Diversity Ideologies and Racial Commodification: Navigating Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion as Early Career Faculty of Color Amid Organizational DEI Co-optation

Abstract In response to public incidents of police brutality and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, leaders at Historically White Research Universities (HWRUs) began publicizing their investments in racial equity as recently as 2020. These investments, however, often lacked the infrastructure necessary for substantive, systemic change. One prominent area of resource allocation was the recruitment and hiring of faculty with expertise and experience in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We examined how early-career tenure-track (ECTT) faculty of color interpreted their HWRUs’ framing of diversity concerning their reappointment, tenure, and promotion preparation. Using the sociological framework of diversity ideology, we analyzed longitudinal focus group data from eight ECTT faculty of color who entered academia during a period when race was positioned as a desirable commodity. Drawing on data tracing participants’ experiences with recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and advancement over their first two academic years at HWRUs, we found that these faculty recognized race as being “in vogue” but did not expect their organizations to possess the infrastructure to support meaningful racial equity efforts. While they anticipated surface-level DEI commitments, they encountered tensions between their own scholarly values and the types of impact their institutions expected them to make. Participants described vague tenure and promotion criteria as disempowering, enabling department chairs, deans, and senior leaders to exercise discretion to control faculty who challenged the status quo of whiteness. We offer recommendations for faculty and institutional leaders to disrupt the commodification and exploitation of ECTT faculty of color.