Seeking Tenure While Black: Lawsuit Composite Counterstories of Black Professors at Historically White Institutions

ABSTRACT

In tenure and promotion denial lawsuits against historically White institutions, Black professors submit evidence of discrimination based on implicit and explicit bias and gendered racism, yet legal redress rarely occurs because many courts will not recognize structural inequities as a persisting reality in academia. Informed by intersectional theory and methodology, this qualitative study synthesized data from legal documents of four tenure denial lawsuits filed by Black professors, with the results presented as a fictionalized composite counternarrative affirming these professors’ lived experiences. Drawing on scholarship about tenure and promotion, the study identifies intersectional barriers to tenure attainment for Black professors that include inadequate institutional support, divergence from established institutional tenure and promotion policies, inconsistent application of tenure and promotion guidelines, and problematic academic politics. The study findings illuminate how inequitable, often haphazard tenure and promotion processes can result in litigation and extend scholarship about the retention of Black professors in the academy. The project delineates a path toward more humanity-affirming academic work environments with unequivocal institutional commitments to faculty retention. To translate these values into practice, the authors assert the need for a new approach to tenure and promotion policy anchored in anti-discrimination, referred to as critical procedural justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Black professors
• tenure denial lawsuits
• critical race feminism
• composite counterstory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. “Sex” is used in Title VII, most state laws, and court opinions. However, “gender” and “sex” can be seen interchangeably in legal documents despite sex and gender being different social constructs. We use gender in our discussion and analysis to accurately describe stereotypical societal perspectives that influence how Black women and men can experience intersectional discrimination.

2. Academic freedom “is a catchall term to describe the legal rights and responsibilities of the teaching profession, and courts usually attempt to define these rights by reconciling basic constitutional law or contract law principles with prevailing views of academic freedom’s intellectual and social role in American life” (Kaplin & Lee, 2014, p. 286).