What follows is an excerpt of my new book with Jeff Liou entitled, Christianity and Critical Race Theory: A Faithful and Constructive Conversation (Baker Academic 2023). In the excerpt below, I discuss my painful experience of being recruited for an executive-level administrative diversity position at a Christian university. My experience is quite common among Latina/o administrators and other faculty and administrators of Color.
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Several years ago, I was invited to apply for an executive- level administrative diversity position at a Christian university. After much prayer and reflection, I thought I should at least put my hat in the ring. I was excited by the opportunity to integrate my years of experience of teaching and leadership within the secular academy with my pastoral experience of training and mobilizing students, professors, campus ministries, and local churches in issues of race, diversity, and Christianity. I thought to myself, What a dream it would be to live an integrated life of ministry and academic vocation and to help shepherd a Christian university in issues of diversity and inclusion from a Christ-centered and biblical perspective…
In hindsight, there were some serious warning signs during the interview—some of which I can share publicly, and others that I do not feel would be ethically appropriate to share. Something just didn’t smell right. The warning signs that I will discuss exemplify many of the barriers that hinder Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries from keeping step with the Spirit’s work in the US church. In what follows, I will draw from my personal experience—my counterstory— and from the CRT frameworks of reactionary color blindness and the voices of color thesis to analyze some of these common barriers to the diversification of Christian colleges and seminaries, local churches, denominational leadership, and nonprofit organizations and parachurch ministries.
Red Flag 1: Racial Passivity and Lack of Sincere Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
In my conversation with one senior campus leader, I mentioned that although the level of student body diversity was strong on the campus, the issue of faculty diversity was a significant concern. I noted that UCLA’s faculty was twice as diverse as the faculty at this Christian university. I also shared my ideas for faculty diversification in light of my positive experiences with programs like the Ford Foundation and the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. How amazing it would be to create a pipeline of recruitment for faculty of color in the CCCU based on these models in the “secular world” that have been producing positive results for decades. In response, I was told that they thought faculty diversity would naturally flow from a diverse student body. Every bone in my body knows that this is not true. In fact, five decades of social scientific research in education proves the opposite point. As will be discussed further below, this passive approach evinces an opposition to the proactive creation of programs designed to improve diverse, equitable representation in the faculty and administrative leadership of Christian colleges and universities.
Red Flags 2 and 3: Lack of Transparency and Resistance to Outside Accountability; Hostile Campus Climate for Students of Color.
This university had recently had a diversity audit conducted by, ironically, UCLA. Since I could not track down the findings of this audit online, I asked the search committee for a summary of the audit. I was told that the faculty and staff did not even know the details of the audit because the findings had not been publicly released. It was also shared with me that the university disagreed with the metrics utilized by the UCLA audit to measure its diversity; the school claimed that it was doing a better job at diversity than was reported by the audit. In addition, when I met with students of color during the campus interview, there was much pain in their eyes and in the stories they shared. They expressed concerns of a racial climate that was largely inhospitable to their perspectives and experiences.
Red Flag 4: Racially Monolithic Senior Cabinet.
Another concern had to do with the cultural makeup of the existing senior leadership and the decision-making structure of the university. Members of the senior administration with whom I met were almost exclusively white. I do not recall a single Latina/o or Asian American senior administrator. To give them the credit they deserve, they also seemed to be earnest about the desire for increased racial diversity in the univer- sity ranks. Some were “woke,” and most acknowledged that diversity was a needed biblical goal that they were seeking guidance in how to pursue—only a minority seemed resistant. One person made a negative and uninformed comment about CRT, but I was willing to let that slide. I was also bluntly honest with them when I said, “If you are not really open to ‘going there,’ please do not hire me. It would be a travesty for me to leave UCLA to come to an institution that was not serious about change.” One administrator replied that they could not afford to not go there. And a board of trustees member seemed to concur.
Red Flag 5: Disregard for Democratic Processes and Voices of Color.
At the end of the exhaustive search process, one troubling signal also occurred that forecast the final decision to be made. Though the diverse hiring committee recommended my name be put forward as the single finalist for the position, the senior leader charged with making the decision did not agree. He instructed the committee to include the name of an internal candidate on the list of finalists. In the end, a decision was made that would lead to the maintenance of the racial status quo on this particular campus.
Unfortunately, as Peter Rios,Senior Organization Development Consultant and Executive Coach at Harvard University, examines in Untold Stories: The Latinx Leadership Experience in Higher Education, my negative experience with the hiring process in Christian higher education fits a larger, consistent pattern…”
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To read more, see: Robert Chao Romero, Jeff Liou. Christianity and Critical Race Theory: A Faithful and Constructive Conversation