Conceptualizing Anti-Blackness at a Hispanic-Serving Research University

This study examined the experiences of Black students attending a Hispanic-Serving Research University (HSRU). Utilizing a mixed-methods Black Student Belonging Survey, the research team sought to understand how Black students across Afro-diasporic communities, including students who self-identify as Black, Afro-Latinx, Afro-Indigenous, West African, and others, described their encounters within an HSRU. Findings from this study revealed that the percentages of students at the HSRU under study who stated that they encountered challenges related to their Black identities at the target university was not equally distributed among various ethnic and multiheritage groups within the Afro-diaspora, χ2 (2, n = 319), p < 0.01. Thus, it appears that challenges at the university related to Black identities vary by background. This is an important finding because it reveals that studies that flatten the Black identity of student respondents may be missing significant variations in experience. Moreover, analysis of qualitative results using an anti-Blackness framework sheds light on the pervasive experiences of anti-Black encounters across the university. These findings include anti-Black aggressions, politics of belonging, and bearing the weight of representation as the most frequent challenges experienced within the HSRU. Recommendations based on these findings call for participatory action research with students, enhanced upstander interventions, and continued work to humanize and broaden practices in higher education that promote servingness.