institutions, and social systems on which they depend.

Institutional betrayal occurs when the trusted or depended upon institution mistreats the victim. Examples of institutional betrayal are numerous (e.g., Harsey & Freyd, 2022; Salter & Blizard, 2022; Smith & Freyd, 2014). Betrayal can be overt, such as when a government forces children to be separated from their parents at the border (Smidt & Freyd, 2018), or it can be covert, such as when an employee who reports being sexually harassed continues to be victimized after their employer fails to take action (Smith & Freyd, 2014). A form of institutional betrayal, institutional cowardice (Brown, 2021) are deliberate harmful inactions by institutional actors, such as ceasing support of a coworker who has reported workplace sexual harassment. Research reveals that institutional betrayal is associated with psychological and physical harm (e.g., Smith & Freyd, 2014). Individuals may also experience betrayal blindness for institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2017).

Institutional courage, which is an institution’s commitment to seek the truth and engage in moral action by protecting those who depend upon it, can be the antidote to institutional betrayal. Freyd (2018, 2022) identified multiple steps that institutions can take to nurture institutional courage, including institutional accountability, transparency, cherishing the whistleblower, and making reparations where needed. Institutional courage also includes continual assessment of the institution, such as surveys about sexual harassment experiences and climate, and following through with actions based on the findings. Research suggests that institutional courage helps buffer against the harm of sexual violence and institutional betrayal in employees (Smidt et al., under review) and students (Adams-Clark et al., under review). Through engaging in steps of institutional courage (Freyd, 2018, 2022), institutions may ultimately reduce institutional betrayal itself by virtue of engaging in preventative behaviors, processes, and policies.

Because institutional courage is of high importance but is not yet well researched or understood, Freyd founded the Center for Institutional Courage (n.d.; Courage), a research and education nonprofit, 501(c)(3) institution (Bartlett, 2021). Courage exists to conduct transformative research and education about institutional betrayal and how to counter it through institutional courage. Courage sees a future where our institutions act courageously: with accountability, with transparency, actively seeking justice, and making changes where needed despite unpleasantness, risk, and short-term costs. Although still early in its development, Courage has funded numerous research projects through its grants program (Redden, 2021).

Theory of Racialized Organizations

Organizations, such as universities and companies, can appear to be race neutral (Ray, 2019), with racism perceived as external to the institution (Connors & McCoy, 2022). Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations explains how structural racism operates within organizations in ways that appear impartial. Racialized organizations can be understood through four components: “1) racialized organizations enhance or diminish the agency of racial groups; (2) racialized organizations legitimate the unequal distribution of resources; (3) Whiteness is a credential; and (4) the decoupling of formal rules from organizational practice is often racialized” (Ray, 2019, p. 26).

Organizations racialize time, shaping the agency of racial groups. Organizations dictate how employees spend time during work. At universities in the U.S., for instance, professors have responsibilities related to research, teaching, and service. However, universities can demand that tenure-related faculty of Color shoulder psychoeducation and caretaking work when national racist events occur (e.g., Gómez, 2021b). Such demands create an emotional burden, while diverting faculty of Color’s time away from research, teaching, and formal service. This can hinder promotion and advancement. Such processes disproportionately benefit White people and reproduce racialized hierarchies.

The second tenet of racialized organizations is unequal resource allocation (Ray, 2019). Organizations may give White employees more resources than employees of Color, and state and federal governments can give organizations with a greater proportion of people of Color (e.g., HBCUs) fewer resources than White organizations. Moreover, funding agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), can disproportionately fund White researchers while under-funding researchers of Color (e.g., Ginther et al., 2011). These racialized resource allocations then legitimate the racial order: White faculty are compensated at higher rates because their funded work is interpreted to be of higher quality, even though NIH research shows racial bias in grant distribution.

Racialized organizations theory argues Whiteness is a credential that eases passage into organizations. Credentials are ostensibly neutral qualifications that legitimate modern stratification regimes (Pager, 2007). An example of this can be found in graduate programs’ continued use of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE; Educational Testing Service, 2019) in admissions. The evidence shows that the GRE – often interpreted by admissions committees as a neutral exam – favors White students, while disadvantaging students of Color (e.g., Gómez, 2023). Such high-stakes exams can steal time from qualified students of Color, who may postpone their education, thus delaying their earning potential by years, if not indefinitely.

