Toward a theory of STEM academic departments as racialized organizations

Critical and STEM higher education scholars document how the fallacy of White supremacy has produced racialized macro-level (e.g., state) and micro-level (e.g., individual) structures gatekeeping the self-actualization and innovation of racially minoritized people and their communities. Although important, there has been an undertheorization of how meso-level structures like STEM academic departments gatekeep racially minoritized people and their knowledge systems. In this paper, we leverage theory of racialized organizations to illustrate how STEM academic departments in United States research-intensive, predominantly White institutions (PWIs) function as organizational sites of racial inequity. We use critical theory and empirical studies to explain how this racialized gatekeeping occurs through four structures: (1) graduate admissions and faculty hiring, (2) research, (3) instruction, and (4) service. Overall, this paper provides a conceptual and practical blueprint of how STEM academic departments, through their organizational rules and routines, maintain White racially hierarchies in STEM ecosystems. We conclude by offering examples of how STEM academic departments can engage, challenge, and disrupt their racially exclusionary organizational practices, so racially minoritized people and knowledge systems can survive and thrive in STEM ecosystems.