Uma Jayakumar | University of California, Riverside (original) (raw)

Papers by Uma Jayakumar

In this Special Issue introduction, I share lessons from five trailblazing scholars who contribut... more In this Special Issue introduction, I share lessons from five trailblazing scholars who contributed to developing CRT in education fields – Laurance Parker, Tara Yosso, David Gillborn, William Smith, and David Stovall. I put their reflections into conversation with the contributing authors of the Special Issue, which include Daniel Solórzano, Walter Allen, María Ledesma, Chezare Warren, Rican Vue, , and many more. As the host, of what I envisioned as sort of a dinner-party style introduction, I also share my own coming into CRT moments and the legacy I am proud to carry forward. We gather here to honor the liberatory impact of CRT, speak its intergenerational stories, and learn its lessons about our past, present and future: to name racism; to be in collective struggle; to create spaces of support, freedom, and possibility.

This paper may be helpful for challenging "moderate" and conservative activist claims about diver... more This paper may be helpful for challenging "moderate" and conservative activist claims about diversity statements violating academic freedom. Rather it supports understanding how to use diversity statement without doing so.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 2024

Purpose-In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision to effectively end race-conscious a... more Purpose-In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision to effectively end race-conscious admissions practices across the nation, this paper highlights the law's commitment to whiteness and antiblackness, invites us to mourn and to connect to possibility. Design/methodology/approach-Drawing from the theoretical contributions of Cheryl Harris, Jarvis Givens and Chezare Warren, as well as the wisdom of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's dissenting opinion, this paper utilizes CRT composite counterstory methodology to illuminate the antiblack reality of facially "raceneutral" admissions. Findings-By manifesting the impossible situation that SFFA and the Supreme Court's majority seek to normalize, the composite counterstory illuminates how Justice Jackson's hypothetical enacts a fugitive pedagogy within a dominant legal system committed to whiteness as property; invites us to mourn, to connect to possibility and to remain committed to freedom as an intergenerational project that is inherently humanizing. Originality/value-In a sobering moment where we face the end of race-conscious admissions, this paper uniquely grapples with the contradictions of affirmative action as minimally effective while also radically disruptive.

Thresholds, 2023

Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being ... more Over the past year, sweeping local and statewide policies framed as bans against "CRT" are being propagated to restrict how race and racism can be taught in K-12 schools across the nation. As a result, schools are increasingly becoming a place where teachers face interpersonal and professional risk for teaching about US racial realities, including threats to their professional licenses for engaging historical or current day topics of race, inequity and injustice. In this article, we first draw on CRT to analyze how CRT-bans leverage white defensiveness and white comfort to restrict instruction and discourse about systemic racism, thereby upholding it. Second, we describe a mixed methods research study with 117 teachers across the US that provides an initial look at how teachers are being harmed by these bans. The data suggests that CRT-bans are negatively impacting the racial climate of schools and contributing to the systematic pushout of teachers, particularly those committed to equity and inclusion. In addition to capturing teachers' experiences about the bans, we specifically examine the pressure teachers are experiencing and its exacerbation of an already national problem, teacher attrition. We end the article with evidence-based recommendations on ways schools might mitigate the harm of CRT-bans on teachers.

Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, 2022

Education Sciences, 2023

Higher education practices and policies are rooted in racism and imperialism. This causes physica... more Higher education practices and policies are rooted in racism and imperialism. This causes physical and emotional harm to BIPOC students. Yet, student affairs practitioners and higher education leaders struggle to stay conscious of the relationships between macro structures of oppression
and their deleterious educational, economic, health, and social consequences, when it comes time to assess, understand, and intervene in campus crises and racialized violence. Borrowing from the medical field, this paper offers “structural competency” as a framework for student affairs education and practice toward supporting practitioners prepared to mitigate systemic racism and to identify the social determinants of inequity. Structural competency in student affairs means having the capacity to
understand and take actions toward addressing the root causes of BIPOC students’ marginalization in historically white campus contexts. It requires deep attention to how these causes—polices, institutional norms, infrastructures, and the hegemonic beliefs embedded in our economic, social, and political systems—interact with students’ lived experiences on campus. Guided by a Critical Race Theory lens, structural competency moves us toward confronting the downstream consequences of upstream decisions such as admissions standards that disenfranchise BIPOC students, or how the federal financial aid formula fails to account for equity in home ownership which disproportionately harms Black families for the benefit of white ones, because of antiblack U.S. policies such as redlining, making college less accessible for BIPOC students. This paper argues that such a structural competency framework and mindset in policy and practice is crucial for higher education leaders confronting systemic institutional policies that have a cumulative and ongoing oppressive impact on BIPOC students.

The Journal of Higher Education, 2021

This study illuminates how common holistic admissions practices at so-called “elite” colleges and... more This study illuminates how common holistic admissions practices
at so-called “elite” colleges and universities favor high-SES,
high wealth applicants through the ways they define and consider
“exceptional” performance in extracurricular activities.
While many studies have established advantages to highincome
applicants based on school resources, standardized
testing, and myriad other factors, few have examined the consideration
of exceptional performance in extracurriculars.
Drawing on higher education literature and Bourdieu’s theory
of cultural capital, and utilizing high school and college athletics
data, the authors introduce and corroborate a mathematical
model that illuminates the accumulated advantages to wealthy
students on three fronts: opportunity, specialization (i.e.,
breadth of options available), and support. While this paper
focuses on elite athletics as one example of exceptional performance,
it also explores the usefulness of the model for understanding
how “race-neutral” admissions systematically
advantage high-income—and white—students.

