Council for Ethnic Participation

Council for Ethnic Participation

Title of Proposal: Campus Rebellion and Plantation Politics: The Continued Search for Racial Equity in U.S. Higher Education

Abstract: There is a resurgence of resistance to the racism and whiteness upon which institutions have been built. There are parallels between historic plantation life, universities, and rebellion. The focus of this symposium is on how the lens of “plantation politics” can be used to better understand the modern day university.

Format: Interactive Symposium

Content:

Title

Campus Rebellion and Plantation Politics: The Continued Search for Racial Equity in U.S. Higher Education

Introduction and Conceptual Framing

There is a resurgence of resistance to the structural racism and whiteness upon which institutions of higher education have been built. One can simply read newspapers over the last six months to identify hundreds of articles discussing the topic. Black students have generated passionate protests and multiple forms of resistance at over 150 college campuses, including Duke University, Georgetown University, and the University of Missouri. At Duke, students involved in a week-long takeover of an administrative building created a coalition with university workers focused on economic justice. Their demands included a fair living wage for staff and the firing of a white university executive that hit a Black woman worker with a car. Georgetown students organized successfully to get the administration to rename two buildings formerly revering slave-owners. These students are also demanding that the institution honor the 272 enslaved Africans previously sold by two former university presidents to save the college when it was in a dire financial situation. A hunger strike by graduate student Jonathan Butler, galvanizing Black student protests, and a student athlete strike at Mizzou led to the Chancellor of the university system stepping down and system-wide initiatives to increase racial diversity. Lastly, in Columbus, the city hosting ASHE 2016, students at The Ohio State University and community members active in the Movement for Black Lives have participated in numerous administrative building takeovers, teach-ins, and street protests, drawing attention to racial discrimination and police violence on campus and in the community. This interactive symposium seeks to understand how these multiple forms of campus rebellion, and the strategies universities use to respond to these acts, may reveal a modern conceptualization of “plantation politics.”

Wilder (2013) noted the role universities played historically in repressing rebellion and miseducating its students, stating that “colleges were [formed as] imperial instruments akin to armories and forts, a part of the colonial garrison with the specific responsibilities to train ministers and missionaries, convert indigenous peoples and soften cultural resistance, and extend European rule over foreign nations (p. 33). These “imperial instruments” (Wilder, 2013) were created to profit off the diversity and bodies of Black slaves and Indigenous peoples, built to maintain a religious orthodoxy, and uplifted (through education) an elite white body. In many ways, slave plantations served similar purposes. Durant (1999) argued that slave plantations are characterized by: (a) import of slaves and control by whites; (b) forced exploitation of labor resulting in acquired wealth, power, profit, and prestige; (c) slaves as chattel property; (d) social caste system with little upward mobility (e) racially stratified division of labor with whites at the top and Blacks at the bottom; (f) strict system of governance employing control mechanisms; (g) “slave and non-slave subsystems, represented by emerging social institutions such as family, economy, education politics, and religion” (p. 5); and (g) a structure that required continual adaptation to internal and external forces. The parallels are incriminatory and it is clear that slave plantation politics can serve as an apt framework from which to view the university.

If we look at campus environments through the lens of Durant’s slave plantation, this helps us better understand (1) the ways enslaved Africans and slave plantations were fundamental to the creation of some university campuses; (2) how the exploitation of Black peoples’ physical and emotional labor continues to be central to the economic workings of universities; and (3) how the vestiges of plantation culture and life influence modern university culture, climate, and structures of power. Using this framework we are able to examine the interactions between institutional leaders and campus protestors (students, faculty, and/or staff) in order to understand the power differentials embedded in these interactions. We can explore how the technologies used to create plantation life are similar to those technologies used to sustain higher education institutions, and the ways these work to produce racial inequities and hostile racial environments that give rise to campus rebellions. Finally, we can better understand how employing control mechanisms that seek to repress campus rebellions, may reinforce white supremacy, limit freedoms, and continue to oppress Black lives.

Subsequently, the focus of this interactive discussion is on how the lens of “plantation politics” can be used to better understand the modern day university. The research questions for this symposium are: (1) how does plantation politics help one better understandthe recent surge in campus activism for racial equity? And (2) how does plantation politics help one understand the related institutional responses to student demands? Using historical knowledge on plantation life we construct a framework to track the development of universities as places of exploitation of Black bodies, economic and social stratification building mechanisms, bastions for elite white education, and as technologies of domination and suppression of descent for all standing against white supremacy. We link it to the power and visibility of racial justice movements that currently sit at the forefront of the public consciousness reigniting a fight that has long taken place in pockets around the nation since the 1960s (Rhoads, 1998; Wolf-Wendel, Twombly, Tuttle, Ward, & Gaston-Gayles, 2004). By linking the formation of universities to the formation of plantations, we highlight a historical reproduction of oppression that continues to influence the organizing of the modern university.

The voices of oppressed racial groups, particularly Black students, faculty, and staff, have grown stronger, and the framework upon which universities were historically built is no longer a suitable structure. As campus rebellions increasingly signal to universities that some students, faculty, and staff will not allow business to go on as usual, this discussion seeks to open up the possibilities for what university structures and cultures may envision racial equity, justice, and liberation to look like.

Session Objectives

1.  Describe a plantation politics framework for understanding racial inequity in the modern institution of higher education.

2.  Link a plantation politic framework to understanding a surge in campus activism for racial equity.

3.  Understand institutional responses to campus activism by focusing on technologies of control and repression.

4.  Explore how centering an analysis of campus rebellions may assist in creating strategies for racial equity and liberation.