The fourth tenet includes racialized decoupling, which is the gap between stated norms, such as inclusion, and actual practices, such as discrimination. This gap indicates “non-performatives” in diversity work in institutional life (Ahmed, 2012). A university, for example, can have a diversity committee that espouses virtues of inclusion, while hiring practices, responses to discrimination, culture, and climate remain racialized through privileging White employees.

Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations highlights organizational practices that perpetuate structural and interpersonal racism and racist hierarchies among members. Given that additional axes of oppression, such as sexism, jointly impact diverse women and gender minorities (Crenshaw, 1991), each practice may be an institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2014) that disproportionately harms racially and multiply marginalized members of the organization: 1) racialized time – demanding female professors of Color produce the majority of service work, such as event-planning, within a university department; 2) unequal resource allocation- providing resources for sexual harassment victimization that are culturally congruent for only rich White women; 3) Whiteness as a credential: promoting employees based on the combination of White race and male gender irrespective of poor work performance; and 4) racialized decoupling- delivering inclusion rhetoric while retaliating against transwomen of Color who report sexual harassment. Thus, institutional courage is required to identify and correct seemingly race-less structural racism.

Sexual Violence Within Racism: Cultural Betrayal Trauma Theory

Structural racism, including processes outlined in Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations, provides the context for understanding the impact of Black male-perpetrated sexual violence against Black women and girls, known as one form of cultural betrayal sexual trauma. Created within Black feminist thought (Collins, 1991), cultural betrayal trauma theory (CBTT; e.g., Gómez, 2012) proposes that (intra)cultural trust, such as solidarity, can be present amongst members of the Black community as a buffer against the harm associated with anti-Black racism. Therefore, when violence, such as rape, occurs within the Black community, there is a cultural betrayal that impacts posttraumatic mental, physical, and behavioral health, as well as cultural outcomes, such as internalized prejudice and (intra)cultural pressure. As a response to racism, (intra)cultural pressure consists of other Black people’s silencing, victim-blaming, or otherwise unsupportive responses to sexual violence in efforts to protect the Black community from further oppression.

Quantitative research (e.g., Durkee & Gómez, 2022; Gómez & Gobin, 2020) across types of violence, racial discrimination, and young adult marginalized populations has shown that cultural betrayal uniquely impacts mental health and cultural outcomes above and beyond the violence itself. Additionally, a qualitative study found that Black young women survivors of cultural betrayal sexual trauma were overwhelmingly in agreement with cultural betrayal being a harmful aspect of within-group violence in the Black community (Gómez & Gobin, 2022).

In her book, Gómez (forthcoming: July 2023) lays the foundation for the impact of cultural betrayal sexual trauma on Black women and girls through reviewing the transdisciplinary literature on: structural racism (e.g., Mills, 1997); intersectional oppression (e.g., the joint impact of racism and sexism, Crenshaw, 1991); secondary marginalization (e.g., Black women and girls’ lowered status in the Black community, Cohen, 2009); and the so-called “rape problem” in the Black community being understood as White women’s false accusations against Black men (e.g., McGuire, 2010), thus ignoring Black women and their victimization (e.g., Crenshaw, 1991).

Following defining CBTT, reviewing the evidence, and detailing future research directions, Gómez (forthcoming: July 2023) details systemic implications that can benefit Black women and girl survivors of both intersectional oppression and cultural betrayal sexual trauma. This includes culturally competent trauma therapy, as well as radical healing for individuals, families, and the Black community. The final chapter on institutional courage adapts and expands upon prior work (Freyd, 2018, 2022; Gómez et al., 2016) to be applicable in this context. Thus, this chapter shows that although the road to peace and equality is long, it is systemically paved with institutional courage.

Fireside Chat of Institutional Courage in Action

With Gómez as the moderator, the Fireside Chat of Institutional Courage in Action built upon the theory of racialized organizations (Ray, 2019) and cultural betrayal trauma theory (e.g., Gómez, 2019) by applying institutional courage (Freyd, 2018) in real-world settings related to diverse inequalities. Though The Chat at The Workshop was discussion-based, for clarity, this section is organized by topic: Weathington- anti-racist approaches in research with Black families; Tracy- addressing campus sexual violence with male college athletes; Delva- tackling salary inequity in academia; and Nishiura Mackenzie- addressing racism and sexism in the workplace using the small wins model. With institutions as building blocks of a civil society, The Chat shows how institutional courage is necessary for individual, institutional, and societal thriving.

