Journal Articles (Select)

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What’s Under Attack: Activism and Institutional Conflict Within U.S. Higher Education

Katherine Cho, Loyola University Chicago
Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Michigan
Demetri L. Morgan, University of Michigan

Within the United States, the targeted efforts against Critical Race Theory, political machinations against higher education governance, and the use of surveillance on liberatory protests, reveals a complicated nexus regarding educational activism and institutional navigation. Through the Actors, Contexts, Tactics, and Strategies (A.C.T.S.) Framework, we offer an expansive understanding of the who, what, how, when, and where of activism. By applying this framework to three distinct yet interrelated examples on legislative fights against diversity, tenure and governance, and pro-Palestine activism, we illuminate the role of institutional mechanics to reimagine the institutional fatality of ‘this is just how things are’ and an inevitable political tide. In doing so, this manuscript offers a robust analysis of institutionalism, opposition, support, and transformation.

Suggested Citation

Cho, K. S., Davis, C. H., & Morgan, D. L. (2024). What’s under attack: Activism and institutional conflict within US higher education. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/17461979241291009

Campus Policing: Eight Steps Toward Abolition

Jude Paul Matias Dizon, California State University, Stanislaus
Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Michigan

Over the last 60 years, campus police departments have been established as the main form of security and safety in colleges and universities. In recent years, higher education leaders have been forced to confront the negative impact of police presence on Black and racially minoritized campus populations. Following the insights of student activists and abolitionist movements, we argue that the nature of campus policing has been misunderstood and misrepresented, consequently obscuring the inherent racist violence that policing generates. We propose that higher education leaders and policymakers take seriously contemporary calls to defund and abolish campus police in order to craft safer and more empowering campus environments for minoritized populations on campus and in surrounding communities. We synthesize the demands of social movement organizations and work by scholar–activists to outline eight steps to campus police abolition, which provide concrete humanizing, transformative alternatives to the current system of punishment, surveillance, and control.

Suggested Citation

Dizon, J. P. M., & Davis, C. H. F., III (2024, February 15). Campus Policing: Eight Steps Toward Abolition. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000567

Social Movements and Activism: Reexamining Scholarship to Center the Urban Community College

Demetri L. Morgan, Loyola University Chicago
Katherine S. Cho, Loyola University Chicago
Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Michigan
Johnnie Campbell, Loyola University Chicago

In this article, the authors focus on the intersection of the study of activism and the urban community college. Leveraging the Actors, Contexts, Tactics, and Strategies (ACTS) Framework, the authors (re)examine activism scholarship that illuminates similarities and differences between 2- and 4-year institutions. Ultimately, the article concludes with implications for practice and future research that can deepen and sustain the position of community colleges as contributors to the rich legacy of urban activism.

Suggested Citation

Morgan, D. L., Cho, K. S., Davis III, C. H. F., & Campbell, J. (2023). Social movements and activism: Reexamining scholarship to center the urban community college. In E. A. Smith & M. T. Miller (Eds.), Understanding the complexities and roles of urban community colleges. New Directions for Community Colleges, pp. 121–133. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 

In Defense of Dignitary Safety: A Phenomenological Study of Student Resistance to Hate Speech on Campus

Sy C. Stokes, University of Michigan
Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Michigan

Frequent incidents of racist hate speech on college and university campuses continue to instigate an ideological battleground between legal purists, anti- racist scholars, and those otherwise situated somewhere therein. We find that arguments from legal purists are predicated upon a false-equivalency between racist and anti-racist speech where the effect, value, and embedded power dynamics of the former are often disregarded. We engage in a phenomenological analysis of a four-year, private institution – Clearview College (CVC)—where a controversial speaker was invited to campus by a conservative student organization. We specifically interrogate how the seemingly race-neutral free speech policies at CVC, which were informed by the “Chicago Principles,” were racially structured in impact. We utilize a conceptual framework that demarcates intellectual safety and dignitary safety as a foundational point of departure to analyze the responses from 20 undergraduate students. The responses from focus groups revealed two primary themes: (1) racist hate speech as a threat to dignitary safety, and (2) institutional retribution against students defending their dignitary safety. Implications for higher education policy and praxis are provided.

