“It’s Just My Face:” Workplace Policing of Black Professional Women in Higher Education

Abstract

In this qualitative meta-narrative, I explore how Black women administrators in higher education experience and navigate policing in predominantly white work environments. Using intersectionality as a framework and semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection technique, the findings from this study reveal workplace policing manifests for Black women on physical, emotion, and communicative levels. More specifically, participants endured restrictions and navigated dissatisfaction with their tone of voice, criticism of their attire and style of dress, and (mis)perceptions of office fit. Participants also reported engaging in self-policing practices to (over)compensate for and in anticipation of workplace-based policing struggles. I include implications for research and practice.

“Get out of my office, then, you ungrateful little bitch,” [sic] were the last words my first full-time professional supervisor ever spoke to me. As a US-born Black woman who graduated as a first-generation (first-gen) college student, this was not my first experience with workplace hostility. Still, it is certainly among my most memorable. Despite little critique of my ability to carry out my professional duties, I found myself constantly evaluated for my (mis)perceived attitude, arrogance, and lack of professionalism by my white woman supervisor. The transition from office favorite to foe opened my eyes to how the hidden curriculum binds professionalism and workplace standards alongside the pet-to-threat phenomenon (Stallings, 2020; Thomas et al., 2013). I understand and define the hidden curriculum as the vague and rarely spoken workplace rules by which a professional must abide (Anyon, 1980; Bertrand Jones et al., 2015), should they wish to successfully navigate their workplace. The different, yet interrelated, pet-to-threat phenomenon reveals how Black women specifically are treated as beloved and cared for (in a childlike fashion) as new employees who may subsequently become threats when they resist, push back, or otherwise disrupt the early expectations and ideas about them in the workplace (Thomas et al., 2013). Both the hidden curriculum and pet-to-threat phenomenon are deeply interconnected with white supremacy, neoliberal civility, and (mis)beliefs in meritocracy, because they all function under the assumption that Black women’s actions, decisions, and agency must be in deference to and acquiescence of white people’s comfort and norms (Alvarado, 2010; Liu, 2011). Yet my experiences with workplace policing are not mine alone (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2019; Hollis, 2018; Stallings, 2020).

Despite widely held public misconceptions of meritocracy, there is scholarly and anecdotal evidence to suggest Black women higher education and student affairs (HESA) practitioners routinely endure workplace mistreatment and misogynoir (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009; West et al., 2010). Black women administrators have recounted seeing their white colleagues explore their inquisitive nature at work, whereas attempts by Black professionals to do the same are perceived as challenges to office dynamics and authority (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009; West, 2020; West et al., 2010). Similarly, white colleagues can express a range of emotions at work, with space to grapple with previously unresolved issues, while Black women are rarely described as having any other emotions besides the happy or angry binary (Collins, 2000). I consider Black women’s experiences around this issue as a form of surveillance, or workplace policing (Carby, 1992; hooks, 1992; Hunter, 1997).

Workplace policing can be traced to the earliest integrated professional environments as Black women have always been, and remain, professionally undermined (Carby, 1992; Hunter, 1997; Roberts, 2014). Although workplace policing is not unique to higher education, the phenomenon deserves scholarly inquiry in campus contexts as Black women increase their presence in the academy as students, faculty, and staff (Brower et al., 2019; Kelly & Fries-Britt, 2022; McCloud et al., in press). When workplace policing is amplified by the hidden curriculum and pet-to-threat phenomenon, the resulting combinations influence promotion, hiring, and workplace assignments (Hollis, 2018; Thomas et al., 2013). Black women administrators must navigate the white middle class norms upon which success in predominantly white work environments (PWWEs) rely, while concurrently negotiating misogynoir and differential family socialization that can intensify feelings of confusion and frustration. Correspondingly, workplace policing is a critical entry point to understanding the navigational realities Black women endure in PWWEs.

PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

I center policing in PWWEs given the role higher education institutions and practitioners hold in post-collegiate workplace socialization and employment (Perez & Haley, 2021; Williams & Davis, 2021). If it is true that college students’ cocurricular learning complements and further transforms their classroom experiences, then the experiences reproduced by the practitioners tasked with their development (both positive and negative) have multiplicative implications (Davis & Cooper, 2017; Perez & Haley, 2021). One such implication includes the attitudes, norms, and perceptions white people are trained to (with)hold and enact toward Black women. Drawing from a larger study on the workplace and socialization experiences of first-gen graduate Black women administrators, the purpose of this study was to explore the racialized and gendered experiences Black professional women serving in PWWEs negotiate related to workplace policing. The following question guided this study: What are Black women administrators’ workplace policing experiences in predominantly white higher education workplace contexts?

POLICING OF BLACK WOMEN’S BODIES

I define and operationalize workplace policing in the present study as the physical, metaphorical, and/or emotional manipulation of Black women’s actions to better align with white supremacist notions of professionalism. Indeed, coping with gendered racism impacts Black women’s mental, emotional, and physical health (West et al., 2010). Whether labeled as gendered racism or misogynoir (Bailey & Trudy, 2018), the policing of Black women’s bodies is interwoven into the fabric of US culture. From bodily control during enslavement (Carby, 1992; Hunter, 1997) to (mis)perception of Black women’s drug addiction as criminal (Netherland & Hansen, 2016), white racial imaginations of extremism, rather than reality, mar the framing of Black women’s existence in the United States (Giddings, 2006; Wallace-Sanders, 2002). Carby (1992), for instance, laid bare the role of migration to urban communities and cities in the formation of policing norms for Black women’s behavior, morality, and perceived sexuality and liberation. She illuminated how some Black women experience policing not only at the behest of white people but also by members of the Black bourgeoisie who sought to preserve a specific image of Black women and womanhood rooted in respectability (Carby, 1992). Respectability politics, or the politics of respectability, were promoted within the Black community to not only to facilitate personal integration into white society, but also as a reform strategy to indicate to white culture and white people that Black people could be “respectable” (Harris, 2003). The cementing of this strategy both effectively sustained and stifled Black professionals, and have continued into the present day (Patton, 2014). Although respectability politics can be embodied by all Black people, Black women are more likely to be judged by these ideals (Harris, 2003). The culmination of these facts suggests there is a sustained legacy of watching and seeking to control Black women’s bodies both cross-racially and intra-racially (Carby, 1992).