Anti-Racist Approaches in Research With Black Families

One commonly proposed barrier to research with Black families is cultural mistrust, which is a belief that White people and their systems should not be trusted due to racism (Terrell et al., 2009). Despite often wanting to participate in research, Black prospective participants are often worried about racism. They are concerned about the deficit model of the Black family and are uninterested in hearing once again that they themselves, their children, and their community are flawed. They notice the systemic racism of the research team, in which all the researchers are White and recruiters are Black. Some have experiences from the recent past of researchers taking their time and energy as participants, then leaving the community without relaying the findings or implications. Often, they find the proposed research projects to be culturally insensitive or irrelevant to their daily lives.

Researchers who presume an insurmountable cultural mistrust often fail to engage with the community early in the process. Instead, they often recruit community member(s) after decisions are finalized, with the goal of receiving a “community” seal of approval. Additionally, mistakes are often made with composition of stakeholders. For example, there may be a tendency to repeatedly choose the same Black leaders, assuming that they represent the collective Black community. This error betrays the microaggressive assumption of universality of the Black experience (e.g., Sue et al., 2008), such as “all Black people are the same.”

An institutionally courageous route for anti-racist research with Black families could begin with a framework of cultural humility (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998) that evokes a mind-set that is ever-growing, self-reflective, humble, and collaborative. Institutionally courageous actions involve recruiting and retaining diverse and relevant community members prior to the research design phase to embark upon a mutually beneficial, collaborative project. Moreover, these community members and future participants are compensated appropriately for their time, effort, and expertise. Such approaches reflect a continuous learning journey, with adaptations as new knowledge about racialized processes is gained.

These and other actions are institutionally courageous because they require bucking against the university status quo that Black and other marginalized communities are exploited in order to gain success and advancement as a researcher (Gómez, 2020). It requires combatting one’s own racist and classist biases to instead presume that Black families have agency, minds, will, and cultures that warrant horizontal collaboration. Ultimately, it would require that the end goal for researchers is not tenure and high status but ethically combating inequality in all its instantiations of process, content, and outcome of research (Gómez, forthcoming: July 2023).

Addressing Campus Sexual Violence With Male College Athletes

Within collegiate sports, male-perpetrated campus sexual violence includes issues of racism against the Black male athletes and sexism, gendered racism, and cultural betrayal against female students who are victimized. In 2014, Tracy, a White woman, publicly disclosed her story of being gang raped in 1998 by four college football players (Canzano, 2014). Such sexual violence is not a violation of the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA; Meyer, 2017). Meaning, unlike those who receive bad grades, athletes found responsible for sexual violence through a campus and/or criminal process are allowed to maintain athletic eligibility, keep their scholarships, and transfer schools.

Identifying that institutional change was needed, Tracy served on the NCAA Commission to Combat Sexual Violence, which recommended that NCAA member schools revoke athletic eligibility of athletes found responsible for sexual violence (NCAA Board of Governors, 2018). The NCAA Board of Governors voted against this recommendation (NCAA Board of Governors, 2018), thus retaining no consequence for collegiate athletes’ sexual violence. Despite these setbacks, Tracy created the Tracy Rule (Set The Expectation, n.d.-b), which is the most comprehensive Sexual Misconduct Policy in the U.S. and includes revoking athletic eligibility for those found responsible for sexual violence.

Through Tracy’s nonprofit organization, Set The Expectation (n.d.-a), she engages in prevention-centered work with men and boys – many of them student-athletes and coaches. Tracy focuses on educating and empowering the non-abusive men majority to make systemic change, including holding other men accountable and using their societal influence to promote equality and justice.

As reflected in the Tracy Rule’s robust waiver process that addresses athletes who may have encountered issues of racism, Tracy creates links between anti-Black racism and sexual violence with the predominantly Black male collegiate athletes she educates. Though she cannot know what it is like to be discriminated against because of the color of her skin, she is aware of what it feels like to be victim-blamed following being gang raped. She knows what it is like to be institutionally betrayed by the systems that are supposed to protect you. Finding the commonalities between surviving sexual violence and living through racialized police brutality helps to foster a sense of compassionate connection and a shared desire to address the systems that perpetuate injustice. Set The Expectation is working to obtain funding to expand this education through a Digital Learning Program that would teach college students about campus sexual violence, racism, and institutional courage.