Suggested Citation

Stokes, S., & Davis III, C. H. F. (2022). In defense of dignitary safety: A phenomenological study of student resistance to hate speech on campus. Peabody Journal of Education, DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2022.2125760

Lest We Forget: Continuing Historically Black Colleges and Universities’ Legacy of Fostering Social Change

Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Michigan
Felecia Commodore, Old Dominion University
Kaya King, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Since their inception, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have served as proving grounds for redressing our nation’s disenfranchisement of Black people from the everyday rights and responsibilities of American life. However, in addition to producing most of the nation’s Black professionals (including doctors, engineers, lawyers, and professors), HBCUs are preeminent producers (and incubators) of civically engaged students who lead fights for civil rights and social justice. Of course, when considering the civic legacies of HBCUs, one need not struggle to identify visible figures like Martin Luther King Jr. (Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia); Ella Baker (Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina); and Bayard Rustin (Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and Cheney University in Cheney, Pennsylvania). But, lest we forget, innumerable others, through their collective civic participation, undergird HBCU students’ longstanding tradition of organized resistance.

Suggested Citation

Davis III, C. H. F., Commodore, F., & King, K. (2020). Lest we forget: Continuing historically Black colleges and universities' legacy of fostering social change. Diversity & Democracy, 22(4), 12-13.

Suppressing Campus Protests and Political Engagement in U.S. Higher Education: Insights from the Protest Policy Project™

Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Southern California

This paper summarizes pilot-study research undertaken by the Protest Policy Project (PPP), a national postsecondary effort that aims to critically assess, analyze, and counter-legislate policies aimed at punishing students participating in campus protest. In addition to voting, campus protest and activism are considered critical dimensions of student political engagement and participatory democracy (Morgan & Davis, 2019; Rhoads, 1998). The pilot study primarily examined policies related to free speech and student protest within the context of Wisconsin’s legislative entities, which included the Wisconsin State Assembly, University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, and institutions separate from the University of Wisconsin System. More specifically, policies related to university speech codes, and those intended to punish students engaged in organized resistance to the presence of hate speech on campus, were assessed.

Suggested Citation

Davis III, C. H. F. (2019). Suppressing Campus Protests and Political Engagement in U.S. Higher Education: Insights from the Protest Policy ProjectTM. Currents, 1(1), 105-116. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/currents.17387731.0001.109

But Is It Activist?: Interpretive Criteria for Activist Scholarship in Higher Education 

Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Southern California
Jessica C. Harris, University of California, Los Angeles
Sy C. Stokes, University of Southern California

The palpable dissatisfaction and concerns of students, staff, and faculty—often in the form of protests and demonstrations—continue to challenge contemporary college and university campuses. Practical considerations notwithstanding, what remains are questions regarding how higher education scholars can align their research with broader sociopolitical aims to engage postsecondary education and its stakeholders in organized resistance. In this article, we offer interpretive criteria by which the study of higher education can better understand, and postsecondary researchers can more deliberately engage in, the production of activist scholarship.

Suggested Citation

Davis III, C. H. F., Harris, J. C., Stokes, S., & Harper, S. R. (2019). But Is It Activist?: Interpretive Criteria for Activist Scholarship in Higher Education. The Review of Higher Education, 42(5), 85-108.

In Search of Progressive Black Masculinities: Critical Self-Reflections on Gender Identity Development among Black Undergraduate Men

Keon M. McGuire, University of Pennsylvania
Jonathan Berhanu, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Charles H.F. Davis III, University of Pennsylvania

During the last several decades, research concerning the developmental trajectories, experiences, and behaviors of college men as ‘‘gendered’’ persons has emerged. In this article, we first critically review literature on Black men’s gender development and expressions within college contexts to highlight certain knowledge gaps. We then conceptualize and discuss progressive Black masculinities by relying on Mutua’s germinal work on the subject. Further, we engage Black feminist scholarship, both to firmly situate our more pressing argument for conceptual innovation and to address knowledge gaps in the literature on Black men’s gender experiences. It is our belief that scholars who study gender development and expressions of masculinities among Black undergraduate men could benefit from employing autocritography, and its built-in assumptions, to inform several aspects of their research designs. Autocritography is a critical autobiography that some Black pro-feminist men engage to invite readers into their gendered lifeworlds.

Suggested Citation

McGuire, K. M., Berhanu, J., & Davis III, C. H. F., & Harper, S. R. (2014). In search of progressive Black masculinities: Critical self-reflections on gender identity development among Black undergraduate men. Men and Masculinities, 17(3) 253-277.