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Whiteness, Hierarchy, and Information Hoarding: Examining a University Bias Response Process from the Frontline

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Title: Whiteness, Hierarchy, and Information Hoarding: Examining a University Bias Response Process from the Frontline
Language: English
Authors: Ashley N. Robinson (ORCID 0000-0001-9887-5486)
Source: Innovative Higher Education. 2024 49(5):953-974.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 22
Publication Date: 2024
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Student Personnel Services, Student Personnel Workers, Universities, Racism, College Administration, Predominantly White Institutions, Ethnography, College Faculty, Teacher Attitudes, Teacher Response, Student Needs, Discourse Analysis
DOI: 10.1007/s10755-024-09708-6
ISSN: 0742-5627
1573-1758
Abstract: Striving antiracist frontline student affairs educators work from commitments to racial equity and racial justice. Yet, when responding to racist harms, they must navigate institutional investigative practices. In this institutional ethnographic study of a Predominantly and Historically White Institution (PHWI), despite frontline educators' aims, responses resulted in limited change or adequate support for students harmed by racist incidents. Rather, investigative practices drew on white interpretations, emphasized individual responsibility, and excluded frontline educators from meaningful involvement. The findings of this study suggest that the social organization of who gets to be involved in institutional bias response processes may be racialized in ways that further harm both racially minoritized students and staff. However, the ways the educators in this study recognized the tensions and challenges in their work and actively worked to center students' needs provide important insights for policies and practices that re-center the knowledge and aims of those at the frontline educators.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2024
Accession Number: EJ1441940
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0180107934;ihe01oct.24;2024Oct08.04:07;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0180107934-1">Whiteness, Hierarchy, and Information Hoarding: Examining a University Bias Response Process from the Frontline </title> <p>Striving antiracist frontline student affairs educators work from commitments to racial equity and racial justice. Yet, when responding to racist harms, they must navigate institutional investigative practices. In this institutional ethnographic study of a Predominantly and Historically White Institution (PHWI), despite frontline educators' aims, responses resulted in limited change or adequate support for students harmed by racist incidents. Rather, investigative practices drew on white interpretations, emphasized individual responsibility, and excluded frontline educators from meaningful involvement. The findings of this study suggest that the social organization of who gets to be involved in institutional bias response processes may be racialized in ways that further harm both racially minoritized students and staff. However, the ways the educators in this study recognized the tensions and challenges in their work and actively worked to center students' needs provide important insights for policies and practices that re-center the knowledge and aims of those at the frontline educators.</p> <p>Keywords: Student affairs; Racist incident; Bias response; Institutional ethnography; Discourse of whiteness</p> <p>An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2023 NASPA Annual Conference in Boston, MA, as well as in a dissertation that is held within the University of Connecticut Archives and Special Collections Thesis and Dissertation Repository.</p> <p>Jordan, a Residence Life staff member, responded to racist harms in an on-call capacity. Jordan was usually contacted when undergraduate resident advisors (RAs) became aware of a potential bias incident. When an RA came across an incident (for example, graffiti in a common space) or was informed by a resident of an incident, they made a judgment about whether the incident seemed bias-related. They were then expected to call the residence director on-duty to assess and respond to the situation, and likely to make a report through the university's bias reporting form.</p> <p>zane, a cultural programs staff member, also responded to racist harms reported by students. zane often became aware of incidents once the news started circulating online and through students' social networks. Though the students who came to him were not always the direct target of an incident, they were deeply affected and sought his counsel and help when confronted with the knowledge of racist actions and words. zane worked to comfort and reassure students, but also collected information from students' accounts and online sources to report to the university.</p> <p>Jordan and zane (pseudonyms) were two striving antiracist frontline educators who shared stories about their work with me as informants in a study examining institutional responses to racist harms at a Predominantly and Historically White Institution (PHWI). Frontline student affairs educators like Jordan, zane, and the seven other frontline informants in my study were graduate or professional employees for whom a significant part of their work was interacting directly with students. I describe these educators as <emph>striving antiracist</emph>: their personal and professional actions evidenced a commitment to racial equity or racial justice in their educational work. Their stories of working to respond to racist harms were a useful entry point to uncover and examine the ideas and practices that guided institutional response. In this paper, I examine a set of findings of that study, which illustrate how the institutional bias response process activated hierarchical and white supremacist ideas and practices that constrained frontline educators' efforts to support students, prevent future racist harms, and seek institutional accountability for racism. I proceed by contextualizing the study within my own practical experiences and the literature, introducing a conceptual framework that draws on Institutional Ethnography (IE) and discourse of whiteness, and providing an overview of the research methods. I then present the findings in the form of narrative accounts that trace instances of frontline work through institutional processes and analyze the ideas and practices underlying those processes to illustrate the influence of whiteness. Finally, I offer recommendations and implications to disrupt and challenge the taken-for-granted institutional ideas and practices that confounded the anti-racist efforts of the frontline educators in this study.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-2">Background and Review of Literature</hd> <p>As a former student affairs educator, I pursued this research with the knowledge that response to racist harms often involved institutional bias response processes—and with concerns and misgivings about effectiveness of those processes based in my experiences. By <emph>racist harm</emph> I mean a "specific interaction or set of interactions with an element of the institutional environment (people, policies, texts, images, physical structures, digital media) that causes physical, emotional, psychological, economic, or social harm or injury based on one's historically subordinated race" (Robinson, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref1">31</reflink>], p. 644). U.S. higher education institutions have increasingly developed administrative bias response processes to respond to incidents of racist and other identity-based harm (Hughes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref2">12</reflink>]; Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref3">18</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref4">19</reflink>]). Bias response processes include mechanisms such as bias response protocols and bias response teams (BRTs), both of which establish processes for reporting, investigating, and responding to bias incidents (LePeau et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref5">16</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref6">17</reflink>]; Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref7">18</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref8">19</reflink>]). A bias incident is conduct, speech, or expression that is motivated by prejudice and targets, harasses, or humiliates an individual or group based on their identities or perceived identities, but which does not involve criminal behavior (Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref9">19</reflink>]). Within these processes, incidents of racist harm fall within the larger umbrella of "bias incidents."</p> <p>Research on bias response processes indicates that they although they are increasingly popular, they may be limited in their capacity to address racist harm incidents, and in fact, may reinforce oppressive conditions (Hughes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref10">12</reflink>]; LePeau et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref11">16</reflink>]). For example, LePeau et al. ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref12">17</reflink>]) found that staff on BRTs may uphold and perpetuate hegemonic institutional norms, perhaps holding individual perpetrators accountable or providing comfort and remedy to targets, but not altering fundamental racialized power relations. Bias response processes also run into legal implications of responding to racist harms, often tied up in ideas of free speech and speech rights (Harris et al., [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref13">11</reflink>]; Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref14">18</reflink>]), concepts that are imbued with and constitutive of whiteness and racial harm (Delgado & Stefancic, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref15">5</reflink>]; Moore & Bell, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref16">20</reflink>]; Robinson, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref17">31</reflink>]). Despite the limitations of bias response processes, they also hold a potentially important role in higher education institutions, offering recourse and support to harmed students (Garces et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref18">8</reflink>]).</p> <p>Critical approaches to student affairs grounded in critical theories including Critical Race Theory, Critical Whiteness Studies, intersectionality, and decolonization have brought to the fore matters of historical and systemic racial oppression that permeate student affairs and higher education, challenging the racist and exclusionary foundations of the field of student affairs and of higher education institutions (Jones, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref19">13</reflink>]; Patel, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref20">22</reflink>]; Patton et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref21">24</reflink>]). Critical approaches shift the focus from diversity and multicultural competence to the skills and competence needed to challenge and dismantle structural racism and white supremacy, focusing on "freedom, justice, and liberatory practice" (Jones, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref22">13</reflink>], p. 13). As emerging professionals trained in critical approaches challenge prominent conceptions of diversity and multiculturalism (Hughes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref23">12</reflink>]; Stewart, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref24">36</reflink>]) they hold an uncomfortable mirror up to the field and to practices within specific higher education institutions.</p> <p>Still, student affairs educators work in higher education organizations that are not focused on dismantling racist systems but instead, purport to promote diversity while upholding the status quo of whiteness (Patel, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref25">22</reflink>]). When it comes to understanding response to racist harms, this means that institutional priorities may not be well-aligned with the critical theoretical perspectives that increasingly inform frontline student affairs educators' professional education, both during graduate school and in ongoing professional development. Such misalignment may contribute to the tensions striving antiracist frontline educators might experience as they work to tend to conflicting priorities (those of the institution and their own). Given these tensions, when frontline student affairs educators respond to incidents of racist harm using bias response processes, they may be left wondering whether they responded effectively, whether they should be worried about the legal implications of their response, and if their personal and professional values aligned with their response.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-3">Conceptual Frameworks</hd> <p>I chose to use Institutional Ethnography (IE), a sociological approach to inquiry, for this study. IE argues that established institutional ideas and practices further power and control by coordinating people's knowledge about what is happening in their work, at the expense of their own knowledge and interests (Campbell & Gregor, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref26">4</reflink>]). These institutional ideas and practices are called <emph>ruling relations</emph> (Smith, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref27">34</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref28">35</reflink>]). Ruling relations create a social reality because they are conveyed through texts that people repeatedly and regularly use across various institutional settings. IE aims to uncover the ruling relations that guide people's everyday work within institutions to the end of establishing a more equitable social reality (Smith, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref29">35</reflink>]). IE begins from the premise that the tensions and contradictions in people's work, called <emph>disjunctures</emph>, provide clues to the nature of the ruling relations and from where they originate (Campbell & Gregor, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref30">4</reflink>]).</p> <p>Given my focus on interrogating responses to racist harms, I incorporated a framework based on discourse of whiteness (Leonardo, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref31">15</reflink>]) into my analysis. Pairing an analysis of whiteness with IE allowed me to be more precise about how the institutional ideas and practices related to responses to racist harms were characteristic of systemic racism. Cabrera et al. ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref32">2</reflink>]), adapting Leonardo ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref33">15</reflink>]), posited that a discourse of whiteness consists of three key components: "(a) an unwillingness to name the contours of systemic racism, (b) the avoidance of identifying with a racial experience or minority group, and (c) the minimization of the U.S. history of racism" (p. 18). My discourse of whiteness framework was based on empirical and theoretical literature about whiteness, white supremacy, higher education responses to racist harms, and diversity, equity, and inclusion work within higher education and student affairs (Robinson, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref34">32</reflink>]). I used this framework to analyze my findings about ruling relations. In this study, I use the phrase "textual discourses of whiteness" to specifically denote unwillingness, avoidance, and minimization of truths and realities of racism as a matter of people's activities working with texts.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-4">Methodology</hd> <p>In this study, I used IE to examine the things that people say and do about their frontline student affairs work, which has clues embedded in it about the ruling relations that coordinate their work and occur outside of one's department, division, or university. IE has been used widely in sociological, public health, and nursing research to examine bureaucratic and government institutions (Griffith & Smith, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref35">9</reflink>]; Nichols & Braimoh, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref36">21</reflink>]; Rankin, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref37">26</reflink>]). Although there have been some applications of this method within higher education (e.g., Ranero, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref38">25</reflink>]; Rankin et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref39">28</reflink>]; Restoule et al., [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref40">30</reflink>]), IE has rarely been used within research on student affairs organizations. However, student affairs work has many of the same characteristics of other organizational settings that have been popular sites for institutional ethnographic inquiry: it is hierarchical and bureaucratized, characterized by neoliberal discourses, connected to government accountability regimes, and dependent on frontline workers.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-5">Researcher Positionality</hd> <p>This study began in my own experience, but as I conducted this research, I interacted with many differently positioned actors within the research site. This approach required that I consider my position relative to many differently situated individuals with diverse and intersecting identities. Racially minoritized participants in this study were often personally impacted by the racist harm incidents to which they responded. They may have related to the incidents based on prior experiences or have actually been a target of the incident at hand. As a white woman, I have not personally experienced racist harm incidents. My understanding of this experience as a researcher is limited by my social identities, just as it was limited as a practitioner. Furthermore, as a white person, I have acted in racially harmful ways toward students and colleagues, knowingly and unknowingly perpetrating some of the types of harms that are now the interest of my study. Given this, I sometimes saw myself reflected in recounting of racist harm incidents or in the recounting of harmful responses to those incidents. As a researcher, I engaged in continuous self-reflection and self-interrogation to work through and engage my own racial discomfort.