Valuing and Honoring BIPOC Scholarship: A Critical Race Theory Perspective

Overview: Using critical race theory, we discuss how race and racism impact BIPOC scholars and scholarship, and how BIPOC women are especially undervalued in the academy. We provide evidence and examples of how undervaluing BIPOC scholarship oppresses and disempowers BIPOC scholars. We close with recommendations to address these areas of oppression.Proposal text: As a profession, social workers are responsible for dismantling systems of oppression, promoting equity and inclusion, and creating and implementing just systems. Yet, the structural inequities that disadvantage historically marginalized populations, including BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) populations, continue to be embedded into the very thread of social work practice, education, and research. These inequities become especially salient in the field during heightened public awareness of the marginalization of BIPOC communities and national conversations around anti-racism, anti-Blackness, anti-Asian, white supremacy, and systemic racism.

Applying a critical race theory (CRT; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2013) lens, BIPOC scholarship and participation are undervalued as a strategy to support and maintain the historical (male) white dominance and supremacy in academia (Delgado Bernal & Villalpando, 2002). BIPOC women scholars experience a “double jeopardy” as they are expected to handle both gender and racial inequities (Turner, 2002). BIPOC women faculty frequently encounter unequal standards of having to work harder and prove themselves more” in the academy (Corley, 2020, p.1). They are presumed incompetent and must continuously demonstrate their competence and contributions (Flaherty, 2019; Mitchell & Miller, 2011; Niemann, Guiterrez, & Gonzalez, 2020).

This panel will begin a dialogue about the need for valuing and honoring the impact of social work scholarship produced by BIPOC scholars and about BIPOC communities. As BIPOC social work faculty, who are primarily women, we often hold dual identities, as "insiders" and "outsiders." We work within BIPOC communities, sharing some common challenges, yet, we are outsiders as scholars conducting research on these issues within the academy. The various systems in which we matriculate and work, including academia, are inherently built on a foundation of white supremacy and patriarchy that often disempowers social work scholarship produced by BIPOC scholars and about BIPOC communities.

Using CRT, we will first discuss the ways in which race and racism lead to undervaluing BIPOC scholarship and how BIPOC scholars with intersecting identities experience additional complications. Then, we will present empirical evidence and provide case examples illustrating undervalued BIPOC scholarship and how it continues to oppress and disempower BIPOC scholars within academia. Panelists will focus particular attention on the following areas: (1) research epistemologies and methods; (2) personnel practices and decision-making; and (3) service and invisible labor.

The panel will conclude with discussions of recommendations for addressing these areas of oppression, such as convening a multi-university effort to re-think promotion criteria for scholars engaged in diversity, equity, and disparity work. Such an effort could have implications for the promotion of social work scholars, many of whom are BIPOC, engaged in this type of work.

Attendees will be invited to dialogue with the panel, sharing their experiences and ideas regarding micro-, mezzo-, and structural opportunities to value and honor BIPOC scholars in social work academia. The goal of the panel is to initiate timely and critical discussion, leading to new, anti-racist practices of evaluating BIPOC scholarship and related teaching and service.