Similarly, Roberts’s (1997) and Collins’s (2000) research underscore how racist theories and controlling images of Black women as welfare queens and mothers of crack babies permeate white racial imaginations, irrespective of their inaccuracies. Collins’s (2000) focus on controlling images suggested media and sociocultural portrayals of Black women often rest within four major categories: (1) Black women as caring, giving, and asexual or “mammies;” (2) Black women as emasculating, hostile, and combative or “sapphires;” (3) Black women as lazy and needy or “welfare queens;” and (4) Black women as hypersexual and promiscuous or “jezebels” (Collins, 2000). These stereotypes, though rooted in white imagination, impact how Black women navigate the world around them, inclusive of PWWEs.

Collins (2000) further asserted that Black women’s images and control therein are embedded in US culture to a point where approximation to whiteness and white norms—or respectability—influence Black people and Black culture absent the presence of white people. Indeed, Black women’s battle to prevent and disrupt these stereotypes has resulted in legislation and attitudes that impede Black women’s ability to procreate, control their own livelihoods, and make personal and professional advancements (Carby, 1992; Roberts 1997). While historically centered on obedience during enslavement, contemporary image control positions some Black women over others for their phenotypic proximity to whiteness through lighter skin. The cementing of colorism within the Black community and racialization beyond the Black community dictate how Black women are treated in society and certainly within campus contexts (Brown et al., 2021).

Taken together, Carby (1992), Roberts (1997), and Collins (2000) revealed how the ongoing policing and stereotyping of Black women’s lives function in stark contrast to those of white women and understandings of white womanhood (Accapadi, 2007; Giddings, 2006; Wallace-Sanders, 2002). For instance, white women battling crack, opioids, and other drug addictions while pregnant, nursing, and/or parenting are considered addicts in need of help and understanding (Roberts, 1997). In contrast, Black women are viewed as needing carceral controlling for their own good and the good of the Black community (Roberts, 1997). These perceptions have led to de jure regulation and de facto supervision of Black women seeking social support programs, complicating older scholarly schemas of race, class, and state interactions (Roberts, 2014). These forms are not unique to enslavement and reproductive justice realms. I name them here to underscore how policing of Black women’s bodies is rampant within US contexts. If PWWEs are microcosms of the world around them, then one can assume the same issues arise within Black women’s professional experiences.

Ultimately, the policing of Black women through controlling images often maligns Black women as having limited professionalism because they are far too sexual or as hyper-professional mammies who ignore their own children and responsibilities in favor of whiteness (Collins, 2000). Scholars have sought to trouble and nuance the continued promotion and consumption of these poor representations of Black life (hooks, 1992), yet they have made little progress. Indeed, broader cultural understandings of Black women and their success remains directly tied to whiteness cross-racially, and colorism and class intra-racially, as evidenced by the promulgation of Black people who espouse white values within and beyond campus contexts (Brown et al., 2021; Collins, 2000; Williams et al., 2022).

Policing in the (Higher Education) Workplace

The concept of policing in educational research is often found in K-12 contexts. Primary and secondary educational researchers have found Black girls are policed and pushed out of schools for minor infractions (Morris, 2016), including standards of dress and hairstyling (Gutierrez-Morfin, 2016; Harris-Perry, 2011; Hunter, 1997). Much of the research focusing on Black women’s struggle immediately moves toward resilience and coping in the higher education environment rather than tending to the structural negative conditions Black women endure (Clayborne & Hamrick, 2007; Fields & Martin, 2017; Sobers, 2014). Nevertheless, scholars have found that Black women face difficulty within the higher education workplace (Breeden, 2021; DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2019; Logan & Scott Dudley, 2019; Davis & Maldonado, 2015).

Empirical and anecdotal evidence suggests Black women HESA practitioners negotiate workplace hostility, racism, sexism, and other identity-based forms of discrimination (Breeden, 2021; Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009; West et al., 2010). Accordingly, Black women have used sister circles and intra-racial knowledge to facilitate their support and encouragement for success along the journey for generations, and continue to do so today (Breeden, 2021; Davis et al., 2022; West, 2020; West et al., 2010). However, there is only so much Black women can do to survive policing in the workplace differently than other professional women in PWWEs (Breeden, 2021; Dickens & Chavez, 2018; Dickens et al., 2019; Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009).

Breeden (2021) found that Black women hyper-perform and excel in the workplace; the subtext indicated Black women must be better than their white peers to avoid fitting racial stereotypes. The resulting impact of Black women’s hyper-performance underscores the superwoman syndrome that Black women enact as means of self-protection despite the mediocrity their white colleagues embrace (Breeden, 2021). Collins (2000) positioned Black women’s continued workplace sacrifice and hyper performance as a manifestation of a modern mammy wherein loyalty to workplaces, particularly those that are white and run by white people, are considered most important. While Black women intentionally embody some facets of the superwoman schema in their workplace to facilitate success (Williams, 2019), they are sometimes met with age-related hostility upon doing so (Chance, 2022).

The workplace hostility Black women endure is particularly visible for leaders excelling to high level roles in their 20s and 30s (Chance, 2022). Some scholars have reported finding misogynoir-laced macro and microaggressions, such as “you are too young to be making the money you make” (p. 60) or feelings of superiority based on perceived age and status among Black women in their work (Chance, 2022). Indeed, the problem of ageism spans career fields and countries, as researchers agree women are broadly penalized for being either too young or too old at various career points (Jyrkinen, 2014). Women perceive there to be a short window in which they can meet their anticipated accomplishments (Jyrkinen, 2014). When considered in the context of race, Black women are especially impacted by ageism because Black girls are often perceived as older than they really are (Morris, 2016), while Black women are perceived as too young when they obtain certain kinds of professional success (Chance, 2022; Sobers, 2014).

