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Paper short abstract:

Focusing on how scholars of Black Studies face challenges from Higher Ed institutions within the US and beyond, this paper examines how they resist and navigate the ongoing popularity of symbolic diversity to reimagine classrooms and new modes of knowledge production through their activism.

Paper long abstract:

Black Studies in the United States was birthed out of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s. Since the founding of the first Black Studies Department at San Francisco State University, black studies have been needed to counter the white-dominated narratives in the space of Higher Ed, aiming toward a new mode of knowledge production and transgression. Rather than providing the missing piece to the puzzle, black studies scholarship overturns the narrative: "Black History is not a part of American History, it's the American History itself." The historicity of Black Studies determines the political nature of the discipline itself, as well as its scholar-activism-oriented approach. It brings no surprise that the discipline is under constant attack from Right-Wing groups' Anti-Critical Race Theory campaigns. However, what's more than often neglected is how these activist scholars also face institutions as resistant to their work despite the ongoing narratives of diversity and political correctness.

As Sarah Ahmed reminds us that there exists a gap between symbolic commitments to diversity and the experiences of diversity practitioners, this paper explores how the institutionalization of diversity and the relevant policies (such as Affirmative Actions for students and Affirmative Employment Programs) obscure the racist and exclusionary practices. More importantly, this paper focuses on how black scholars gear toward new modes of knowledge production, redefine and reimagine inclusive spaces, and ultimately challenge higher education institutions.