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-6">Data Collection</hd> <p>I selected the main campus of a public research university in the Northeast as the fieldwork site for my study. I selected this site purposefully, as it was an "information-rich case...from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of the inquiry" (Patton, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref41">23</reflink>], p. 273). The university had a robust student affairs operation, meaning that there were many potential informants within the site. I collected data over a nine-month period during the 2020–2021 academic year by interviewing nine informants who worked in frontline roles and three informants who worked in mid-level student affairs roles. During this time period, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the university was operating in a hybrid capacity, with virtual-only classes in the fall semester and hybrid in-person and online classes in the spring semester. Students were living on-campus in the residence halls in reduced numbers during this time. All of the staff who I interviewed were also working in either a hybrid or fully-online modality. Four of the nine frontline informants worked in cultural programs: offices serving various cultural, racial, and ethnic groups through programs, advising, and support services. Another three frontline informants worked in Residence Life, the department that operated residential halls and the programs and services within residence halls, including 24-hour response to student concerns and issues. The remaining two informants worked with a program focused on student volunteer opportunities and in an office that educated students about wellness, respectively. Informant characteristics are summarized in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1 Informants</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><tbody><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><bold>Frontline Informants</bold></p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><bold>Pseudonym</bold></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold>Functional Area</bold></p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p><bold>Racial Identification Category</bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Daniel</p></td><td align="left"><p>Volunteer program</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>white</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>zane</p></td><td align="left"><p>Cultural program</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Racially minoritized</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Dylan</p></td><td align="left"><p>Residence Life</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>white</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Laura</p></td><td align="left"><p>Cultural program</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Racially minoritized</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Alex</p></td><td align="left"><p>Cultural program</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Racially minoritized</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Sally</p></td><td align="left"><p>Cultural program</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Racially minoritized</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Sarah</p></td><td align="left"><p>Wellness education</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>Racially minoritized</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Emma</p></td><td align="left"><p>Residence Life</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>white</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Jordan</p></td><td align="left"><p>Residence Life</p></td><td align="left" colspan="2"><p>White</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="4"><p><bold>Level-Two Informants</bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><bold>Pseudonym</bold></p></td><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><bold>Role Description</bold><sup>1</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Informant 1</p></td><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Handles student behavior and conduct and is on university behavioral intervention team (BIT)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Informant 2</p></td><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Does diversity-related work and is on university behavioral intervention team (BIT)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Informant 3</p></td><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Manages cases involving students of concern</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>1</sups> I have not included information about racial identification for level-two informants, as that level of information in combination with their role descriptions may be identifying.</p> <p>I conducted narrative interviews focused on antiracist frontline informants' experiences of responding to incidents of racist harm and their knowledge of their work environment and processes. Narrative life history interviews create opportunities for informants to develop understandings of their own stories within the interview process (Rosenthal, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref42">33</reflink>]). I used a variation of a narrative life history interview that was focused specifically on the informants' <emph>work stories</emph>, as a means of discovering the everyday realities of one's work related to racist harm response. I also returned to the frontline informants to share initial analysis based on their experiences and other data and to interview them about their thoughts and reactions to the emerging analysis.</p> <p>Based on interviews with the frontline informants, I then identified additional mid-level informants: those who were not frontline student affairs educators, but who were involved in the coordination of the frontline work. I interviewed three mid-level informants who were involved in the university's bias response process, using a protocol developed based on the initial data analysis from frontline interviews. These informants offered important information about institutional processes that occurred beyond frontline work.</p> <p>Additionally, I collected documents related to informants' work of responding to racist harms. To focus on the materiality of ruling relations in the texts, I focused my collection of the texts by looking for what the texts <emph>do</emph> when they are used by frontline informants, rather than what they <emph>say</emph>. This involved document collection directly from informants and locating documents that informants referenced in interviews.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-7">Analysis</hd> <p>The purpose of the data collection methods was to gather information to understand and describe the actual working experiences of striving antiracist frontline student affairs educators. I used that data to identify the tensions and contradictions in frontline work and followed the potential sources of those disjunctures to other locations and people beyond the frontline, in a process of explicating ruling relations. Disjunctures point to a <emph>problematic</emph> of the research, a statement that highlights the puzzle of the mismatches between the local and the extra-local. Explicating the ruling relations from the problematic is the analytical task of an IE; a process of mapping and uncovering the ruling relations through ethnographic data collection techniques and "amass[ing] evidence that is used to describe and to empirically explicate how disparate interests are activated or subordinated" (Rankin, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref43">26</reflink>], p. 2). Explication is an ongoing process of uncovering ruling relations by mapping the social relations that are revealed through ethnographic data collection techniques.</p> <p>I used various analytical strategies: listening guide analysis (Walby, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref44">37</reflink>]), mapping, indexing, and writing accounts (Rankin, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref45">27</reflink>]) in iterative phases of analysis. The root of the analytical process involved moving from identifying disjunctures at the frontline to formulating the disjunctures into a problematic statement, to using the problematic to examine data, and explicate the ruling relations. The main way that I achieved these analytical shifts was through formulating the problematic and using the problematic as a lens to examine various sources of data. Each of the data analysis techniques I used fed into and informed each other, clarifying and bringing me closer to articulating the ruling relations that socially organize the work of frontline informants. This iterative process helped me to continue to focus my analytical lens on "what was actually happening" and explore why it was happening as it did, drawing on multiple sources of data.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-8">Findings</hd> <p>As the striving antiracist frontline educators in the study responded to racist harms, they frequently found themselves dependent on making reports through the university's Bias Response Process. The way that institutional policies and practices occurred within the Bias Response Process reflected a ruling relation of relying on investigations to respond to racism. Once a report was made, frontline educators' involvement in the institutional process was limited. Reports led to investigations; however, administrators' discretionary evaluations of policy definitions rarely ended in holding people accountable for racist harms. Furthermore, the dominance of investigation as the means for addressing racism limited the education and outreach-based Bias Response Process from creating meaningful change or ensuring adequate support for harmed students.