Navigating Anti-blackness: Black Student Affairs Professionals’ Stories of Administrators’ Use of Anti-blackness in Campus Statements

Through our critical race methodological study, we document 18 Black student affairs professionals’ experiences being scrutinized, surveilled, and policed in their roles while responding to racialized incidents. These stories challenge dominant ideologies by pointing to how administrators rarely recognize how their responses and rhetoric perpetuate anti-blackness. Our findings using critical race theory highlight how administrators’ campus statements use color-evasive and anti-black rhetoric, harming campus communities and Black student affairs professionals. The finding describes the process and ways that Black student affairs professionals write campus statements, and without them doing this, racialized incidents would rarely be addressed. Participants describe the psychological tools that these campus statements have on them, including how they are emotionally and mentally drained. Implications for practice and research are presented to assist administrators with crafting action-oriented statements and supporting Black student affairs professionals.