Institutional Racism in Higher Education Organizations

Mark Chesler, Amanda Lewis, and James Crowfoot (2005), authors of, Challenging Racism in Higher Education, lists eight generic dimensions that can be used to describe the structures and operations of any organization and influence local policies and practices, including those affecting racial attitudes, racial relations, and racism as well as other patterns of oppression and discrimination (p. 52).

These eight dimensions includes (Chesler, Lewis and Crowfoot: 2005: 54-68):

(1) mission refers to the official and unofficial purposes of the organization, as reflected in written policy statements, informal understandings or priorities, and symbols or public images;
(2) a culture of values and beliefs permeates organizational functioning and is evident in common understandings, assumptions, or preferences regarding how people should behave – form dress and deportment to language and speech cadence – and are often embodied in symbols, traditions, and public images;
(3) power dimensions consists of its leadership composition and style and its decision-making structures and processes;
(4) membership patterns of a modern university are the demographics of its population, together with the criteria and procedures for becoming a member for participating, including admission/hiring, retention/tenure, and advancement/promotion;
(5) social climate and social relations involve the degree and quality of associations and interactions among its members;
(6) technology is the means by which it converts raw materials into finished products, whereby in higher education, the curriculum and pedagogy, including course, teaching techniques, graduation requirements, grading, and other forms of evaluation, are the means for helping entering first-year students develop into university graduates;
(7) resources are monies, goods, materials, and people that constitute the raw materials an organization transforms into finished products or services and the people and materials need to accomplish this transformation; and
(8) boundaries of the university environment are both physical and symbolic.

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I picked this book up while I was in Montreal, Canada attending the 2006 Association of Black Sociologist and American Sociological Association conferences. This is just one of the books that I will use as I look at theories on institutional racism in higher education.