This expert report was produced on behalf of the student of color intervenors in the SFFA v UNC i... more This expert report was produced on behalf of the student of color intervenors in the SFFA v UNC in the federal district court in North Carolina. The report tracks the importance of critical mass for reducing racial isolation and harm to minoritized students on college campuses and what's necessary to create healthy racial climates and learning environments where all students thrive. This report was cited by Judge Briggs in her decision to uphold race-conscious affirmative action at UNC. A decision that will likely be overturned by the ultra-conservative Supreme Court.

Scholars sought to inform the rapidly shifting conversation in Fisher with empirical research and... more Scholars sought to inform the rapidly shifting conversation in Fisher with empirical research and to address gaps and emerging questions. Now, lawyers and institutional leaders are being called upon to respond to the shifting post-Fisher landscape, and this response will be crucial. This article speaks directly to how we can utilize empirical research on diversity while adhering to the new precedent set by the court . Through an analysis of legal constructs and relevant social science evidence, my Liliana Garces and I provide a deeper understanding of critical mass, a concept that has become central in litigation efforts related to affirmative action admissions policies that seek to further the educational benefits of diversity.

This article was well received by scholars and was featured in a blog put out by the American Council on Education (ACE) Center for Policy Research and Strategy, also cross-listed in Diverse Issue in Higher Education. The piece noted, “In their timely April 2014 feature in Educational Researcher, Liliana M. Garces and Uma M. Jayakumar present what they call ‘dynamic diversity’ or an understanding of the conditions necessary for meaningful interactions among students within a given institutional context.” It goes on to summarize four key areas for ensuring student engagement and learning within diverse environments that outlined in our article.

Harvard Educational Review, 2015

In this article, Uma M. Jayakumar investigates the cumulative impact of experiences with segregat... more In this article, Uma M. Jayakumar investigates the cumulative impact of experiences with segregation or racial diversity prior to and during college on colorblind ideological orientation among white adults. An analysis of longitudinal data spanning ten years reveals that, for whites from segregated and diverse childhood neighborhoods, some experiences in college may increase colorblind thinking, while others may facilitate a greater understanding of the racial context of US society. Segregated white environments, or white habitus, before, during, and after college are associated with whites' colorblind ideological orientations, with negative implications for racial justice. Campus racial diversity experiences can play a role in diminishing the influence of white habitus but are not necessarily doing so. In other words, the challenges of addressing colorblind orientation are greater for white students from segregated neighborhoods and high schools who also tend to choose segregat...

In this article, my co-authors and I point to the dehumanizing nature of typical college-going pr... more In this article, my co-authors and I point to the dehumanizing nature of typical college-going processes embedded within many K–12 environments, which foster an oppressive college-going culture. We document counter-narratives of community agency and resistance to exclusionary schooling practices and their subsequent impact on the college-going processes of black students and other students of color. We present an alternative model, rooted in community and student resistance, that is a humanizing pathway nurtured by a liberatory college-going culture, where community cultural wealth is a catalyst for cultural integrity and transformative resistance and ultimately allows students of color to enter college as a challenge to social reproduction.

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research

In this chapter, the authors connect the evolution of diversity research to the outcomes of key U... more In this chapter, the authors connect the evolution of diversity research to the outcomes of key U.S. Supreme Court cases over the last four decades. They discuss how constraints in early understandings of diversity have allowed for the concept to be co-opted and diluted, thereby limiting diversity as a tool for addressing racial inequality and advocacy today. Employing a critical race praxis for educational research (CRP-Ed) lens, which draws from Derrick Bell’s thesis of interest convergence, the authors explain the contradictions of engaging in the debate about how race can be considered in higher education, and assert the need for a new critical reframing of diversity in order to advance research, policy, and discourse. The authors conclude the chapter by highlighting recent empirical and theoretical work that can inform a new agenda for diversity research toward advancing racial equity in postsecondary education. This chapter will be of interest to higher education scholars and practitioners who have a strategic critical orientation toward diversity research, as well as those who are interested in developing a critical consciousness.

Education Sciences

In the context of ongoing antagonism on college campuses, attacks on Critical Race Theory, and wi... more In the context of ongoing antagonism on college campuses, attacks on Critical Race Theory, and widespread backlash against racial justice initiatives, this paper underscores the growing need to recognize co-optation and other counterinsurgent strategies used against racial justice to make room for transformative scholarship. By presenting qualitative interviews from 15 white HBCU students, we illustrate how diversity research, advocacy, and organizing previously used to advocate for racial justice has instead constructed distorted understandings of race and racism and has been used to expand ideologies of whiteness. The findings show what CRT scholars have cautioned about for decades—when left uninterrupted, ahistorical approaches to racial diversity programming and research may lend to the co-optation of justice-focused diversity language and the appropriation of BIPOC strategies of resistance. This not only inhibits and detracts from racial justice work, but can function to expand...

The Journal of Higher Education, 2009

The Journal of Higher Education, 2016