Tackling Salary Inequity in Academia

As happens racially (Ray, 2019), being underpaid as faculty due to discrimination operates institutionally. Therefore, there must be institutional commitment to initiating and sustaining corrective actions. Institutional commitment takes different forms, including university funding allocation, and can be further supported if state or federal laws exist supporting behaviors that promote equity. From a U.S. public and private university, respectively, two examples of academic practices promote equitable salaries across diverse faculty.

One public institution has a long history of conducting salary compression analysis every four to five years. These analyses include multiple variables, such as year since the faculty obtained their Ph.D., current rank and number of years in current rank, merit scores, number of publications, and teaching evaluation scores. Regression analysis is conducted by two individuals who then present the results to the dean and the school’s executive committee. Based on these results and discussions, estimates of what the person should be earning are obtained. The dean uses this information to make salary corrections that take the overall faculty profile into consideration (e.g., gender, race, years in rank, significant recent accomplishments), above and beyond any standard merit increases each faculty has earned.

The example from the private institution reflects a different approach that is influenced by a state law that prohibits employers from “paying workers a salary or wage less than what they pay employees of a different gender for comparable work” (Massachusetts Equal Pay Act [MEPA]; https://www.mass.gov/massachusetts-equal-pay-law). Central Administration provides deans with graphs and tables with faculty’s years since Ph.D. was obtained, years in current rank, gender, and racial and ethnic background. These data inform decisions about salary offers for new appointments. When making salary corrections, data from the annual merit scores faculty receive inform decisions about salary adjustments. The recommendations made by the dean are then reviewed by Central Administration to ensure that both the process and outcomes of salary corrections are equitable.

These university examples demonstrate that it is not complicated to create an environment where discrimination via salary inequities is non-existent or minimal. A challenge arises, however, when universities are recruiting exemplary prospective scholars. For example, in the case of a prospective candidate negotiating to be paid $20,000 more than the 10 equivalently-ranked professors in the school/department, $200,000 would be needed to adjust salaries and maintain equity across rank. Given that amount of funding is improbable for each hire, three choices remain: 1) offer the prospective candidate the most competitive salary that results in the lowest discrepancies with existing faculty; correct the inequities for the current faculty; 2) offer the prospective candidate a salary that closely matches their negotiated ask; over multiple years, adjust the discrepancies for existing faculty; and 3) offer the prospective candidate their negotiated ask without any corrections for current faculty. Option 1 results in minimal inequity, however, there is risk that the prospective candidate declines the offer. Option 2 introduces more inequity, which will be difficult and time-intensive to correct. Option 3 introduces the biggest inequity that will persist and be exacerbated over time through merit raises and other processes. Given inequities in the negotiation processes themselves (Gómez, 2021a), inequity is compounded for current faculty who already have lower salaries due to discrimination.

Given that discrimination persists, institutional courage – perhaps particularly on the part of institutional leadership – is required to consistently and proactively commit funding to implement the most optimal of the aforementioned strategies for preventing and correcting salary inequity. Moreover, State Law that not only bans discriminatory practices but also encourages equitable outcomes, can certainly accelerate change.

Addressing Racism & Sexism in the Workplace: The Small Wins Model

Although theories of racialized organizations (Ray, 2019) and cultural betrayal trauma (Gómez, forthcoming: July 2023) explain how racism, sexism, and violence are interwoven in society, including within our institutions, less is known about how to intervene. The small wins model (Correll, 2017) enables actors to start with a specific target area of change and produce initial tangible actions that can motivate momentum toward larger organizational transformation. For instance, the larger organizational goal might be to advance more women into leadership. The issue may be linked to formal processes, such as promotion reviews and performance evaluation, or informal processes, such as team-based practices. Though all of the above likely contribute to the lack of women in leadership, the small wins model suggests picking one target area of change – such as promotion processes – making improvements, and then scaling up these advancements.

