Reeling and Healing from Hate Speech: Student Affairs Professionals of Color Share Post-pandemic Imaginations for Community Colleges

Abstract

Throughout history, people have united to demand change and accountability in the face of injustice. Although freedom of speech and assembly rights have been essential in uplifting and empowering marginalized communities throughout history, it is important to name the existence of speech that seeks to expand rights and speech which aims to restrict rights. Hate speech occurrences have increased dramatically since 2016 and many scholars cite college campuses as a specialized place for hate and social movements. Despite this increase in incidents and scholarly attention focused on on-campus hate speech, there is a gap in knowledge regarding those staff members who oversee hate speech incidents as people of color, especially those who work in community colleges. Utilizing a Critical Race Study lens, this study explored how student affairs professionals of color in California community college settings experience and navigate hate speech and White supremacy. Through eight collective counter-narratives, educators provided insight into White supremacy incidents on campus and the biased federal policy that affects their day-to-day work with students. Their collective stories re-imagine the post-pandemic community college what it means to be safe in community colleges through the twin pandemics and how the community college campus as a whole can come together to challenge White supremacy and support highly vulnerable and marginalized community college students. Their exploration of experiences also paints a picture of coalitions that must be built and sustained within the community. And finally, this study provides insight into the navigation and radical re-imagining of hate speech education and healing together as community colleges reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic and escalation of racial injustice.

Notes

1 A California public college student-led coalition which led to the start of Ethnic Studies programs across the United States.

2 The inclusion of the United Nation’s work toward peace is an essential human rights education tool practitioners can use when re-imagining educational practices in the pandemic. This additional international lens allows for intentionally de-centering and challenging American exceptionalism when re-imagining praxis.

3 “As a scholarly movement, Critical Race Theory (CRT) began in the early 1970s with the early writing of Derrick Bell, an African-American civil rights lawyer…writing about interest convergence as a means to understanding Western racial history and the conflict of interest in civil rights litigation” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017, p. 467). Additionally, “Kimberlè Crenshaw places the social origins of what was to become critical race theory at a student boycott…at Harvard Law School” in 1981 when students protested and presented demands to school administration to hire more faculty of color (Matsuda et al., 1993, p. 4).

4 This specific time was chosen to reflect recent experiences, and to capture this particular political moment.

5 Participants utilized both the terms “White nationalist” and “White supremacy” within their narratives. Within this study, “White nationalist” is defined as someone who deeply believes in their nation’s interest; and someone desires the nation to be made up of White people (Perlman, 2017). “White supremacy” in this study is defined as the belief that White people’s ideologies and actions are superior to People of Color. Within the lens of Critical Race Theory, White supremacy also includes the idea that White people have a structural advantage that People of Color do not have (Dismantling Racism Works, 2021; Racism Defined).

6 The Center for Disease Control and Prevention define the Delta variant as a more contagious version of COVID-19.

7 Trump announced the repeal of DACA in 2017, which would end the policy that provided legal protection from deportation and eligibility for work permits; this repeal would affect thousands of college students. The 46th president, Joe Biden, has noted his desire to reinstate and expand DACA protections (Beitsch & Bernal, 2021).

8 Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOPS) ensures students from disadvantaged situations get the support they need to be successful at a California Community College, and many Black students are served by EOPS.

9 Participants noted that these hard-to-remove stickers were also posted on walls, windows, poles, and doors and caused permanent damage along with countless hours of cleanup for facilities staff.