Mindful innovation for the ethical disruption of racial inequities: a case study of student affairs practice stimulating organizational change

This article brings together two distinct fields of scholarship—disruptive innovation and equity-minded student success—to analyze a case study of student affairs practice stimulating organizational change. Utilizing examples from the authors' asset-based peer tutoring initiative in a rural Hispanic Serving Institution in the Southeast United States, the article argues that a new conceptualization of “disruption” is necessary for organizational change that supports students from racially and ethnically minoritized groups. As a starting point, the article outlines Clayton Christensen's influential business-oriented theory of disruptive innovation first proposed in 1997. The article then critically analyzes current rhetoric on disruption in higher education by private consulting firms and leaders who wish to portray “executive disruptions” to higher education institutions as an existential necessity. An analysis reveals that this rhetoric is a cynical appropriation of Christensen that leverages the rhetorical power of disruption as a justification for undermining public higher education through ideologically driven program cuts and attenuated student access. As a corrective, this article therefore proposes a reframing of disruption that builds on equity-minded organizational change literature by Estela Bensimon and Adrianna Kezar, Lori Patton's argument for disrupting higher education through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens, Victor Ray's theory of racialized organizations, and Lanford and Tierney's identification of the environmental factors and dimensions which support mindful innovation in higher education. Inspired by this literature, the article proposes a conceptualization of ethical disruption which is considered through six frames: philosophy, discourse, agents, instruments, leadership, and organizational impact. The final section of the article depicts a praxis-oriented institutional case study of ethical disruption by identifying three barriers to organizational equity—and the methods used to disrupt them for the benefit of student success.