Stand-With Vibes: The Influence of Institutional Response to Political Events on Student-of-Color Political Learning and Engagement

Purpose: Given the current political polarization, historical disenfranchisement, and racial tensions in this country, universities should consider how they respond to political events. Although many universities claim civic goals as part of their educational mission, they adopt neutral postures in their institutional responses, but how neutrality affects student-of-color political learning and engagement at Minority-Serving and Emerging Institutions (MSIs) is not well understood. Research Methods: We chose a multisite case study to consider how MSIs are similar in their approach to institutional response. An embedded case study design was selected to highlight two subunits within each case: student perspective and leadership rationale. Findings: In this paper, we argue that universities’ self-proclaimed attempts at neutral postures impede young people’s political learning and shirk universities’ commitment to equitable academic outcomes and education for an engaged democracy. Our findings highlight that this occurs through a practice of neutral responses, which are viewed by students as either performative or nonperformative, negatively affecting the campus racial climate. We assert that free speech is not a form of deliberative democratic dialogue. In fact, deliberative democratic dialogue is something much more uncomfortable that universities must be willing to model and teach their students so they may engage in a participatory democracy. Implications: Universities’ apolitical approach models say nothing but expect students to exchange ideas that they know to be contentious and distressing. Universities should promote conversations that urge us to enact different and radical forms of democracy through a political pedagogy.