Being “Diverse” in the Midst of a Pandemic and Protests: Understanding Misalignments between Institutional and Individual Values for Women of Color Academics

Abstract

Marginalization of women in academia can lead to feelings of isolation, questioning of legitimacy, and cultural taxation. As women of color at a predominantly White institution we have engaged in duoethnography to analyze and understand these experiences, and to ask whether the COVID–19 pandemic and #BlackLivesMatter protests of 2020 have influenced how we navigate those experiences. Our work is guided by theories of congruence, notions of (in)visibility, and previous autoethnographic work by women professors of color. In our dialogic work we have come to understand how our ideas and our institution's ideas of diversity and justice work are misaligned. In this paper we share how these misalignments existed before 2020 and how they have shifted in the era of COVID–19 and #BlackLivesMatter. We hope this work can support our Black and Brown women colleagues and broader human resources development efforts for supporting diversity and justice in higher education and adult education.