Higher education and I are going through a break-up, a conscious uncoupling, a disentanglement

by Tahirah Walker

I may need a divorce. Since 2005, I have been a servant leader at colleges and universities in and around Pittsburgh.

As I watched Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and MacArthur Genius Fellow Nikole Hannah-Jones deal with the typical lowballing of Black women I have come to know as the norm in higher ed, my throat felt dry. I found myself disgusted as I read about the controversy over Hannah-Jones being denied tenure* for a university position that traditionally comes with that benefit.

I had recently decided to step down from my position as executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion at a college in a neighboring state because the commute and stress had become too much for me. It was a hard decision, but I knew it had to be done for my health and well-being. I was invited to apply for two other positions at institutions I knew well. I jumped through the hoops of fire. I told them how much I would love to come work on their teams. I turned on my digital reputation monitor to watch out for terms that would flag me as undesirable if I posted them on my social media accounts, like “cops,” “racism” or “Black” or “lives” or “matter.” And then I waited.

I wrapped up projects, watched students graduate, cried with ones who didn’t and waited some more. Months went by, and I was faced with the reality that I was going to need to cast a wider net to land a new job in higher education.

I typically have not had faculty jobs. Those are very difficult to come by for women of color at PWIs (predominantly white institutions). Fun facts: One time a colleague at a university asked me what a PWI was. Another time a colleague at a university asked me what Title IX was.

The things that impact me at a university are not things everyone has to be concerned with, and no amount of diversity training has changed that fact in the last 16 years. The pay has been horrible. I once reported directly to a white woman who earned six times my salary, a fact I learned when I read the institution’s 990 to the IRS. I struggled to secure affordable housing. She had a residence on campus provided by the institution.

One time I found myself doing pedagogy and faculty support work for someone who I realized had never actually taught a course or held a faculty position anywhere ever.

Add to that the fact that I was on a team of nearly 70 people who had not been able to retain more than one or two workers of color for more than a matter of a few years. I was at the table with an all-white leadership team with only one or two people who had ever actually had to do the work we were leading, much less do the work of considering diversity, equity and inclusion.

Writer and teacher Tahirah Walker, photographed inside her Turtle Creek home. (Photo by Ryan Loew/PublicSource)

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Higher education and I are going through a break-up, a conscious uncoupling, a disentanglement

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