Governance Boards and Student Activism: Responding to Racism

Abstract

Colleges and universities continue to contend with issues of campus racism, often illuminated by student concerns. Within these ongoing conversations, governance boards play a critical part in engaging with campus issues. Utilizing critical discourse analysis, this study examines two universities through 2000 documents of board meeting minutes, agendas, student newspapers, and campus archives to scrutinize the language, framing, and decision-making of board efforts with diversity, equity, inclusion, and addressing student concerns. Findings illuminate aspects of the Institutional Response Framework and interest-convergence in the ways boards rationalize decisions through concerns about reputation and protecting the university’s best interests.

Keywords

• governance boards
• board of trustees
• student activism
• campus accountability
• racism
• student protests