</p> <p>In this section, I tell three stories about what happened when frontline educators made bias reports or supported students in reporting and how the institutional practice of relying on investigation furthered the racial status quo at the expense of educators' racial justice aims. These stories are composites that are anchored in frontline informants' accounts of their work, but which represent experiences across multiple informants who were engaged in the same institutional processes. The institutional work processes related to the Bias Response Process involved multiple institutional offices, organizations, and texts, which are summarized in Table 2 and referred to throughout the stories.</p> <p>Table 2 Institutional organizations and texts</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Pseudonym</p></th><th align="left"><p>Description</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Institutional Organizations</italic></p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Dean of Students Office</p></td><td align="left"><p>Office led by the Dean of Students, responsible for oversight of several student life programs and services, including the Bias Response Protocol.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Residence Life</p></td><td align="left"><p>Department that operated residential halls and the programs and services within residence halls, including 24-hour response to student concerns and issues. Responsible for student conduct practice and administering the Bias Response Protocol for incidents in residence halls.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>University Diversity Office (UDO)</p></td><td align="left"><p>Office led by the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), responsible for oversight of the Cultural Programs and other university programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Equity and Compliance Office (ECO)</p></td><td align="left"><p>Office responsible for investigation of claims of discrimination and harassment based on protected class identities, including race and ethnicity.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT)</p></td><td align="left"><p>Committee with representatives from across campus that assists in the management of student behavioral concerns, including regularly reviewing reports of bias incidents.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Student Care and Welfare Office</p></td><td align="left"><p>Office that manages cases of students of concern—specifically those who may be a harm to self or others or have other serious mental health concerns.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Student Conduct Office</p></td><td align="left"><p>Led by the Director of Student Conduct. Administers the Student Code of Conduct, including investigating, hearing, and sanctioning alleged violations of the code of conduct.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Key Texts</italic></p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Discrimination and Harassment Policy</p></td><td align="left"><p>Policy that prohibits discrimination or harassment based on protected class identities, including race and ethnicity.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Student Code of Conduct</p></td><td align="left"><p>Policies that describe the rights and responsibilities of university students, including outlining prohibited behaviors and the process for investigation of alleged violations of the policies.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Bias Response Protocol</p></td><td align="left"><p>Document that outlines the process for reporting situations of bias based on protected class identities, including race and ethnicity, and the university's possible avenues of response to reports.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Bias Reporting Form</p></td><td align="left"><p>Internet form to report situations of bias based on protected class identities, including race and ethnicity.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Crisis Communications Plan</p></td><td align="left"><p>Internal university document used by administrators to assess the appropriate communications strategy in response to crisis situations, including situations of racist harm within and outside of the university community.</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Residence Life Bias Response Protocol</p></td><td align="left"><p>Document that outlines the specific practices for Residence Life staff to respond to bias incidents based on protected class identity. Includes on-call immediate actions and follow-up response actions.</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The below stories highlight (a) how frontline educators were systematically cut out from information sharing after reporting, (b) how administrative discretion within an investigation-focused process manifested in lack of accountability for racist harms, and (c) how despite its obvious limitations, reporting felt like the only institutional option for reporting racist harms.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-9">One-Way Flow of Information</hd> <p>All the cultural programs staff members in the study described actively helping students submit bias response forms and supporting students through the reporting process. All of them also described how they did not receive information back from their colleagues in those situations, nor were they involved in the process formally beyond submitting a report. Yet, their students came back to them, seeking guidance and support. zane, a cultural program staff member, recounted how he gathered a great deal of information when assessing students' reports of racist incidents on campus, ensuring that information was shared with offices like Residence Life, Dean of Students, and Student Conduct. However, zane never received any information or updates back from those offices about the progress of investigations or the response process.</p> <p>The Bias Response Process was organized hierarchically and by functional areas, cutting out striving antiracist frontline educators from the resources, information, or power to influence the institutional process. Information flowed in one direction—away from frontline staff—after they reported racist harms through the bias reporting form. When a bias incident report form was filed, the submission generated an incident report document in the university's conduct management software system. The incident report went to the director of the Student Conduct office. The director of Student Conduct evaluated whether the bias incident report warranted an investigation under the Student Code of Conduct. The University Police department also evaluated whether the police report warranted a criminal investigation. If a bias incident report was determined to not be an alleged violation of the Student Code of Conduct, the case was then processed by the Dean of Students or Residence Life according to the Bias Response Protocol. According to the Bias Response Protocol and level-two participants, staff members in those offices would then reach out to involved students including the affected students (complainant), and if known, a respondent (student who allegedly caused the racist harm/ bias incident) and add notes to the case based on those meetings.</p> <p>Case notes may have added more detail and information to the case beyond the initial report that was submitted. However, the initial understanding of the situation was already framed by the content of the incident report generated from the form submission. Additionally, given that, according to institutional self-reporting, from June 2020-July 2021, only about half of the complainants who were contacted participated in a meeting, and only half of respondents were contacted at all, there may not have been additional notes based on conversations with involved parties added to a case.</p> <p>zane explained that "sometimes, other departments do not want to share information." Although this was a frustration, zane recognized that certain departments like the Dean of Students, University Police, and Residence Life:...have the power at hand to be able to help the student...but it's a sense of bureaucracy, of feeling that one department, because they hold the information, they are more entitled or have the power to have what's best for the student.</p> <p>zane further described that working in a cultural program, he got a message that it was "not our job" to receive updates once an incident report was filed and an investigation was underway. Rather than have the detailed information-gathering that he did with students reciprocated with updates about the process from colleagues, he got "tidbits of information...to make it feel like [he was] part of the conversation."</p> <p>One of the main places that conversation about bias response occurred was at the university's Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT). The BIT met on a weekly basis, at which time bias incidents were shared with the members of the team. The BIT was composed of representatives from the Dean of Students office, Residence Life, Student Conduct Office, Vice President of Student Affairs office, University Police, Commuter Student Services, Mental Health Services, and Diversity Office. According to members of the BIT, the purpose of discussing the incident with BIT was generally to seek advice and insights from colleagues about whether the case was being managed appropriately. One member of the BIT explained that "oftentimes it's just more offering support if it's something that I haven't thought of as a resource. Just making sure that we're doing an appropriate case management." Team members may have provided suggestions for managing the case, but the BIT as a whole did not directly manage the cases. Rather, decisions about how cases were handled were made mostly by staff in the Student Conduct, Dean of Students, and Residence Life offices.