Examining Institutional History Narratives Through a Critical Whiteness Framework

Predominantly white institutions (PWIs) are experiencing a racial history crisis. This crisis is occurring partially in response to current events including the multiple deaths of Black men and women at the hands of White police officers: Michael Brown in 2014, Breonna Taylor in 2020, and George Floyd also in 2020. Additionally, there has been a resurgence of investigation and national debate around building names and statues on college campuses memorializing people who supported slavery or were members of hate groups. These events coupled with the lack of truth-telling around the roles of Black and African American people and other minoritized communities within the development and prosperity of colleges and universities has centered history as focal point in the diversity, equity, and inclusion spaces. Nearly all colleges and universities include diversity, equity, and inclusion as a center piece of their mission statements, but few address their racialized history. Often, the university's history is told from an ahistorical perspective which places whiteness at the center of the history narrative. With a conceptual framework incorporating both critical race theory and white institutional presence, the study interrogated how universities are telling the stories of their histories regarding African American people. The sample selected for the study included 16 universities designated as leaders in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion. The selected universities received the designation of Diversity Champion from Insight Into Diversity magazine. The history narratives, typically found on the About page of the universities' website, were examined for instances of white institutional presence and counternarratives. Findings were filtered through a critical whiteness framework resulting in four types of categories. Exemplar institutions were countering white institutional presence and whiteness through multiple instances of counternarratives, centering Black and African American history, and confronting racist ideologies within their institutional history narratives. The remaining three categories of institutions were discussed for these instances as well. Overall, the findings concluded that some universities have made progress in the area of historical truth telling, most universities have not fully engaged in this work. The study offered implications for further research in the areas of critical whiteness, white institutional presence, and diverse learning environments. Incorporating the findings of the exemplar university cases, the study also discussed implications for policy and practice for institutions interested in or working on investigating their histories as related to minoritized communities, but specifically histories involving African American people.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Higher Education

Department dc:contributor.department

Higher Education

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Wilkerson, Stacey Underwood

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Pratt-Clarke, Menah

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Robbins, Claire K.
• Harrison, Anthony Kwame
• Ramirez Fernandez, Mercedes

• Higher Education
• Diversity Champion
• Critical Race Theory
• Qualitative Exploratory Content Analysis
• Whiteness
• African American
• History
• Website

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:34666

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/109777