Given that the professional pathway is riddled with racially-driven hazards, Black women professionals create their own communities and support structures to construct plans for advancement (Breeden, 2021; McCloud et al., in press; West, 2020). Jones and Shorter-Gooden (2009) revealed how Black women shift their bodies, actions, and personhood to exist in a sexist, white supremacist society. In their groundbreaking text, Jones and Shorter-Gooden (2009) found Black women engage in the act of shifting (altering expectations for self and appearance for the sake of survival and acceptance) or subterfuge toward white appeasement to ensure continued survival in the United States. This suggests Black women, both willingly and, in part, in expectation of misogynoir, must engage the workplace with a degree of deference not expected of their white woman counterparts. It is especially true that Black women make decisions about how to show up in the workplace because they anticipate enduring workplace monitoring and policing differently than non-Black professional women (Dickens & Chavez, 2018; Dickens et al., 2019; Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009). Dickens et al. (2019) further complicated the concept of shifting, articulating the practice as both a conscious and unconscious means of mitigating discrimination. That is, these practices are so much a part of Black women’s identity development and socialization that they may become unnoticeable. This is particularly important as Black women may find themselves critiqued, ridiculed, and mistreated when they step out of the confines of a Black woman’s place in the white racial imagination (Dickens et al., 2019).

Mentorship is one antidote to facilitate Black women’s persistence despite workplace policing. Yet in line with respectability strategies of the past, contemporary research suggests mentors can continue to instruct Black women to make identity negotiations and to perform Black identity in socially acceptable and constructed ways (Sobers, 2014). Black women remain tasked with white appeasing presentations, a form of control and policing that non-Black women do not have to negotiate (Sobers, 2014). However, identity-shifting notions of professionalism required are not without social and emotional costs, as Black women vacillate between feeling positively and negatively about leaving much of themselves at the workplace door (Dickens & Chavez, 2018; Sobers, 2014). The constant negotiation, surveillance, and negative experiences Black women endure are an extension of enslavement. White standards, norms, and domination not only permeate the culture and context of workplaces, but they are also reproduced and generationally passed down as either coping mechanisms (for Black women) or policing strategies (for white employees) among professionals (Rodgers, 2021).

The reproduction of these (self)policing and identity shifting norms do not happen in a silo, nor solely at the behest of white people as evidenced by Black respectability strategies (Carby, 1992; Harris, 2003). If Black women HESA professionals learn to navigate PWWEs from their supervisors and those who have come before them (Henry, 2010), then today’s HESA practitioners will sometimes continue these same patterns (Davis & Maldonado, 2015). These practices, then, become self-repeating processes, allowing some Black women to individually advance, yet further disadvantaging those who do not fit within the white supremacist constructed expectation of a Black women in a PWWE. Ultimately, by examining how Black women administrators experience workplace policing in HESA, this study adds to previous conversations regarding the ingrained and embedded nature of white gazes and policing of Black women’s bodies in PWWEs.

INTERSECTIONALITY AS A FRAMEWORK

The concept of intersectionality operated before Crenshaw (1991) named it; however, the term formally entered the scholarly lexicon because she coined the concept. Evidence suggests that conceptualizations of intersectionality can be traced to the end of the nineteenth century when Anna Julia Cooper posited the ideas of triple jeopardy or triple consciousness (Johnson, 2013). These early feminist notions of multiple dimensions of identities made room to account for the multiplicities of subordinated race and gender identities.

Rooted in Black feminist traditions, intersectionality positions scholars to interrogate systems of oppression among four major dimensions: centering historically minoritized people, considering multiple dimensions of identity, contextualizing the web of domination, and enacting equity and social change (Crenshaw, 1991). I use intersectionality in this study because Black women’s workplace experiences exist within a subordinated social construction of race and gender; the present study focused on the racialized gendered experiences of policing within the higher education workplace. Below is a summary of Crenshaw’s (1991) dimensions.

Centering Historically Minoritized People

Intersectionality upends the centrality of whiteness and dispossesses the structural nature of whiteness and white supremacy in a web of domination (Crenshaw, 1991). In the context of this study, this means Black women’s experiences and ways of knowing are centered rather than recognized as othered by standards of whiteness. This means naming how racism and white supremacy are endemic to US culture and countering those notions with the central positioning of different experiences.

Multiple Dimensions of Identity

Given the initial focus on race and gender, intersectionality is constructed to intentionally upend single-axis views of identity (Crenshaw, 1991). Rather than requiring that Black women describe their experiences along race or gender, historicity of hegemony and the interplay of structures of oppression are instead acknowledged. The acknowledgment provides for a more nuanced understanding of identity.

Web of Domination

Intersectionality illuminates the interplay among multiple systems of oppression (Crenshaw, 1991). To fully make room for the function of power, an acknowledgment of existing structures needs to take place. Intersectionality scholarship identifies these as structural, hegemonic, and interpersonal: facets of everyday life that must withstand scrutiny for their role in oppression of Black women (hooks, 2000). Given the continuous reproduction of power and privilege, acknowledging the web of domination allows for a more nuanced view of deconstructing oppression personally, politically, and socioculturally.

Enacting Equity and Social Change

The theoretical foundations of intersectionality theory are complicated by necessitating action (Crenshaw, 1991). This means the act of doing something is integral to the theory and is often manifested in the form of larger political and social change. Intersectionality provides a roadmap for engaging hard work, while centering the voices and experiences of minoritized people. In doing this, not only are the experiences of these groups addressed, but also how we come to know what we know and what is accepted as known.

Intersectionality in the Current Study

I explicate my understandings of intersectionality since it is misused both within and beyond higher education research (Crenshaw, 2016). I operationalize intersectionality as a means of shifting and centering how Black women’s experiences are contextualized. Given widely held single-axis perceptions of oppression where oppressed Black identity is flattened to mean men and women’s oppression is limited to whiteness (Hull et al., 1982), intersectionality allows for nuance of Black women’s lived experiences. Intersectionality informed the research design, data collection, and analysis processes within this study insofar as I not only asked specific and clarifying questions to participants, but also examined their experiences with systemic oppression in mind. More specifically, the interview questions were tailored to the dimensions of intersectionality with specific requests for narratives around policing. By acknowledging how power and hegemony interact with and within higher education, I centered the voices of 12 Black women administrators and their workplace policing experiences.

METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

The data presented herein draws from a broader study on the workplace experiences of first-gen Black women practitioners in PWWEs. Though first-gen status was a prerequisite for participation and integral to the broader study, the present article focuses on the racialized gendered experiences the Black women participants reported relating to workplace policing. As such, I center Black women’s ways of knowing (Collins, 2000) in this critical meta-narrative study, given their experiences and perceptions are forms of legitimate knowledge production.