</p> <p>The university sometimes communicated and shared information on a large scale, sending a message to the entire university community about an incident. The communications process was initiated when the Director of Student Conduct shared a redacted incident report with the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) and the University President. The CDO and staff in the university Diversity Office would then work with the VP of Communications, using the crisis communication plan, in collaboration with Public Safety, the Provost, and Student Affairs to determine whether and what type of mass communication (such as a campus-wide announcement or other mass email) should be sent out. On a monthly basis, a public summary document of bias incidents, maintained by the Dean of Students' office, was updated, including summary details about reported incidents and how incidents were handled.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-10">Administrative Discretion and Lack of Accountability</hd> <p>When called to the scene of a racist harm incident, Jordan, a residence director, provided immediate support for the affected students, working with the student RAs to evaluate the situation based on the definition of a bias-related incident. This definition, as well as the university's statement on speech and civility were included in an on-call bias protocol, which was kept in a binder that on-call residence directors carried with them. The on-call bias protocol was a set of two departmental documents that drew on the university's Bias Response Protocol and Student Code of Conduct to provide an overview of what Residence Life staff were expected to do when a bias incident occurred. One part of the protocol was a narrative including step-by-step lists for what to do in the case of "bias related graffiti" and "bias related incident." The second part of the protocol was presented in a visual flow-chart, showing the possible steps of response once an incident report was submitted. This protocol instructed on-call staff to submit a bias incident report form. These were the only two bias-related sections in the on-call protocol.</p> <p>After determining that an incident was bias-related, Jordan and the RAs then submitted a bias incident report and reported the incident to University Police, who were always called to respond to bias incidents. If the incident involved property damage (usually graffiti), once the police had taken a report, Jordan ensured that the property was repaired by submitting a work order and covered any harmful language or images until they could be permanently removed. The bias incident report form was an online form that was referenced in the Residence Life protocol and the university Bias Reporting Protocol. The form used many terms that were defined within the Student Code of Conduct including: complainant, respondent, report, referring party, and witness. These terms are based in investigative and fact-finding procedures. The open narrative section of the bias reporting form instructed reporters to use clear, objective, and concise language, to avoid the use of pronouns, and to use last names to refer to individuals—a writing style that may not be natural for most people.</p> <p>Jordan noted a relatively expansive approach to response: she tended to report any incident that had been evaluated by the RAs as a bias incident according to the protocol. Although Jordan could make that decision using her discretion, she prioritized whether the students and student staff were negatively affected: "if they think it's problematic, it probably is." This approach, however, did not mean that cases would be handled as potential policy violations moving forward, as administrators who received the report would exercise discretion in their interpretations of it.</p> <p>Individual administrators made value judgments about which harms were worth pursuit of accountability. One member of the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) succinctly stated that "if something is not a code violation, then there's only so much that can happen." Another BIT member expressed frustration with the level of discretion, noting that the only time students seemed to be held accountable through the conduct process for racist actions was when an arrest was made and that arrests often did not happen unless there was a public outcry about an incident. The Student Code of Conduct prohibited harming behavior and sections of the description of harming behavior appeared nearly word-for-word in the Bias Reporting Protocol. This appeared to be the crux of how decisions were made about whether a report of racist harm went through a conduct investigation process or whether it went to the Dean of Students office or Residence Life for education and outreach. Whether alleged behavior was considered harming was based on subjective interpretation.</p> <p>The Student Code of Conduct defined harassment as severe, persistent, or pervasive behavior, leaving a situation open to subjective interpretation about whether it met those thresholds. The Student Code of Conduct also prohibited bullying—a policy that could be used to hold students accountable for racist harms. However, this policy language had some key features: (a) bullying was considered a type of harassment, meaning that the same considerations about what constitutes severe, persistent, or pervasive, were likely to be weighed and (b) the definition of bullying stated that it is "repeated," excluding any one-time incidents. Another important part of the Student Code of Conduct was the property damage section, which prohibited attempted or actual damage to property belonging to individuals or the university. This indicated that racist harms that involved graffiti or vandalism were more likely to be investigated by the Student Conduct office.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-11">Reporting Is the Only (Bad) Option</hd> <p>Frontline educators expressed concerns about the effectiveness of filing a bias report, yet they followed this process to address students' concerns about racist harms because there were no other options available. Alex, a cultural program staff member, explained that she experienced tension in training student peer mentors on using the bias reporting form and reinforcing students should complete the form if they experienced a bias incident because of her previous knowledge and experience with the process. She reflected:Every time I say that [a student should submit a form], I think, yes, I want you to fill out this form <emph>and</emph> I know that you could be re-traumatized based off of the support that you receive from the Dean of Students office, which we know is primarily white.</p> <p>Alex believed that the institutional response to racism was inadequate and often harmful and felt conflicted about guiding students to follow the existing university policies and procedures. Yet, she felt that the existing process was the only way to show institutional leaders and decision-makers that racist harms were real and happening on campus, therefore reporting was a necessary obligation. Alex described attempting to engage students in "yes, and" moments—<emph>yes</emph>, she was going to support the existing process and encourage her students to do the same, <emph>and</emph> she was going to be critical of that process and open with students about her critique and the limitations of the process. The education and outreach process that Alex expressed reservations about happened mostly in the form of meetings between staff members in the Dean of Students office and Residence Life who were designated to handle bias cases and the involved parties in an incident. Mid-level informants in the study reiterated Alex's point: many of those designated staff members were white.</p> <p>Jordan, a residence director, had a different type of reporting experience. She described that when responding to on-call incidents of racist bias, she also contacted the University Police to respond to the incident. Jordan noted that it was very important to her to be supportive of and provide comfort to students who may be uncomfortable with police presence. Jordan was mindful of the potential negative impact of police presence on racially minoritized students and tried to mitigate any negative impact. However, the bias response protocol documents for Residence Life directed that the University Police should always be called to the scene when a possible bias incident occurred. The University Police would then evaluate whether the incident report involved a potential crime that should be investigated, based on criminal laws. Although most bias incidents were not considered to be criminal offenses and the response process was mostly set up to deal with them in a non-criminal way, the police department were an integral part of the process. When an incident occurred in settings other than residence halls, the police also received the incident report and reviewed it. The police seemed to be involved mostly to determine non-criminality, not to pursue a criminal investigation.