Standing in the gap: how Black women mentors make the academy bearable for other Black women

Black women in higher education routinely face and combat intersecting structural inequities to accomplish their goals in their roles as students, staff, administrators, and faculty members. Black women have also consistently found ways to create pathways to support one another in navigating multiple structural inequities in academia to achieve success. In this study, we used duoethnographic methods to explore our lived experiences of formal mentorship by Black women scholars who made the academy bearable for us. Our findings highlight, honor, and demonstrate the ways Black women stood in the gap for us as Black women in our roles as staff, doctoral students, adjunct faculty, and tenure-track faculty members in predominately white institutions. The findings illustrate the collective ways Black women scholars thrive despite the inequitable institutional culture and climate in which they work.