To facilitate the meta-narrative process, narrative inquiry served as the methodology (M. Q. Patton, 2015). Narrative inquiry methodology rests upon the belief that we, as people, construct our experiences thereby giving them meaning within our lives and the world around us (Clandinin, 2006). Narratives, then, allow scholars to situate participants’ experiences within their lived and perceived contexts so counternarratives and multiple truths may simultaneously exist (Clandinin, 2006). Within this study, I constructed a meta-narrative of participants’ experiences by recounting and (re)constructing their individual and shared narratives into a broader holistic story.

I selected the meta-narrative approach because I could honor the realities from which participants’ experiences draw without overly revealing details that could reveal their identities (Patton, 2015). I was especially attuned to this approach within the policing-related findings, as numerous participants told me they shared portions of their stories on social media and desired to heighten protection of their identities. I collected participant narratives through semi-structured qualitative interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Narrative interviews provide space for interpretive inquiry—or the process of drawing conclusions from the interpretations and recollections participants ascribed to their own actions and experiences (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009; Patton, 2015). A meta-narrative, then, felt most appropriate because I could (re)construct individual and collective narratives into a broader story, thereby aligning the phenomenon under study within and across participants’ experiences as previous scholars have done (Patton & Catching, 2009; Williams et al., 2020). The amalgamation of the resulting emerging themes and reconstruction into a holistic narrative are the premise upon which the meta-narrative concept rests.

Participant Recruitment

Using a purposive sampling technique, I recruited participants on social media using HESA related hashtags (e.g., #SAchat, #SApro, #SADoc) and within and across groups by and for Black women in HESA (e.g., Black Student Affairs Professionals; BLKSAP). Specifically, I used the sites Twitter and Facebook as they were popular virtual meeting spaces for Black women in the profession. The flyer was also shared through word of mouth and by text share of the initial social media links from my own pages, as reported by two participants. The initial posts requested that interested Black women complete a short inclusion/exclusion survey to be sure they met the study criteria. The survey was not available on the open web to help mitigate internet trolling and other forms of cyber-attack on the study. Once they were deemed eligible for the study, prospective participants would then schedule a time to meet with me to conduct the interview.

Participant Selection and Inclusion

To meet the inclusion criteria for this study, participants self-identified as: a first-generation college graduate, a Black woman, a bachelor’s degree recipient, having at least 2 years of full-time work experience in a student affairs or higher education administration role, graduating from a PWI HESA program, and currently or recently (within 1 year of the interview) holding a position at a PWWE. These (in/ex)clusion criteria were necessitated by the aims of the larger study upon which this article draws. Although I did not expressly set an age limit, I collected age data to share in aggregate and consider whether differences in socialization by age and generational played a role in the women’s experiences (Perkins & Herring, 2021).

A total of 20 women expressed interest in the study but six were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. An additional two participants opted not to complete the study due to scheduling issues. Twelve Black professional women employed at PWWEs completed this study and selected their pseudonyms (see Table 1). Five of the participants served as coordinators; one as an area coordinator; two as assistant directors; one as associate director; one as a senior associate director; and two as directors. Participants were between the ages of 26 and 42 with a mean age of 30. The 12 women in this study represented 10 PWI HESA master’s programs and 11 PWWE workplaces.

TABLE 1 Participant Demographics

Pseudonym	Age	Title
Alice	28	Coordinator
Becky	27	Coordinator
Denise	42	Coordinator
Erica	27	Coordinator
Nicole	29	Coordinator
Lauren	32	Area Coordinator
Desiree	42	Asst. Director
Lovemore	28	Asst. Director
Michelle	36	Assoc. Director
Kenya	33	Sr. Assoc. Director
Brie	32	Director
Janet	28	Director

Data Collection

I collected all participant narratives through semi-structured qualitative interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). Narrative interviews provide space for interpretive inquiry—or the process of drawing conclusions from the interpretations and recollections participants ascribed to their own actions and experiences (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009; Patton, 2015; Smith, 1992, 2008). I asked open-ended questions such as, “How do you perceive your race, gender, and other background characteristics in the workplace;” “How would you describe your office environment;” and, “How, if at all, do your expectations of the workplace differ from your realities in PWI spaces?” The interviews lasted approximately 45 to 90 minutes and took place both in-person and over video conferencing (e.g., Google Hangouts).

I selected both in-person and video interviews because they allowed for a wide variety of participants given my geographical bounds during study completion. I do not believe the different formats dramatically influenced participant responses, because each participant in the study had previously seen or met me at an ACPA or NASPA conference, though I did not intimately know the participants. I chose not to include participants I knew intimately enough to take photos with and/or consistently engage on social media to protect the identity and anonymity of all participants during the publication process. Each interview was audio-recorded to capture participants’ words, feelings, and experiences (Patton, 2015). I transcribed six interviews, while a third party transcribed the remaining six recordings. I corrected all the third-party transcriptions for discrepancies in African American vernacular English.

Data Analysis

Upon interview completion, I organized the data by reviewing and transcribing the audio-recordings in order of collection. Since there is no singular approach to narrative analysis generally and (meta)narrative data interpretation specifically (Sharp et al., 2019), I used a constant comparative analytic process drawing from grounded theory (Patton, 2015). Next, I operationalized Chase’s (2005) five lenses of narrative analysis. Chase (2005) suggested analyzing narratives by (1) accepting the exploration of experiences as a narrative offering unique insights, (2) attending to the (non)verbal shifts in narrator (participating administrators) actions based upon the stage(s) of storytelling, and (3) considering how their narrative fits within a larger social context (e.g., web of domination). Within steps one through three, I created a foundational set of codes using an open coding technique (M. Q. Patton, 2015; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), resulting in a total of 20 codes, including “feeling watched,” “time-keeping,” and “called (too) ‘loud.’”

After steps 1–3, I continued to follow Chase’s (2005) five lenses and (4) contemplated how my rapport and connection with the participant’s impact(ed) the language they employed within the context of the interview. Last, I (5) examined how their answers serve as a storied recounting of social messaging, norms, and ideals. At steps four and five, I refined the narrative selections for specificity to develop a condensed, yet comprehensive set of categories (Patton, 2015). I considered where the administrators’ experiences converged and diverged, while (re)imagining how their experiences would differ with structural, political, and representational changes (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) in PWWEs.

