Symposium on Cultural Competence, Accountability, and Social Justice: Administrative Responsibility and the Legitimacy of United States Democracy

This special symposium is a clarion call for research that critically examines the administrative state within the context of democracy in the United States. While democracy has always been messy and conceptually contradictory for large factions in this country, an emergent consciousness was awakened for a new generation of scholars and activists. The advent of the Black Lives Matter movement, nationwide protests against police brutality, and calls for political and administrative accountability have illuminated racial injustice in ways that are similar to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Images of white men with Tiki torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, have become the embodiment of the “Make America Great Again” movement, by attempting to squelch any and all attempts to extend freedom, justice, and democracy to people who threaten the status quo.

In a twenty-first century defined by colorblindness, postracial discourse, and the denial of systemic discrimination, the pursuit of civil rights remains an iterative and sustained struggle toward progress. The United States has always experienced the ebb and flow of progress and retrenchment—as evidenced by the Obama administration’s progressive advocacy for equal pay, LGBTQ rights, drug sentencing reform, and green energy in contrast to the regressive response of the Trump administration to undermine social and environmental justice initiatives for people outside of the white, male, affluent, heterosexual demographic. The fight for equality is as fierce now as it has ever been in the history of this country. Consequently, both academicians and practitioners in the field of public administration can no longer act as neutral implementers of public policy.

In this context, the tenets of critical race theory ring true: history, race, voice, interpretation, and praxis not only matter, but also are fundamental ideals that must be acknowledged and acted upon if change is ever to be meaningful and impactful. As a society, we cannot continue to spin our wheels as if we do not have a history to learn from and move beyond. Otherwise, injustice will never be dismantled, only reimagined. Race continues to be the elephant in the room, and our collective unwillingness to talk about, be open to, and confront racial dynamics and white privilege holds U.S. society captive and unable to evolve. The outward focus on what other people need to do without accepting responsibility for our respective biases (personal and professional) and behavior further nourishes discontent. Without acknowledging the lived experiences and personal expertise of those people impacted by injustice, academic literature and professional practice furthers the gulf between citizens and the state. In other words, change is necessary, and the time is now!

Previously, it could be stated that policy outcomes that produced racial disparity were unintended. However, there are bodies of research and real world experiences that illustrate the role that conscious and unconscious bias has on administrative decision-making. For communities of color and people with intersecting identities, adverse interactions with the criminal legal system, poor educational and health outcomes, limited employment opportunities, and consistent exposure to environmental hazards demonstrate complicity in sustaining the disadvantages of those deemed as “other.” As a field and practice, public administration should know better, and must continue its work to create a greater good for all.

Although discussions of social justice are nascent in public administration, prescribing social equity as a pillar of the field occurred almost 50 years ago, but only now is viewed as a legitimate consideration for research and practice. The normative values of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy can no longer be prioritized over equity, justice, and fairness in the governance and management of the U.S. populace. In response, this symposium strives to provide a space and context to challenge status quo assumptions about people and place, and also to encourage public administration scholars and practitioners to be considerate of developing their cultural competence in order to be accountable and responsive to all persons.

The guest editorial by Darnell L. Moore—a writer, educator, cultural worker, and critic—offers a vision and strategy to embrace “Black radical love.” In his essay, he highlights the importance of developing relationships and creating spaces in which vulnerability can be embraced. In a world where numbers and statistics are viewed as the holy grail of legitimate knowledge, Moore’s counter-narrative of building community and healing provides key lessons for persons interested in being the change they want to see in the world.

Witt’s article, “Never Post-Racial: The Persistence of the Dual State,” provides a historical discussion and analysis of how racial difference emerged and has sustained itself since the country’s founding. The dual state recognizes that while rhetorically, the United States is considered the place of freedom and justice for all, in reality, public administration has been complicit in the maintenance of a racial hierarchy that is sanctioned at all levels of government through its policies, institutions, resources (or lack thereof), and personnel (choices and practices).