Symposium Structure

Introduction (5 minutes): The moderator (Dr. Saran Stewart) will welcome the audience, introduce the panelists, and begin this session with a brief overview of the session highlighting the purpose and focus of the proposed symposium.

Plantation Politics (7 minutes): Drs. Frank Tuitt and Bianca Williams will explain the Plantation Politics Framework so that audience members are familiar with the framework and how it is being understood by the panelists. This will also allow the audience to ask questions, fill in the gaps, and challenge the model.

Panel discussion (7 minutes each; total 28 minutes): Each of the four panelists will have seven minutes to share reflections on the connections they see between plantation life and the current critique of universities as places of exploitation of Black bodies, economic and social stratification building mechanisms, bastions for elite white education. They will do this from their discipline and research focus interests.

Group discussion (15 minutes): Once each participant has shared their reflections, the moderator will open up the session so that the remaining time can be used for constructive dialogue between the audience and panelists. This time will be used in small groups with each panelist and the chair “hosting” a group to discuss the symposium topic and answering questions. The below questions will be used to guide discussion.

Discussion Questions

1.  Is “plantation politics” an effective framework for thinking through the ways the higher education institutions work, particularly in the context of racial equity?

2.  Instead of repressing campus rebellions, how might universities become more humanizing spaces for students, faculty, and staff if they center an analysis of these rebellions?

3.  What can these rebellions teach us about university structures and culture?

4.  What does a focus on slave plantations and plantation politics teach us about the significance of Black people and Black labor on university campuses?

Large group discussion (15 minutes): The groups will reconvene to discuss the model and how to reflect on the discussion questions. At this time, all audience members can interact with other participants and all panelists.

Background of Presenters and Contributions (alphabetical)

Lori Patton Davis, Ph.D. (Participant)

Lori Patton Davis, Ph.D. is a higher education scholar whose research agenda focuses on African Americans in postsecondary contexts, Critical Race Theory applied to higher education, college student development theory and the influence of campus environments on student experiences. Her most recent research examines issues of intersectionality in the experiences of African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual students attending historically black colleges and universities and those who belong to black Greek-letter organizations. Patton Davis is also engaged in critical scholarship on the experiences of black undergraduate women in higher education. She is the editor of the forthcoming book, Debunking the "New Model Minority" Myth: Critical Perspectives on Black Women in College.

Dian Squire, Ph.D. (Participant)

Dian is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the University of Denver's Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study on (In)Equality (IRISE). Dian identifies as a Critical Race Feminist scholar and is interested in the ways that structural racism affects the experiences of communities of color. His research focuses on issues of diversity, equity, and justice in higher education, particularly graduate education. He is interested in race and racism in graduate education, racial formation and identity in college choice processes, and racialized academic socialization.

Saran Stewart, Ph.D. (Chair)

Dr. Saran Stewart is a Lecturer of Comparative Higher Education in the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. She is also the Coordinator for the M.Ed. in Higher Educational Management programme and a Research Specialist in the Research and Grants Unit in the School of Education.Much of her research critically examines issues of comparative education, postcolonial theories, critical-inclusive pedagogy and diversity in and outside the classroom. Dr. Stewart is devoted to the examination and exploration of topics related to access and equity in education and teaching and learning in developing country contexts. Her recent research comparatively examines the scope and prevalence of private tutoring and its effects on access to Higher Education in multiple Caribbean countries. Her work has been published in theJournal of Diversity in Higher Education, Journal of Student Affairs, Postcolonial Directions in Education Journal and the Applied Anthropologist Journal.Dr. Stewart most recently, received the International Scholars Award at the Research in Education Symposium from the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Frank Tuitt, Ed.D. (Participant)

Dr. Frank Tuitt is the Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost on Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Denver and Associate Professor of Higher Education in the Morgridge College of Education. His research explores topics related to access and equity in higher education; teaching and learning in racially diverse college classrooms; and diversity and organizational transformation. Dr. Tuitt is a co-editor and contributing author of the books: Race and Higher Education: Rethinking Pedagogy in Diverse College Classrooms; Black Faculty in the Academy: Narratives for Negotiating Identity and Achieving Career Success; Contesting the Myth of a Post-Racial Era: The Continued Significance of Race in U.S. Education; and Race, equity, and the learning environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education. Dr. Tuitt received his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and his BA in Human Relations from Connecticut College.

Bianca C. Williams, Ph.D.

As a feminist cultural anthropologist, Williams’ research interests include Black women & happiness; race, gender, and emotional labor in higher education institutions; and Black feminist leadership and activist organizing. Her work centers on the question, “How do Black people develop strategies for enduring and resisting the effects of racism and sexism, while attempting to maintain emotional wellness?” In her forthcoming book, The Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism, Williams examines how African American women use international travel and the Internet as tools for pursuing leisure, and critiquing American racism and sexism. Williams also theorizes “radical honesty” as a pedagogical approach for working through shame in the volume, Race, Equity, and the Learning Environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education.

References

Durant, T. J. (1999). The slave plantation revisited: A sociological perspective. In, T. J.

Durant, & J. D. Knottnerus. Plantation society and race relations: the origins of inequality (pp. 3-16). Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Rhoads, R. A. (1998). Freedom's Web: Student Activism in an Age of Cultural Diversity.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Wilder, C. S. (2014). Ebony and ivy: Race, slavery, and the troubled history of America's

universities. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Wolf-Wendel, L., Twombly, S., Tuttle, K. N., Ward, K., & Gaston-Gayles, J. (2004).

Reflecting back, looking forward: Civil rights and student affairs. Washington, DC: NASPA.

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