Reformulating the Concept of “Microaggressions”: Everyday Discrimination in Academia

This chapter explores the adoption of a broader conceptual framework for the racial and gender forms of marginalization, exclusion, and other discrimination in higher education. It examines issues surrounding concepts like “identity” and “identity politics” that are often used in discussions and efforts to deal with campus diversity issues. The chapter demonstrates that the major and long-lasting psychological and career consequences of racial and gender discrimination—what are, in effect, much more than “micro” aggressions and inequities. It explores these issues more fully, with a systemic racism and systemic sexism focus. Under the aegis of commonplace elite white male dominance in higher education much unmeritocratic and inequitable decision-making unfolds. Thematic types of differential treatment of nondominant racial and gender groups in major US institutions, including higher education, include the use of subjective and unpublished evaluation criteria, lack of realistic feedback, racially biased or gender-biased evaluations of performance, and absence of sustained faculty or administrative support.