</p> <p>Sally, another cultural program staff member, noted that a major challenge of handling students' reports of racist harm was "when the outcome doesn't come out to be what you hoped or anticipated...when the difficulty of the situation and the solution to it, if it doesn't seem to match up." Sally elaborated that students who participated in the Bias Reporting Process sometimes felt that they were culturally misunderstood in other offices, that "in some cases [they] have to be two different people and disingenuous to themselves when they're in those other spaces." Finally, Sally noted that "institutional bias, implicit bias and institutional racism" are inherent in investigation processes. Related to the bias process, Sally explained that from her perspective, when students, faculty, or staff make complaints of discrimination, investigations do not "effect any real change in behavior of faculty [or] staff," but operate mostly to prevent the university from being sued, which results in "mak[ing] it so impossible to really bring the bad players to justice." However, Sally articulated that she had an obligation to follow these institutional policies and procedures, and that her responsibility to follow them was at the top of her mind when making decisions about responding to racist harms. She explained that she usually used the bias reporting protocol as the "guiding principle to make sure that I am reporting it where it needs to be reported." She elaborated that if she failed to follow reporting procedures, she would have been negligent and not "served that particular student or victim the way they should be served" and that could "compromise the case." Sally took very seriously her responsibility to identify and report racism that her students experienced but recognized that those reports may very likely not result in a just resolution.</p> <p>The investigation and resolution process that Sally described was guided largely by the Student Conduct office. If the Student Conduct office determined that a report of racist harm alleged or addressed a potential violation of the code of conduct, they would notify the alleged respondent (perpetrator) and proceed with an investigation according to the process laid out in the code of conduct. If the outcome of that investigation found a preponderance of evidence (more likely than not) that the respondent violated one or more parts of the code of conduct, the respondent may be sanctioned with a combination of status sanctions (a warning, probation, suspension, or expulsion) as well as additional sanctions such as loss of privileges, restitution, removal from housing, or educational/ engagement initiatives. However, the university's records indicated that only one report of racist harm from the bias incident reporting form was investigated by the Student Conduct office between July 2020-June 2021. Nearly all complaints of racist harm were not considered allegations of violations of the student code during that year. Still, the non-investigatory bias response process was closely tied to the investigatory student conduct process. In fact, the process relied on the same software system, drew on the same policy language, and involved some of the same actors as investigations of the student code of conduct.</p> <p>The investigative practices associated with the Bias Response Process emphasized communication and information-sharing that cast the university as responsive to matters of racism while working against striving antiracist frontline educators' aims of supporting harmed students, preventing future racist harms, and seeking recognition for the nuanced impact of racist harms. Investigative practices also avoided and minimized the contours of systemic racism by drawing on white interpretations, emphasizing individual responsibility, and excluding frontline educators from meaningful involvement in investigations. Given the limitations of the institutional processes, frontline educators found themselves filling the gaps to meet students' needs with counseling, programming, and educational efforts in attempts to bring the outcomes of institutional response closer to their aims of creating change, securing accountability, and ensuring support.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-12">Uncovering Textual Discourses of Whiteness</hd> <p>As detailed above, the investigative practices established by the university guided what options were possible and available to antiracist frontline educators when responding to racist harms. By looking specifically for textual discourses of whiteness within how investigative practices manifested in response to racist harm, my remaining analysis illustrates how the investigative practices perpetuated institutional unwillingness to name systemic racism, avoidance of identifying with a racial experience by tolerating white racist behaviors, and minimization of institutional racial legacies. Within the Bias Response Process, investigative processes were often not enforced in a way that led to holding white perpetrators accountable. The racially minoritized students who the educators in this study worked with often followed the reporting process but were unlikely to receive any kind of just outcome, and as many educators cited, sometimes experienced further harm through repeated racial insensitivity from white administrators. These administrative and bureaucratic processes relied heavily on the written word and emphasized a rational and logical evaluation of the situation, reflecting interpretations based in a white epistemology. Investigative processes kept the focus of institutional response on individual behavior, and despite robust reporting and investigation processes, accountability for racist harms was rarely the outcome. Each of those processes relied on hierarchies of administrative power that operated mostly to protect institutional liability and reputation and left frontline educators out of the process. Therefore, striving antiracist frontline educators were stuck between a rock and a hard place—they knew that making reports did not lead to accountability, but they did not have better institutional options to pursue.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-13">White Interpretations of Racist Harms</hd> <p>The procedures for reporting a case emphasized objectivity, fact-finding, and gathering as much information about students' experiences as possible. Through the process of making a report, the experiences of those involved became cast as objectively assessed, a reporting of facts to be evaluated, beginning to erase the nuances of racially minoritized students' stories. Administrators' evaluations about whether reports of racist harm should be considered policy violations were made ostensibly based on the rules and policies of the institution, which set forth what could and could not be addressed through accountability: what was wrong and what was allowable. A process of notetaking and creating documentation in cases served to justify decisions. Alex described her concerns with how racially minoritized students' stories were transformed through reporting:If it's an administrator who is white, who is writing those notes, like, what are they changing and like modifying as they write those notes? Like they're—those notes are being employed through a lens of whiteness. If they are white and even if they aren't white, there's still a lens of whiteness that happens because of that format. Because of the written format in general that it gets filtered into and put into with like the expectation that everything is spelled correctly or doesn't have a little red line—which could not be what the student had said, or what they were trying to communicate. And so, like, there's always this lens of whiteness that is being filtered through and incorporated into all of our processes.</p> <p>These "objective" narratives were then evaluated through a highly subjective process by administrators who were part of a racial hierarchy in which most of the power was held by white administrators. Alex and Laura, another cultural program worker, both noted that the staff in the Student Conduct Office and Dean of Students Office were almost all white. A mid-level informant echoed this concern, explaining that there were not sufficient numbers of racially minoritized staff in the offices that were trying to help racially minoritized students.</p> <p>Alex's comments point out that white interpretations that may dismiss the significance of racist harms were not just based on the person interpreting a report but were built into documents and processes. The focus on written reports and documentation emphasizes a rational and logical evaluation of the situation aligned with whiteness (Gusa, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref46">10</reflink>]). In a racialized organization (Ray, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref47">29</reflink>]), in which a majority of administrators were white and the institution was historically white, the worldview reflected a white epistemological framework. These elements of white epistemology (Gusa, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref48">10</reflink>]) were implicated in the process of evaluating both how severe accountability for racist behavior should be and how serious a racist harm was for affected students.