Accordingly, intersectionality informed my decision to analyze participants’ words along the margins of race and gender without a priori codes, yet with the theoretical constructs in mind. I finalized the selected narratives and themes by synthesizing participant stories for similarities, e.g., “questions about clothing and attire” and “checking hours in the office/presence” became “physical policing.” Ultimately, my analytic process is an amalgamation of multiple approaches to qualitative analysis. I took this approach because the construction of a meta-narrative requires individually and collectively streamlining participants’ stories into a broader picture. The analysis approaches outlined herein aligns with previously published counternarrative and metanarrative approaches (Patton & Catching, 2009; Williams et al., 2020).

Researcher Positionality

I opened this article discussing my experiences as a Black woman professional who was first in her family to graduate college and obtain professional employment. While my primary and secondary education experiences took place in largely Black and African American spaces, my post-secondary educational training and socialization all took place at PWIs. Additionally, my internships and professional, full-time roles all took place in PWWEs. Because I understand that who I am as a cisgender Black first-gen woman is inherently tied to how I approached this research, my experiences and education all shaped my decisions to undertake this project. Professionally and epistemologically, I expend my energy and resources on uncovering barriers to Black women’s success in the workplace, problems of social class, and issues of health inequity as they relate to higher education.

I interrogate systems and structures of oppression through my research and practice. I ask difficult questions and propose person-first, anti-deficit solutions, often using an endarkened feminist epistemological lens. My investment in these issues is inextricably linked with my desire to see Black women traverse workplaces and the world writ large in a full and loving manner without first enduring abuse and pain. Accordingly, my identities, socialization, and accepted ways of knowing influenced how I interpreted the nature of interlocking systems of oppression in my participants’ experiences. Moreover, they were my primary impetus for taking on my approach to policing.

Trustworthiness

I used journal memos throughout data collection and analysis as a means of personal reflection to ensure data integrity, but particularly when using steps four and five of Chase’s (2005) narrative approach. Peer debriefing (Prasad, 2005) also added to this process allowing me to confirm my findings aligned with the understandings held by peer researchers. Two scholars studying Black women’s experiences read the preliminary results and offered feedback on the assigned codes and themes. Given the significance of personal stories to this study, I offered participants an opportunity to verify the accuracy of their associated narratives inclusive of appropriate contextualization, also known as member checking (Patton, 2015).

Study Bounds

Although I resist using language such as limitations when engaging in identity-centric work, this study exists within specific bounds. I examined 12 women’s experiences in this study across a range of PWWEs in the United States. The findings for my research may differ when examining if or how workplace policing manifests at historically Black institutions or even to what degree policing is perceived versus actualized. Such nuances deserve further inquiry. Moreover, they may shift in PWWEs where the leadership team is more racially diverse. The culmination of my methodological processes, inclusive of the specific bounds previously named, resulted in the following findings.

FINDINGS

Participants recalled moments of physical, verbal, and emotion policing that were compounded by their hyper (in)visibility due to their subordinated race and gender status. I constructed these findings around an understanding that policing is the physical, metaphorical, physiological, and/or emotional manipulation of Black women into behaving within a particular value set or norm(s). The following two themes emerged from the data: (1) physical policing and hyper (in)visibility and (2) verbal communication and emotion policing.

Physical Policing and Hyper (In)Visibility

Participants reported experiencing physical policing and hyper-(in)visibility regarding their actual physical bodily location, age, and attire. For example, Erica felt her physical presence, as well as her style(s) of communication, were contested in the office. In describing her experiences, Erica recalled a time where she felt she was treated differently due to her exclusion from in office engagement (e.g., water cooler talk) and social activities. This caused her to question whether it was her race, gender, age, or a combination of the three that led to her exclusion. She recalled:

I pay attention to the fact that they socialize with each other a lot. I feel like I’m being watched differently and because I’m not best friends with someone in the office. I don’t know if I’m just expected to sit at my desk and watch if a student comes. I don’t know if that’s just me being young, or if it’s personality traits that they may not like about me, or if I’m being policed differently because I’m Black and they’re just watching me harder.

Here, Erica lamented her frustration not only with office colleagues watching her, but also their (un)intentional exclusion of her from office discussions. While they could connect with one another, Erica was forced to manage negative perceptions of her work style and the imposing of differentiated expectations upon her. Erica’s question of whether to sit at her desk and watch showed a lack of consciousness of what to do during periods of downtime in the office. In her mind, it made sense to use these moments to “practice mindfulness, take a break, or even connect with colleagues through small talk.” She went on to explain that part of the problem in this was her colleagues’ ability to communicate with one another without scrutiny. At the same time, her attempts at collegiality and office talk were perceived as a lack of work and professionalism.

In another example, Erica revealed how her white colleagues who engaged in policing would use their awareness of her physical location (or lack thereof) in attempts to curry favor with their supervisor. She explained:

One morning, a coworker who seems to have an issue with me, I was running late, maybe about 30 minutes late, but I had already texted my supervisor. She doesn’t come into our office on Thursdays. I text her and let her know what my situation was, and said, “I’ll make up the time later,” because I start work at 7:00 am. An hour early, we flex our schedules, so I knew that a student wouldn’t be waiting for me, so I let her know. I didn’t contact my colleague who was there. When I got in, she said, “I was worried about you. I just contacted our supervisor.” I thought it was weird because it’s like if you’re worried about me, I would think you would contact me, but I was happy that I did already contact my supervisor because, to me, it just seemed like she was trying to tell on me or get me in trouble. It’s like if you’re truly concerned, why wouldn’t you contact me?

In this instance, Erica questioned her colleagues’ behavior and supposed concern as she believed they were trying to endanger her employment. By calling a superior about her, Erica’s colleague overstepped a boundary. The culmination of these incidents led Erica to feel like she could not navigate the office similarly to her white colleagues, which was necessary for her success.

Whereas Erica was frustrated with her inability to move around the workplace, Brie struggled to socially engage with colleagues because they perceived her as being too young for her role. She noted:

There’s sometimes this thing of when I’m going to certain meetings or I’m going to [main] campus dressing a certain way, having my hair a certain way, wearing makeup. To make myself, not necessarily seem like I’m older but that, “Okay she’s not just a student, or she’s not just someone filling in for someone else.” The age thing is the thing that has become a little more dominant in the last couple of years …

Here, Brie expressed her decision to change her styles of dress and appearance so that people did not mistake her for a student or someone else not holding a higher-level position. She went on to note this was exacerbated by colleagues referring to her as “cute.” Although the word may seem innocuous, “cute” is a term that is often used to describe young girls, not grown women, and when used to connote surprise at one’s appearance becomes (micro)aggressive. Being referred to as “cute” had begun to frustrate Brie over time because the subtext suggested that while she was at the table, she did not necessarily belong there due to her combination of age and minoritized race and gender status. Brie not only endured physical policing because of her status as a young-appearing Black woman, but she was also hyper-(in)visible to those in professional settings (i.e., supervisors and colleagues) because she held this combination of identities. Brie’s experience underscores there is also a form of self-policing that happens regarding presentation not only as a Black woman, but also because of her perceived age.

