Women of color apparently still do not have as many opportunities for career growth as whites and are subjected to unfair racial discrimination in the academe. A recently promoted African-American woman in academia expressed a lack of fulfillment in her career, even in her new role as a professor.
It is a norm in American society, as pointed in the complaint, that African-American professionals have to work twice as hard as whites in all positions. Women of color, as they like to be known, strive more to be considered equally competent in the workplace and schools.
A report in 2015 showed how this unbalanced and unhealthy notion between blacks and whites have affected employment opportunities for blacks (or colored) people. In unfortunate situations at work environments, the report revealed African-Americans rarely have a second chance compared with whites.
Women of color in academia mostly encounter this challenge in the school environment, especially when they have to employ research studies from the whites. In 2007, researchers explored the injustice of African-American professors in predominantly white campuses, with social injustice from both the educational system and the students.
In the words of Margaret Daut, a woman of color and a victim of white dominance in her career:
To say that my time as an untenured black female assistant professor was emotionally traumatic would be an understatement. I could fill volumes with tales of both the macro- and microaggressions launched by students, professors, and administrators alike
Her career had encountered several discriminatory challenges for being an African-American person in academia. Her recent promotion, a result of extra hard work, brought the number of African-American professors in the College of Arts and Science to three. In the United States, the low number of African-American women professors is a direct reflection of the career challenges of the black community, even in Britain.
in a related post this year, April 2 marks Equal Pay Day, the time a woman has to work into the new year to symbolically achieve the same pay a man earned the previous year.
Working an additional four months to receive equal pay sounds absurd, but consider this reality: For African-American women, Equal Pay Day won’t be recognized until August 22. For Native American and Latina women, Equal Pay Day won’t be recognized until September 23 and November 20.
Asian-American and Pacific Islander women reached Equal Pay Day on March 5, but massive pay gaps persist between subgroups. White women will wait a few days after April 2 for their Equal Pay Day to be recognized on April 19.
A 2014 study conducted by professors Katherine L. Milkman, Modupe Akinola, and Dolly Chugh, and published on the Social Science Research Network, measured email responses of 6,500 professors across over 250 of the U.S.’s top universities. The messages were sent by “students” who were interested in graduate school (in actuality, the “students” were impersonated by the researchers). The study conclusively showed that women and racial minorities were far less likely than white men to receive responses from university professors after emailing to express interest in working with them as graduate students.
What do you think is the true status of racial discrimination in the academe? Give your comments below.
