Relationships Between Institutional Agents and Student Activists

ABSTRACT Researchers studying college student activism have learned much about those students’ motivations, tactics, and educational outcomes. Less is known about the relationships between activists and key institutional agents. For student activists with minoritized identities, institutional agents sometimes establish and maintain barriers between their institutions’ espoused and enacted values of equity and justice. In this article, we used data from a national narrative inquiry study of minoritized student activists to understand how activists and agents worked in supportive and adversarial relationships with each other. Specifically, we focus on participants’ perspectives to name the ways institutional agents created barriers against and provided support for students’ activism. We share implications for practice for those seeking to forge stronger relationships with student activists grounded in support and a commitment to equity. This article offers researchers who seek to understand the more significant institutional dynamics of student activism a window into some of the critical interpersonal relationships that drive and foreclose change on college campuses.