Brie’s experiences were shared by others. Becky grappled with other’s perceptions of whether only her physical presence was important and a growing frustration with being (mis)perceived as a student. She recalled a time earlier in her professional career where she tried to attend an employee-only event, and people assumed she was a student trying to gain access. Becky noted:

I came in and I’d only been there like 4 days [as an employee]. I had my name badge on. I had on a blazer. I had my laptop with me. They’re like, “This meeting’s not for students. What are you doing here?” I’m like, “Well, one, I work here,” but in my head, I’m like, “two, why would a student even want to be in this meeting? There’s nothing interesting for a student here. I really don’t even want to be in the meeting.” Then afterwards they went and did introductions. I was brought to the front as a new employee.

Becky recalled this story with frustration, not only because others assumed she did not belong in her role, but also because there was an assumption that a young Black woman who had a seat at the table is disruptive to notions of who belongs in that space. Erica, Brie, and Becky’s experiences with policing signal the presence of unspoken rules and perceptions around who belongs where, when they belong, and at what age their presence is welcomed—if at all.

Lovemore battled colleagues’ perceptions of her as “less friendly” than they preferred. She explained she found herself “hot in trouble about” being “friendly” to the point she was charged with being “disengaged.” As she reflected on this word choice she said sternly, “I hate that word [friendly].” She continued:

How do you determine if I’m disengaged because of how I look in the meeting? I literally at one point had to say, like, “This is my face. I can’t help that,” and then, later on in the conversation when things had calmed down, I was like, “I want you to know that it really is a thing that people assume that Black women are mean, or stand-offish, or disengaged because of their face, and I want you to know that it’s not you. It’s just my face.”

In recalling this instance, Lovemore faced a similar struggle to Brie and Becky. While Brie and Becky could not control how their white colleagues perceived their age and belongingness for their roles, Lovemore negotiated her white colleagues’ assumptions about her workplace investment based upon the resting position of her face. This suggests there was a hidden expectation of how one should present in the office that cannot be separated from the identities Lovemore held.

Similarly, Alice explained, “So, I think my perception at work is that I’m mean … and that, for lack of a better word, I’m a hard ass … because I am process-oriented, and I will not do students’ work for them.” Whereas Lovemore felt isolated because of (mis)perceptions around her face, Alice was isolated because she would say no or task students with doing their own work. These narratives underscore how the Black women in this study endured a moving target of expectations related to appropriate or proper communication, tone, and appearance in search of belongingness.

Verbal Communication and Emotion Policing

Policing of tone of voice, communication, and emotions permeated multiple participants’ experiences. For example, Desiree recalled having to watch her “tone of voice” to avoid being labeled “boisterous, loud, a lot of the negative stereotypes we hear about Black women; angry” in PWWEs. Michelle felt like Desiree and explained, “You know, I feel like, I can at times have a loud voice and so being aware of that and being aware of balancing my voice with all of the other voices in my presence of what that looks like.” Here, loud can be taken to mean a multitude of things, including not only actual octaves or decibels, but also consistency and occurrences.

This awareness of tone of voice was not unique to Desiree and Michelle. Despite feeling like there was something different about her collegial engagement, Erica continued to connect and tried to participate in the workplace culture. She explained:

My coworker that I was … talking about before, we have cubicles. I had asked her a question that I didn’t get up and go ask her. She’s like, “Can you get up and come ask me? Come over here.” She didn’t want me “yelling.” After the student left, she told me how uncomfortable it made her feel yelling over the cubicles. I wasn’t yelling, our cubicles are right next to each other. I was so offended, I have never felt so offended at her reaction to me asking her a question from my cubicle, which I should have gotten up, but she overreacted in terms of how she explained how it made her feel.

Erica revealed a degree of frustration with her communication practices being considered “yelling” and the expectation she should get up to talk to a white colleague despite not wanting to leave a student alone in her office. Given Black women’s history being stereotyped as “loud,” it proved particularly charged in these and other instances across the study. It also meant participants had to choose when and how to navigate their responses to bigger workplace issues.

Becky lamented individuals telling her to let go of serious situations involving bias with the phrase “calm down.” Saying “calm down,” then, was a way of emotion policing her frustrations with inequity. She explained:

I feel like there’s been times where I was truly upset about something, and I feel like [my supervisor’s] like, “Oh, why don’t we just calm down and think about it.” I’m like, “No, we need to address this right now.” That just could be personality differences, but I think that she’s in my corner, she’s supportive, but she avoids conflict more often than not, which I do not. I’m all about being direct and addressing things.

Becky’s disappointment with her supervisor’s aversion to conflict revealed how her desire for direct action and prompt communicative response could lead to a misperception that she was emotional. This not only required Becky to rethink how she communicated, but also forced her to choose between doing what was right and socially just versus managing how she was perceived in the office. Moreover, while Becky felt supported in the office in terms of her work conditions, she was not allowed to express a full range of emotions regarding situations that may seriously need to be raised.

Emotion policing was not limited to a study participant’s response to campus incidents. Denise experienced first-hand what it meant to deal with a personal life in turmoil. She lost both her grandmothers while trying to balance completing a graduate degree and working full-time. Rather than having her mourning and grief acknowledged, her colleagues’ perceptions of her shifted from someone who was confident to someone who was angry. She did not know this until she received a negative performance review after previous positive ones. She explained:

Instead of everybody talking to me or asking what was wrong, or how they could help, probably 2 months ago I got this employee performance review saying “she’s unmotivated, she’s this, she’s that” but nobody came to figure out why. I even tried before I got the review to reach out to my supervisor and explain that I was struggling with change and all these different components in my life. She didn’t really know how to handle it so when she took that information to my director, my director deemed it as I was angry. I think I came across as the angry Black woman in the office.