</p> <p>Multiple frontline educators and level-two participants in this study spoke about how enduring racist harm incidents was "racial trauma" that affected students emotionally, psychologically, and socially, often for the rest of their college experience, and perhaps beyond that. However, the educational outcomes of the bias response protocol that did not center the emotional and psychological harm that students experienced. The stated goal of education communicated the idea that the institutional responsibility was to acknowledge that the targeted student was wronged and to educate others about why what happened to them was wrong. However, an educational approach that offers "visibility and recognition" (Applebaum, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref49">1</reflink>], p. 19) of oppression without engaging in transformation centers whiteness, working as a tool to establish the racial goodness and white racial innocence of the institution and white people within it.</p> <p>Perhaps these educational goals would not be a cause for concern if coupled with care that centered the healing of racially minoritized students. However, despite the efforts and intentions of educators I spoke with at both the frontline and mid-level, targeted students often chose not to participate in the outreach after a racist bias incident was reported. Furthermore, unlike other instances of student crisis at the university, students who were targeted by racist hate were not automatically referred to support services that focused on their mental health and well-being, as a case manager working with Student Care and Welfare explained to me. The goals of the response processes precluded an interpretation of racist harm that centers trauma and attending to racially minoritized students' mental health and well-being, upholding whiteness by instead directing attention and resources toward the supposed education of whites and re-establishing the racial benevolence of the institution.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-14">Individualizing Racist Acts</hd> <p>The student code of conduct and discrimination and harassment policies aimed to hold individuals accountable for racist behavior, what V. Jones ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref50">14</reflink>]) referred to as "point[ing] the finger" (p. 13) at a few bad racists. This framing precluded addressing students' experiences of racist harm that did not fit into the individual "complainant and respondent" model, such as the students zane worked with who reported racist harms they were exposed to through social media and were sometimes "fourth or fifth removed from the information." The focus on individual rights and individual responsibility was reflected in the bias reporting form, which asked for the names and details of individual complainants and respondents.</p> <p>An emphasis on holding individuals accountable upholds whiteness by failing to name and recognize how racism operates systemically, not just because of the racial animus of individual bad actors (Hughes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref51">12</reflink>]). It meant that when the responsible perpetrator is not known or is not someone who has a relationship to the university, little action was taken. Furthermore, individual accountability renders racist harms that are not perpetrated by individuals—for example, harms caused by institutional policies or current events outside of the university—as being outside of a framework of action and recourse. In each of these scenarios, racist harm is allowed and implicitly approved by the university.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-15">Excluding Frontline Educators</hd> <p>Frontline antiracist educators in this study were aware that institutional processes were limited and complicit in upholding whiteness and not disrupting racism. Yet, by virtue of their positions, they were not afforded institutional authority to work outside of those processes or to change them. zane explained that the cultural programs staff were not "at the table" when other offices were evaluating incidents. Indeed, one of the "tables" where decisions about how the bias response protocol was administered was the BIT, which was comprised of mid-level administrators without frontline educators involved. In fact, from an institutional perspective, the frontline antiracist educators were often not considered to be the people responsible for responding to racist harms, but rather responsible for reporting harms. This reporting role was reflected in how they were excluded from the information-sharing that happened during the reporting and investigation process. Sally did not get direct information about the status of reports of racist harm. She explained that she could sometimes make a phone call to a colleague to gather information for a student, but "in the majority of the cases...the information that I provide is no different than the student already had." Alex questioned why she and other cultural program workers were excluded from access to case information:Does the reporting mechanism need to be as complex as it is or as hidden as it is? And like, who manages that and who gets access to all the information that's there because like, I think the [cultural programs] would love to see what the hate and bias reports look like, but we don't get to see that information.</p> <p>Even though frontline Residence Life staff did have access to the case management reporting system, the workflow of a case was usually routed away from them after they responded to it and reported it. Once a report was completed, the case was in the hands of who Laura referred to as the "appropriate channels."</p> <p>The appropriate channels were managed by mostly white mid-level and upper administrators in departments and offices under the university's Student Affairs Division. The cultural program workers in this study reported to the University Diversity Office. These reporting lines underscore how the workflow of managing bias reports reflected the racial hierarchy of the organization. In predominantly white organizations, hierarchical position and whiteness go together (Ray, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref52">29</reflink>]), both because most leaders and senior administrators are white and because the norms and expectations of "leadership" have been defined over time by whiteness. In this case, both white and racially minoritized educators who sought to work in antiracist ways, pushing back against the norms of a hierarchical system characterized by whiteness, were systematically excluded from decision-making about how to respond to racist harms. They were put in a position of recognizing the ineffectiveness and harm of the administrative processes but were essentially coerced into using those processes due to lack of other viable options for response.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-16">Implications for Research</hd> <p>These findings highlight the limitations of bias response processes for addressing racist harms, adding to the literature on bias response teams (e.g., Hughes, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref53">12</reflink>]; LePeau et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref54">16</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref55">17</reflink>]; Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref56">19</reflink>]b; Miller et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref57">19</reflink>]) by examining the ideas and practices that might drive such processes and how, as a result, such processes may be coordinated by and enacting white supremacy. This study builds on Hughes' ([<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref58">12</reflink>]) and LePeau et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref59">17</reflink>]) work, further calling into question the effectiveness of a bias response model for addressing racism. In this study, I have specifically named whiteness and institutional white supremacy as structures of oppression involved in bias-response work and explicated how those dominant norms are textually-mediated. IE is a promising approach to the critical study of whiteness in higher education, as the specificity and descriptive richness of IE matters when doing research that aims to disrupt the racial status quo.</p> <p>This study also adds to the previous research by taking the standpoint of frontline staff who are on the outside of a bias-response process as opposed to being on the inside of a BRT (e.g., LePeau et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref60">16</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref61">17</reflink>]). These findings build on LePeau et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref62">17</reflink>]) research by illustrating some of the ways that a BRT is exclusive in terms of social position and capital. The leveraging behaviors that LePeau et al. ([<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref63">17</reflink>]) observed, in which BRT members drew on reciprocal relationships with certain campus departments, ring true. Further, the experience of informants in this study with getting access to information and having a say in the process was based on racialized patterns of hierarchy and functional segregation. It is also possible that the restriction of information that the frontline informants experienced was informed by interpretations of FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Examination of ideas about and practices related to FERPA and sharing information about students' experiences with bias merits specific examination in future research.