Higher Education Needs Black Women's Leadership, But Is It Ready for Our Voices?

The challenges and gifts of Black women's willingness to speak up

This is the third installment in a series on Black women’s experiences in higher education in observance of Women’s History Month. The following is an excerpt from an article published in Presbyterian Outlook in May 2022, “Are White Christians Ready for Black Women’s Voices?”

“How’d the meeting go?” my mother asks. I know what she’s really asking. 

“I said something,” I sigh.

“No!” she cries. “You were supposed to keep quiet.”

As I left the house that morning, I had pledged to remain silent during that afternoon’s meeting. I was tired of being the outlier, tired of raising issues that no one else seemed to consider, tired of offering a divergent perspective. I was especially tired of arguing. So I promised myself that this time, I would be quiet. It did not work. It hardly ever does.

Speaking for More Than Ourselves

In 1989, Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term, “intersectionality,” to describe how multiple forms of oppression interact to impact Black women’s identities, experiences, and needs. Black women are not just targeted by racism and sexism; we are targeted by gendered racism and racialized sexism. And that’s just the baseline for all Black women. Many of us are further impacted by classism, heterosexism, ableism, and xenophobia. Our intersectional existence is not just a burden. It can also gift us with a unique lens through which to view the dynamics of privilege and oppression. It not only gifts us with unique voices; it predisposes us to use our voices in ways that other people do not.

As what sociologist Patricia Hill Collins deems “outsiders within,” Black women in academic and congregational leadership occupy different stances than do White women or cisgender Black men, who embody more complex and sometimes contradictory relationships to power and oppression. White women are often unwilling to use their voices in ways that jeopardize their relationships with other White people. Cisgender Black men will often speak up only to the degree that it does not risk their access to the “good ‘ol boy” networks that are controlled by White men. And Black men broadly are uniquely constrained when White women are the authority figures, having the walk the tightrope between male privilege and racial oppression. 

The intersectional existence of Black women means that even our educational and economic privilege does not give us access to the full power of insider status. Black women are often assumed to be lower class no matter our socioeconomic status. It’s an assumption that even fame and fortune cannot protect us from, as Oprah Winfrey experienced in 2013 when a Swiss boutique employee refused to show her a $38,000 handbag, claiming that it was too expensive for the billionaire celebrity. 

With these assumptions constraining us at every turn, Black women are more likely than other racial-gender groups to recognize that our silence will neither protect nor benefit us. The racial-gender glass ceiling means that we have less to gain by being silent, but also less to lose by speaking truth to power. Indeed, many of us infiltrate predominantly White spaces so that our voices will be used to benefit and hopefully protect others whose access to institutional power is even further from our own: students, congregants, and support staff from marginalized and underrepresented groups. This sense of collective responsibility is central to womanists, as captured in Alice Walker’s definition of the term: “Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people…Traditionally capable, as in: ‘Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.’ Reply: ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’” When womanists speak, it is not only for ourselves.

We Don’t Need Your Silent Allyship

The synergy between the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements has greatly increased the demand for Black women as leaders in academic and ecclesial spaces. At least in theory, administrators and colleagues recognize the value of diverse voices in organizations that are culturally homogeneous. Our intersectional identities and our commitments to justice, inclusion, and equity help us to see problems and possibilities that others do not. Since we are often “last hired,” we rarely have the tenure in organizations that weds us tightly to tradition. Our views are not as entrenched. We are also more likely to have experience in different types of institutions, academic and ecclesial, thus expanding our visions of how things could be. 

These are valuable qualities to institutions that are serious about change. But even among willing participants, change is difficult. Rarely are our White colleagues prepared for the increased discomfort that our voices bring. They are not ready for us to point out the problems we see in their long-cherished traditions and procedures – the inherent cultural biases and assumptions, the patterns of exclusion and privilege, and the gaps between what the institution claims to value and what it actually practices. They are not ready for what we say, how we say it, or the fact that we say it at all. Our divergence is read as disruptive. Our voices are seen as threats to interpersonal relationships and institutional power. 

I once sat through a particularly tense meeting where I was the lone faculty person objecting to a new policy being proposed by the dean. Having served at a wider range of institutions than most of my colleagues, I had some clear ideas about the drawbacks of his proposal, and I said so. My open disagreement was a departure from the institution’s southern White culture, with its deference to authority, indirect communication, and passive-aggressive approach to conflict. The discomfort of my White colleagues was visceral as the dean and I verbally sparred. One male colleague even tried to downplay my critique, saying that I actually agreed with the proposal, but was pointing out ways it could be improved. I quickly retorted that was not the case and that I had, in fact, “said what I said.”

After the meeting ended and the dean had left the room, a White female colleague asked if we needed someone to intervene to repair the breach in our relationship. While I did not think our difference of opinion represented a breach, I walked directly to the dean’s office. “Hey, I just want to make sure we’re okay. I know I was tough on you in there, but it was because I knew you’re a straight-shooter and you can take it.” 

He laughed: “One thing that I know about you is that if I tell you an idea that you dislike, you’ll let me know on the spot. I don’t have to guess what you think. Your colleagues, though, will smile and nod, letting me think I’m on the right track. Then three days later, they’ll send a five-page email telling me why they disagree. Meanwhile, I’ve been wasting my time pushing forward something that won’t work.” We agreed that we would keep sparring and we would let one another know if it crossed the line. 

Ironically, in the days that followed, multiple colleagues approached to let me know that they agreed with my critique of the proposal and were glad that I spoke up.

This is the most maddening aspect of all: the silent pseudo-allyship of White colleagues who rely upon us to voice the perspectives that they are unwilling to speak, despite having the institutional and interpersonal power to do so. Repeatedly, they leave Black women out on a ledge, even when they have promised to accompany us. After watching from a distance as we bear the brunt of being the solo voice, they sidle up surreptitiously like Nicodemus in the night, happy to reap the benefits of our risk-taking. “Thank you for speaking up. I agree with everything you said.” It is a scene that plays out again and again, at least until weary of being the sacrificial lamb, we commit ourselves to silence.

“Today,” I said to my mother, “I am not going to say anything.”

And yet I did.