Denise conceded that how she navigated the office while trying to manage grief led colleagues to make false assumptions about her motivation and engagement and thus reject the skills and expertise she did bring to the table. This policing of her mourning was among many reasons Denise decided to leave this workplace. She noted, “I’d have to say it was a toxic environment.” “The culture,” she continued, “even though I was able to grow through some of the different situations there, it’s not the most cultivating environment for someone to be in.”

Instead of being seen as a colleague deserving grace as she endured negative and hurtful experiences, Denise’s colleagues assumed she was a negative or angry person—effectively relegating her to embodying the angry Black woman trope—and resulted in negative performance reviews. This instance, like others, underscores how participants’ intersecting subordinated identity status as Black women sometimes precluded them from knowing when or how to preempt negative PWWE experiences and to advocate for themselves, and ultimately led to Black women’s attrition.

DISCUSSION

The findings from the present study further confirm that white people engage in physical, voice, communication, and emotion policing as a form of control, reification of office norms, and response to Black women’s (hyper)invisibility in PWWEs (Collins, 2000; Rodgers, 2021; Sobers, 2014). Black women practitioners face an uphill battle as the policing of Black women’s bodies is normalized as a form of care and concern or is done as outright exclusion (Giddings, 2006). As evidenced by the confusion Erica experienced, the Black women in this study reported having to abide by standards that are not only different from those of their white and male counterparts, but also unexplained or unwritten (Bertrand Jones et al., 2015; DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2020; Logan & Scott Dudley, 2019; Stallings, 2020).

Black women have been preempting the exertion of privilege and functions of white supremacy in PWWEs since workplace integration (Collins, 2000), the participants in the present study had a range of different, yet deeply connected, experiences. For instance, the women in the study worked hard to avoid being and feeling stereotyped in their PWWEs. For this reason, policing seemed uniquely personal for participants because it often heightened those fears of stereotype labeling. Such labels, set along the lines of sexuality, behavior, and morality (Carby, 1992; Collins, 2000; Roberts, 1997; Rodgers, 2021), negatively define Black women beyond and within PWWEs. The HESA field, however, is one that proclaims a social justice-orientation, but the fact that this happens in HESA PWWEs raises some important questions about workplace belonging, stereotyping, and the role of addressing bias in aspiring social justice spaces.

Erica, for instance, was excluded from office engagement and tracked closely to ensure she performed her job functions despite her white colleagues’ ability to engage and coalesce. The positioning of Erica as belonging in the workplace solely for work while others can exhibit a range of interactions serves as means of exerting privilege and re-centering concepts of white superiority (Chance, 2022; Rodgers, 2021). Black women’s bodies represent and signal to white colleagues that there is work to be done (Hollis, 2018). When not doing exactly as expected, or when raising questions of why her workplace norms might differ, Erica embodied the pet-to-threat phenomenon insofar as her white peers and colleagues were fine with her when hyper-performing but less so when seeking to practice the same social norms that are afforded to white professionals (Breeden, 2021; Stallings, 2020; Thomas et al., 2013; Wallace-Sanders, 2002).

The same was true during the minimization of Erica’s humanity as white colleagues rushed to tell on/report her out of supposed concern, an experience akin to how white people in broader society hyper-watch and tell on Black women (Collins, 2000; Netherland & Hansen, 2016; Roberts, 1997). Erica understood a colleague policing her times of arrival and departure was a danger to her ongoing employment and a means for her coworker to reassert power over her in the larger web of domination (Crenshaw, 1991). Thus, whether in response to colleagues or as a means of inhibiting oneself to minimize outside commentary, the women in the present study not only altered when and how they showed up, but also how they performed their identities in PWWEs (Chance, 2022; Collins, 2000; Dickens & Chavez, 2018; Dickens et al., 2019; Henry, 2010). Black women are often trapped in workplace double binds. For one, the Black women in the present study were perceived as either too young or too othered to be competent for their role (Chance, 2022). Similarly, some of the women were battling comparisons between themselves, other Black women, and white racial imaginations of what a Black woman is supposed to be like in a PWWE (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009; Sobers, 2014). Black women’s policing, then, is directly tied to perceptions of Herculean or superwoman work ethics as well as perceptions of Black (non)belonging (Breeden, 2021; Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991).

This subterfuge is best embodied by Brie and Becky’s navigation of pushback regarding their attire and race/gender/age status (Harris-Perry, 2011). Brie often found herself having to overcompensate with her appearance because she felt professionals like her were not centered in PWWEs (Harris-Perry, 2011). Although this experience was more implicit than explicit for other participants, it is nonetheless urgent. Indeed, Black women’s advancement, preparedness, and performance success exist as a form of hyper-performance because they had to be better than their non-Black counterparts (Breeden, 2021; Chance, 2022; Gutierrez-Morfin, 2016). However, obtaining the position and exceling alone were not enough to be welcomed into the profession (Breeden, 2021; Chance, 2021). The idea that a Black woman in a PWWE is assumed to belong as a student is not only tied to ageism, but also to how we construct images of who we think of as a professional (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991; Jyrkinen, 2014).

Moreover, the frustrations related to assumption of student status aligns with Crenshaw’s (1991) recognition that Black women are often positioned as others rather than centered or assumed as belonging (Brower et al., 2019). The added layer of hyper-(in)visibility on campus further compounds participants’ negative experiences because they must actively work to distance themselves from the very students they are employed to serve in order to be considered professional—even when supposedly looking the part and playing the game already (Clayborne & Hamrick, 2007; D. R. Davis & Maldonado, 2015). The web of domination participants endured was uniquely stressful given the multiple subordinated social identities they displayed in the workplace, and were unable to hide or change, even when engaging in identity subterfuge (Crenshaw, 1991; Dickens et al., 2019; Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009).

These findings are consistent with Sobers’s (2014) conclusions that Black women must display high levels of resiliency in the workplace should they wish to succeed because the constant policing of their attire, age, and identity performance could and did prove exhausting. They also confirm Henry’s (2010) assertion of a disconnect between perceived expectations versus realities of people’s experiences in PWWEs. Even when showing up to work serious and/or professional, a Black woman practitioner (as was the case with Lovemore) may be misperceived as unfriendly or disengaged (Collins, 2000; Rodgers, 2021). Policing in Lovemore’s experience was, then, more about her refusal to present in an appeasing manner than actually being disengaged. Lovemore’s colleagues expected her to engage in a particularly appeasing way that would exhaust her, but one that would bring them relative comfort (Breeden, 2021; Collins, 2000; Rodgers, 2021).

