Deciding Together as Faculty: Narratives of Unanticipated Consequences in Gendered and Racialized Departmental Service, Promotion, and Voting

Abstract

Abstract Workplace inequalities scholarship often assumes making people aware of problems will lead to change, although gendered and racialized organizations theories show systemic problems beyond individual awareness. Still, not enough research analyzes the narratives of savvy organizational actors – like university faculty aware of inequalities – to understand the mechanisms operating against leveraging that knowledge for change. Data consist of 10 group interviews with 45 faculty across departments in one US public university, supplemented by content analysis of 56 departments’ written bylaws. Findings focus on three common shared decisions: committee service, hiring/promotion, and voting practices. We find awareness of inequality may actually reinforce the status quo when narratives about gendered and racialized processes feature decoupling from formal bylaws, and when narratives about outcomes relate to multiple layers of unanticipated consequences favoring whiteness and men. Specifically, inequality is reproduced when narratives about gendered and racialized unanticipated consequences: 1) highlight the imperviousness of change, as in the difficulty of allocating service work equitably, 2) lack reflexivity and shift responsibility to ‘other’ groups – ‘faculty’ or ‘administrators’ – as in unequal hiring and promotion decisions, and 3) focus on standard old boy stories which obscure other inequalities, as in faculty voting where non-tenure track rank inequality obscures race/gender inequalities. When unanticipated consequences narratives have dimensions of fatalism, finger pointing, and blindness to intersectionality, white men may continue to benefit. This study shows how formal policies and awareness of inequalities may still fail to produce change.