The small wins model starts with education, as the organizational actors must first be able to identify how inequality plays out in the workplace. For instance, change agents can focus on identifying bias in racialized organizational processes (e.g., resource allocation; Ray, 2019), as opposed to seeking to reduce overt individuals’ prejudice. A focus on processes can produce sustainable change, even when individual organizational actors may leave. In one case study, bias was identified in how evaluations favored White men: managers shifted the use of values to justify strong ratings for men when similar performance was given a lower rating for women. In addition, managers gave the highest ratings to the men, often citing irrelevant information, such as hoping to appease an employee who might leave if not properly rewarded. Thus, a target area includes several potentially biased assessment practices, such as rating protocols, reviews, and group discussion about talent, that favor White men and prevent marginalized others from fair and equitable opportunities to advance.

Importantly, institutional change requires co-designing strategies and solutions with the people at the frontlines of the work. Top-down imperatives often stall because they exclude the perspectives of middle management on workplace functioning, thus reducing applicability and buy-in. Therefore, collaboration with those with insider knowledge and experience of daily organizational life will be beneficial for the effectiveness of sustainable change. Finally, small wins produce discreet outcomes that can contribute to larger organizational change. These efforts can be measured in the effectiveness of the small wins model, such as content of promotion statements, as well as in specific measurable organizational outcomes, such as the increase of women across races and people of Color across genders in leadership ranks.

Implementing a small wins model to promote equity and inclusion requires institutional courage. Such institutionally courageous actions from leaders can include transforming the organization’s values into levers of change. For instance, X Workplace values excellence and success. Historically, it has been understood that being successful at X Workplace requires being a genius. That individualized stance removes responsibility to support workers’ success, and thus can reify the operations of the racialized workplace that continuously support and promote White men workers (Ray, 2019). Instead, the organization can create behavioral markers of what “excellence” actually entails (e.g., detailing measurable outcomes), while providing structural supports for workers to achieve such excellence. Furthermore, these new behavioral markers of excellence can be collectively derived through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion, in which Whiteness is not used as a credential (Ray, 2019), but worker satisfaction and workplace functioning are prioritized. Thus, institutional actors can use institutional courage to engage in the small wins model by identifying a target area of change and intervening in meaningful ways. As a result, organizations can change systemically, one small win at a time.

Concluding Thoughts

In closing the 2022 Center for Institutional Courage Racism, Violence, & Institutional Change through the Fireside Chat of Institutional Courage in Action, we discussed why the work for institutional change is both needed and so difficult. One hurdle is our – including leaders’ – misguided perceptions of ourselves and our established institutions. We and leaders can fool ourselves into believing that all in an organization are “good people” who either have no role in systemic and institutional oppression (Chugh, 2018) or who believe that improvement on one metric, such as hiring, absolves us from change regarding culture and climate. We instead must understand how our ideologies of inclusion do not promote equality and equity (Ahmed, 2012). Therefore, institutional courage through action – and not just rhetoric – is necessary.

Another difficulty is the emotional and psychological weight of this work, alongside the slow pace of systemic change. That weight can include internalized and external pressure from our marginalized communities to behave courageously and make systemic change no matter how isolating the process or seemingly insurmountable the feats. Additionally, the same insight and sensitivity that drives us to work to change the world can also emotionally drown us in sorrow. Identifying that dialectic of motivation and pain can engender the grace needed to curate spaces where we feel supported and free.

Finally, we discovered than even within these hardships, the fight for systemic change through institutional courage is absolutely worth it. One simple act of courage can have a ripple effect of radical change that transforms our world. Furthermore, the process of people coming together to be courageous is beautiful, even when the sought-after success remains unattainable. As Weathington stated, “When a flower doesn’t bloom, allow yourself to see the beauty of the bud.” May we behold both the beauty of the struggling bud and the thriving flower within institutional courage.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University for hosting and co-sponsoring the 2022 Center for Institutional Courage Racism, Sexual Violence, & Institutional Change Workshop, from which our editorial is based. We would also like to thank all participants for the insight, intellectual creativity, wisdom, and courage they shared at The Workshop (in alphabetical order): Alexis Adams-Clark, Adebisis Akinyemi, Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Aisha Beliso-De Jesús, Trier Bryant, Christianne Corbett, Estelle Freedman, Sarah Harsey, Lama Hassoun Ayoub, Sasha Shen Johfre, Manuel Pastor, Kamaria Porter, Kim Scott, Caroline Simard, Alec Smidt, David Spiegel, Lisa Verhovek, Meghan Warner, Kirsten H. Wysen, and Logan Zelenak.