Lovemore’s experiences align with Collins’s (2000) analysis of controlling images of Black women as hostile or combative, as Lovemore found herself scrutinized for the identities she occupied in the web of domination (Crenshaw, 1991). In refusing to placate the norms of appeasement rooted in white supremacist imaginations of Black womanhood, Lovemore contested her white colleagues’ perceptions of what it means to be happy or innocent and what a happy and innocent Black woman looks like (Giddings, 2006; Wallace-Sanders, 2002). Furthermore, she rejected the expected subterfuge professional Black women promote in PWWEs because her mere existence should not equate to a threat (Hollis, 2018; Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009). In a perfect world, white colleagues would be aware of their racism and sexism to avoid policing Black women at work; however, this has yet to come to fruition as evidenced by Lovemore’s pet-to-threat experience based solely on misinterpretations of her perceived facial expressions (Hollis, 2018; Stallings, 2020).

Policing, too, has negative implications for supervisors as it can cause strain on supervisor–supervisee relationships (Davis & Cooper, 2017; Williams & Davis, 2021). For instance, Becky described having to change her tone and language after being told to “calm down,” when her supervisor behaved as if her concerns were not that serious. This led Becky to feel like the supervisor, who had been in her corner, would not do the job of advocating and addressing issues of bias, in part, because they were conflict averse. This failure to address issues and leaving Black women to call out social injustices is another way white women use their bodies to disrupt potential sites of change by displaying emotion (Accapadi, 2007). In telling Becky to “calm down,” Becky’s supervisor acted out of emotion, the very reason for which Becky was critiqued (Rodgers, 2021; Sobers, 2014). Becky was forced, then, to choose between her colleagues’ perceptions of her and naming poor workplace behaviors, which placed her at a professional disadvantage of seeming emotional.

Like Becky, Denise found herself feeling betrayed by her supervisor in their approach to her work after experiencing a series of losses—a story underscoring how the superwoman schema has negative consequences for Black women in need (Breeden, 2021). Denise’s horrific stream of tragedies led to feelings of isolation and depression, and rather than being supported, she was deemed angry. This is an example of how leaders in PWWEs expect Black women to display resilience and grit (Clayborne & Hamrick, 2007; Fields & Martin, 2017), while providing no support for their success. The same leaders then penalize Black women like Denise for not moving toward displaying strength quicker—or embodying the superwoman trope (Breeden, 2021). Discomfort with Denise’s failure to display modern mammy-isms is clear in her story and underscores how the lineage of policing Black women is long and ongoing (Collins, 2000).

The experiences described across this study fall within a long tradition of excluding and policing Black women’s behaviors and identity performance (Carby, 1992; Collins, 2000; Roberts 1997). As is evidenced by participants’ experiences and the existing literature, Black women not only manage policing from external leadership and colleagues, but also intra-racial messages under the guise of coping and success strategies (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2009). While the policing participants pushed back against what was especially racialized and gendered, age proved to also be integral as Black women practitioners are confused as students or otherwise not belonging (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991; Jyrkinen, 2014). The policing described across this meta-narrative suggests there is an urgent need to recenter humanity, anti-racism, and ageism awareness discussions in PWWEs.

IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Given Black women are increasingly joining PWWEs as HESA practitioners (West, 2020), addressing barriers to their broader workplace success is crucial to both sustaining the field and retaining Black women therein. Accordingly, there are several future directions for research and practice relating to this study. Researchers should consider exploring how, if at all, office bias relating to attire, hair, and other forms of identity performativity specific to Black women impacts HESA career mobility and advancement. Moreover, although I did not measure the stress associated with coping with policing, the impact of these continued stressors deserves further scholarly examination. Lastly, as the HESA profession continues to reckon with high turnover and low retention, scholars wishing to extend research in this area must also endeavor to unpack the meaning of professionalism and workplace etiquette to understand better how policing reifies these norms and/or trouble these notions entirely.

Relatedly, practitioners should consider making four key changes: (1) including implicit bias training for all employees specific to issues of perceived white superiority; (2) expanding the notion of bystander intervention to include workplace policing to promote increased accountability from white professionals in the workplace; (3) developing campus dress code and communication norms inclusive of intersecting identities or eliminating them altogether; and (4) engaging Black women professionals in targeted programming and professional development to make them aware of the hidden curriculum and expectations that have been set before them while simultaneously working to eliminate the existence of the hidden curriculum (Anyon, 1980; Bertrand Jones et al., 2015). While these solutions, such as hidden curriculum education, are insufficient because the best answer is to get rid of these issues all together, the slow and seeming incremental pace at which change happens necessitates shared education.

Practitioners and faculty alike must work together to help expose Black women HESA professionals to narratives such as those in this study rather than taking a difference-neutral and aspirational approach to workplace education, acclimation, and support. Similarly, as Williams and Davis (2021) underscored, HESA graduate preparation programs must also take on a more integral role in better addressing workplace issues through supervision-specific education and embedding equity within and across coursework. Lastly, since the bulk of the research in the field focuses on the persistence of Black women and not on the impact of white presence and maintenance of white superiority in their offices, we must look to hold white people accountable for their role in perpetuating workplace policing in academe (Accapadi, 2007). Naming these issues for what they are and chronicling their pervasive nature is a first, albeit minimal, step to addressing these issues. The HESA profession cannot fix a problem that it does not acknowledge exists.

CONCLUSION

In this study, I reveal how Black women HESA professionals employed at PWWEs endure and navigate policing. The findings reveal participants were policed for their physical presence including location, attendance, language and tone of voice, and display of emotion on PWWE campuses. By adding to the existing literature on the lived experiences of Black women practitioners, this study demonstrates the necessity of improved socialization and early intervention for supervisors and colleagues of Black women who (un)knowingly create harsh and sometimes hostile work conditions for Black women (Breeden, 2021; DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2019; Dickens & Chavez, 2018). Moreover, the findings in this study underscore the continuous and ongoing need for intersectional, identity conscious research on the experiences of Black women administrators in the workplace. Given the high turnover rates and current exodus from the profession (West, 2020), exploring concepts like policing have never been more significant.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The University of Vermont Office of the Vice President for Research contributed to the open-access publication of this article under OVPR Project Grant #040085.