Offering up an intimate perspective of administrative decision-making in Missouri, Benton’s article, “‘Saving’ the City: Harland Bartholomew and Administrative Evil in St. Louis,” is a case study of prioritizing economic interests over equity considerations when it concerns a vulnerable Black population. The pervasiveness of administrative actions by Bartholomew and his peers during this time has resulted in rehabilitation being synonymous with the dispossession of Black bodies and the destruction of their respective communities, as it happens in conjunction with the insertion of White people and economic capital into once under-resourced areas. The actions taken in St. Louis are the epitome of administrative discretion during the era of urban renewal, and further inform contemporary urban rehabilitation initiatives in the name of gentrification—or urban renewal 2.0 (as I like to call it).

In “Examining the Efficacy of Title VI Social Equity Analysis: A Comparative Case Study of Transit Access and Neighborhood Segregation Outcomes over Time,” Larson examines transportation development across four diverse metropolitan areas: Denver, Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Birmingham, Alabama, and Orlando, Florida. Focusing on issues of race and equity, this article is concerned with continuing social inequity that persists despite federal policy intervention.

Gaynor’s “Social Construction and the Criminalization of Identity: State Sanctioned Oppression and an Unethical Administration” underscores the vulnerability that persons with marginalized, intersecting identities (LGBTQ people of color) experience when interacting with the criminal legal system. Using an intersectional framework, Gaynor describes how the use of negative social constructions shapes the behaviors of public actors in public institutions, thus serving as facilitators of institutional injustice.

McCandless’ article, “Improving Community Relations: How Police Strategies Improve Accountability for Social Equity and Affect Citizen Perceptions,” examines the ways public administrators can enhance social equity outcomes through access, outcome, and process improvements. Given the number of high-profile homicides at the hands of law enforcement officers, citizen perceptions of accountability are explored within the context of community policing, social equity performance measurement, and ethics training.

“Do Local Government Executives Believe They Are More Political or Administrative? An Analysis of the Ethics of Administrative Officer Self-Perception” investigates the links between job titles and the rates of administrative or political function. Potter and Eskridge recognize that regardless of role, an appropriate balance is needed between administrative responsibilities and political desires within a particular context. In other words, a better understanding of context empowers administrators to embrace a strong ethical culture to serve the citizenry effectively.

Each of these articles offers context to issues of injustice, as experienced by real people on a daily basis. While awareness of these issues is important, an unwillingness to act when in the know demonstrates a level of complicity too familiar in mainstream society. “Administrative Evil and the Prison Industrial Complex” a film review of 13th by Drs. Lopez-Littleton and Woodley, explores the role of the administrative state in abetting the skyrocketing and disproportionate incarceration rates of Black people in the United States. Lopez-Littleton and Woodley’s analysis threads this symposium together nicely, because it uses a historical lens to define and articulate the contemporary response to the criminality associated with Black people. The focus on the criminal legal system is key, because engagement with it impacts a person’s quality of life. Consequently, a jail sentence is not confined to those serving time, but is also tied to their families, community, and society at large. When the birthplace of modern democracy is also home to the highest incarceration rate among all industrialized nations, the legitimacy of U.S. policies, its institutions, and its way of life must come into question. 13th is a great classroom resource and can be used to interrogate public policies, the role of public administrators, and the differential outcomes that resulted between Black people and their White counterparts.

It should be noted that learning remains a lifelong process. The development of cultural competence does not end with one training class or daylong workshop session. Therefore, it is imperative to seek information that exposes you to new things and divergent points of view, because allowing yourself to be uncomfortable is where real personal growth happens. Azevedo’s book review of Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race by Derald Wing Sue provides a useful analysis of the text and identifies ways to incorporate its use into the field of public administration. Addressing inequity and disparity begins with the ability to have an honest discussion about race and by recognizing the privileges associated with all aspects of our identities (e.g., race, gender identity, class, sex, ability). Depending upon the context, at any moment, each of us could be both the oppressor or the oppressed. Our collective ability to understand that juxtaposition enables us to move toward fairness and equity. In his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. said:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (King, 1963, para. 4).

Ultimately, we rise or fall together!