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-17">Recommendations for Practice</hd> <p>In this study, the same staff members who administered the student code of conduct were evaluating and determining the course of action when reports of racist bias were made. The implicit idea is that such an arrangement may encourage the institution to hold alleged perpetrators of racist bias responsible through the student code of conduct. However, these findings illustrate that was almost never the case. Rather, the entanglement of a "non-punitive" bias response process with the student conduct process posed a major limitation to meaningful action in response to racist harms. It also sent a message of false hope that perpetrators would be held accountable for their racist actions. These findings call into question the efficacy of linking bias response processes with student conduct functions. Administrators should pursue options to hold perpetrators of racist bias accountable that venture beyond the traditional models of investigation and sanctioning. Student conduct and disciplinary procedures are carceral practices that disproportionately target racially minoritized students (Dizon et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref64">7</reflink>]). These carceral practices "surveil, repress, and punish" (Dizon et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref65">7</reflink>], p. 12) racially minoritized students. Given this, entanglement of bias response with student conduct procedures may not only result in inaction of racially minoritized students' complaints of racist bias, but may even increase the potential for surveillance and punishment of racially minoritized students.</p> <p>Restorative justice is one option to move beyond traditional notions of accountability. Gallagher Dahl et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref66">3</reflink>]) study of outcomes of a restorative justice student conduct program emphasized that the effectiveness of restorative justice relies in large part on personal motivation. Therefore, restorative justice is certainly not a cure-all for racist harm, as many who act from individual racist animus may not have personal motivation to repair the harm. I argue that a robust and creative combination of race-conscious approaches to accountability are necessary to send a strong message that racist speech and actions are not tolerated.</p> <p>An area of particular concern highlighted by these findings is the practice of calling the police to the scene of a reported bias incident as a matter of course. Police involvement may seem to signal that an issue is being taken seriously, but at what cost, given that the majority of situations where an armed officer responded did not result in charges? Dizon ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref67">6</reflink>]) found that university policing has racial implications, placing a particular burden on how Black students navigated student life to avoid police violence, resulting in "disenfranchise[ment] from full participation and membership within their campus communities" (p. 12). There are certainly other ways that the institution can treat reports of racist harms with the gravity they deserve without causing more harm through unnecessary police involvement.</p> <p>What are frontline educators to do when investigative processes are the only institutional option? Some of the educators in this study described how they critiqued investigative reporting processes with their students, openly discussing the limitations and possible outcomes with them. In an ideal situation, students would not have to worry about being re-traumatized by investigative processes, but when that is the case, I think that frontline educators have a moral responsibility to engage students in informed consent about getting involved in a reporting process. I recommend that frontline educators honestly evaluate the outcomes of reporting racist harms at their institution and incorporate this knowledge into how they counsel students on their options, being honest and clear with students about the likely outcomes of reporting. Some educators have more freedom than others to not report incidents that students disclose to them, depending on the expectations of their roles and how closely they are surveilled. However, frontline educators should seek clarity about their reporting responsibilities and avoid making reports unless students are fully consenting to their situation being reported. Practitioners must interrogate whether the aims of the reporting, education, and outreach are to meet the harmed students' needs or if it is to ensure compliance with the process.</p> <p>Frontline and mid-level practitioners may also have opportunities to collaborate to effect changes in the communication and information-sharing practices of their institutional bias response processes. Frontline staff can collaborate with each other to consistently follow up and request relevant information from colleagues once reports are made. Frontline and mid-level staff can also advocate for inclusive and collaborative practices in bias response processes, including (a) that frontline staff who have high contact with racially minoritized students are engaged in and treated as experts when responding to racist harms, (b) that staff members who report incidents or help students report are kept apprised of the status of the case, and (c) that racially diverse staff are recruited, hired, and retained in positions with responsibility for reviewing and investigating reports of racist harm.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-18">Conclusion</hd> <p>Despite frontline student affairs educators' strong beliefs and skills as striving antiracist educators, their response work often fed into response practices that upheld institutional power structures and minimized and avoided the contours of systemic racism. Certainly, colleges and universities like the one I studied are making efforts to do something about pervasive racial harms—many through Bias Response Processes. Although each institutional context is unique, this study illustrates how pervasive institutional ideas and practices about investigation can permeate Bias Response Processes that are ostensibly meant to be educational and supportive. Those investigative practices may be firmly situated within the dominant structures of whiteness, making them insufficient to effectively address racist harms. Further, the social organization of who gets to be involved in institutional bias response may be racialized in ways that further harm both racially minoritized students and staff. However, the ways the educators in this study recognized the tensions and challenges in their work and actively worked to center students' needs despite the institutional ruling relations provide important insights for policies and practices that re-center the knowledge and aims of those at the frontline.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-19">Funding</hd> <p>This research was funded by grants from the University of Connecticut Department of Educational Leadership and the ACPA (College Student Educators International) Commission for Housing and Residential Life.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-20">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0180107934-21">Competing Interests</hd> <p>I have no other competing interests to declare.</p> <hd id="AN0180107934-22">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0180107934-23"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref49" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Applebaum B. 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Institutional ethnography and data analysis: Making sense of data dialogues. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. 2013; 16; 2: 141-154. 10.1080/13645579.2012.661207</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Ashley N. Robinson</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> <p></p> <p>Ashley N. Robinson Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the Sammartino School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Leadership and Education Policy from the University of Connecticut and with an MEd in Student Development in Higher Education and a BA in English, both from the University of Maine. Dr. Robinson's research focuses on examining higher education policies and practices to understand new possibilities for leaders and educators to create more just and equitable organizations and institutions. 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  Data: Striving antiracist frontline student affairs educators work from commitments to racial equity and racial justice. Yet, when responding to racist harms, they must navigate institutional investigative practices. In this institutional ethnographic study of a Predominantly and Historically White Institution (PHWI), despite frontline educators' aims, responses resulted in limited change or adequate support for students harmed by racist incidents. Rather, investigative practices drew on white interpretations, emphasized individual responsibility, and excluded frontline educators from meaningful involvement. The findings of this study suggest that the social organization of who gets to be involved in institutional bias response processes may be racialized in ways that further harm both racially minoritized students and staff. However, the ways the educators in this study recognized the tensions and challenges in their work and actively worked to center students' needs provide important insights for policies and practices that re-center the knowledge and aims of those at the frontline educators.
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