Teaching While Black: An Analysis of Microaggressions on Black Faculty in SW

Overview: The panelist’s goal is to help attendees develop a better understanding of the impact microaggression has on Black faculty in schools of social work. Standing on one of social work’s most vital principles, social justice, this session hopes to address some of the gaps in the literature in this area.Proposal text: Background/Purpose
Blacks in America continue to face racism and discrimination in areas of housing, policing, schooling, employment as well as several other areas of life. It should come as no surprise that Black faculty members face racial microaggressions in academia. Miller-Kleinhenz et al. (2021) reflects on a comment from a research participant stating that in academia discussions about race are off limits. In looking at the experiences of Black faculty in academia, the struggle with microaggressions continues to exist. There is a sense that minority educators use the classroom to push their own “agendas” in social justice (Sinha, 2018, p. 222). Black faculty members have reported being regulated to teaching, serving on committees, and diversity trainings, which does not rank in the same way as research and publishing when it comes to tenure and promotion in academia. Gregory (2001) indicated, “Black faculty women…teaching was the primary work activity, and research was rarely emphasized” (p. 126).
Microaggression is commonplace for people of color in academia. Black faculty are often looked at as “unqualified” and their research is “irrelevant” to academia (Jackson, 2008, p. 1014-1015). Spencer (2017) recognizes the significant lack of research that has done within the field of social work regarding this issue. Schools of social work should be on the forefront of making sure that this isn’t happening within schools of social work.
More research is needed in examining the experiences of Black faculty in social work academic settings. This research is important in that one of social work’s ethical principles is to challenge social justice (NASW, 2021). If social justice is a social work core value and there is clear and convincing evidence of microaggressions happening in academia, why aren’t schools of social work looking into this topic? Social work is typically at the forefront of social justice issues, however, when it comes to addressing injustice within its own house, there has been little movement to even acknowledge the possibility of the presence of racial assaults among Black faculty. The social work profession needs to examine this phenomenon in academia to make sure that it’s living up to the standards of the NASW and protecting and advocating for Black social work faculty.
The focus of this panel is to help attendees better understand the experiences of microaggressions on Black faculty members in schools of social work and to begin a dialog within the field of social work. Since there is little research that directly addresses microaggressions in schools of social work, this research should begin to address some of the gaps in the literature related to the experiences of microaggressions in schools of social work. This session is aligned with the CSWE conference theme of Leading Critical Conversations: Human Rights Are Global Rights and will share one way in which social workers are striving to eliminate oppressive language, behaviors, and policies within the academic profession.