Master of Science / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Doris Wright Carroll / Privilege and its’ impact on the racial and social constructs of fraternity and sorority life is an issue that has plagued the past and continues to determine the future. The examination of literature and the application of both Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminist Theory provides the theoretical framework for defining this issue. While White privilege does not answer all questions regarding race and how it determines sorority and fraternity membership, it does seek to address issues surrounding the traditions and customs in fraternity and sorority life. Additionally, in using a Critical Race Feminist perspective it seeks to address issues regarding the formalized sorority recruitment process used by traditionally White sororities and its impact on multicultural students. As a result of the findings within the literature, the traditional practices fraternities and sororities cling to only further draw discriminatory barriers between traditionally White Greek organizations and potential multicultural members. Furthermore, if this issue is not addressed within both higher education and Greek life it could signal further racially dividing issues. With the impact of biracial and multiracial students becoming more prevalent on campuses, student affairs practitioners must work to redefine what race and ethnicity mean in terms of student affiliation and involvement. Future research must study the impact of segregated governing organizations and their impact on creating cohesion between multicultural and traditionally White fraternal organizations.

The relationship between the police and African Americans has been fraught for some time. In the 2010s, amid the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, the relationship between African Americans and the police was marked by serious tensions including racism, White privilege, and perceptions of police brutality. The purpose of this case study was to explore the current relationship between the police and the Black Lives Matter social movement and assess movement activists' perceptions of police actions. The theoretical framework for this qualitative case study was based on procedural justice and the reason of actions component of Derrick Bell's critical race theory. Data for this study included more than 1,000 social media postings from Facebook and Twitter; 205 public documents, which included police interactions, incident reports, and interviews; and 25 observations from public gatherings between 2013-2016. Data were coded into a priori themes and then content analyzed. Findings indicated that the Black Lives Matter movement generally increases the tensions in the relationship between the police and African Americans, creating emotional strain due to activists' messages of racism, White privilege, and violence. Recommendations included expanding open communication with the police, providing more training for the police, and encouraging police officers to control their actions when having interactions with African Americans, all of which may result in positive social change. The study findings provided a blueprint for community policing in minority communities.

Past research indicates that having a similar life experience as another person leads to greater empathic concern towards that person. Two studies empirically investigated if similar experiences of race-based social identity threat can increase the empathic concern of White Americans toward African Americans. Study 1 revealed that White Americans randomly assigned to think about White privilege and then randomly assigned to read a passage about an African American whose accomplishments are attributed to Affirmative Action policies (versus an African American whose accomplishments are attributed to his hard work and merit) felt greater empathic concern toward the African American described in the passage. This effect was significantly mediated by stereotype threat feelings and moderated by group identity. Study 2 revealed that White Americans randomly assigned to think about how others think they have benefited from White privilege and then randomly assigned to read a passage about an African American whose accomplishments are attributed to Affirmative Action policies (versus an African American whose accomplishments are attributed to his hard work and merit) felt greater empathic concern toward the African American described in the passage only when mediated by stereotype threat feelings or stereotype threat cognitions. This mediated effect was moderated by merit identity. This suggests that White American participants do not see the literal similarities between the scenarios of race based social identity threat to merit but can see the similarities in internal feelings and cognitions that both experiences create. Collectively, these studies suggest a novel consideration of social identity and understanding of intergroup processes.

This thesis explores and seeks to unsettle the tenacity of white settler privilege in child and youth care (CYC). I first acknowledge the significant leadership of Indigenous and nonwhite activist-scholars to address the ongoing overrepresentation of Indigenous families across colonial systems in which CYC practitioners work. This qualitative study interrogates how white settler CYC practitioners approach issues of colonial and systemic racialized violence targeting Indigenous children, youth, families, and communities. Experienced, politicized frontline practitioners working in the CYC field were invited to examine how they understand, name, reproduce, contest, and struggle with white settler privilege in their practice. My study findings are organized along four themes that attend to systemic issues and the difficulty of challenging dominant white norms and conventions in the CYC field: (1) working in colonial violence and racism; (2) white settler fragility; (3) power and privilege; and (4) troubling allyship in the CYC field. The findings explore the complex individual and collective ethical responsibilities of white settler CYC practitioners and formulate responsive, embodied ethics rooted in solidarity and an anticolonial, antiracist, intersectional praxis. / Graduate / 2020-09-04

In this work , I analyze the emergence of a series of Supreme Court cases in the Rehnquist and Roberts era which frame race-conscious legislation as discriminatory against whites; and which are responded to by the conservative justices as though anticlassification and reverse-discrimination are indeed rights claims. I analyze the response of the conservative justices to such claims, and posit that response of the conservative Justices to such cases constitutes activism. Further, the emergence of these cases can be attributed to the entrenchment of a colorblind narrative that is by its very nature not grounded in social reality, or historical context; and which aims to elevate the privileges of whiteness into rights. The implications of these narratives and conservative judicial activism will have monumental consequences for minority populations of color in the country.

This dissertation seeks to help teachers understand the ways that affect is tied to the dominant ideology of white supremacy in contemporary U.S. society. It argues that affect the complex confluence of feeling and judgmentis bound intricately to racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, etc. In this work I attempt to deconstruct the social construction of affect that fuels dominant white ideology what some scholars call whiteness in the context of white teachers and students in the cultural studies writing classroom. With the lofty yet ultimately empowering goal of effecting anti-racist change in the classroom and in the profession, I trace affective dimensions of whiteness (such as fear, blame, defensiveness, and denial) revealed by white teachers and students. Clinging to the myths of meritocracy, individualism, and the American Dream, white teachers and students often unknowingly perpetuate dominance based on white privilege.

This thesis examines the role of racialized practices in the discourses and processes that alter place identity. Drawing on ethnography from the East Village of Buckhead, a once vibrant nightlife district in Atlanta, I examine how discourses of danger, colorblindness, and the race card have been employed to “whitewash” the discussions about the redevelopment of the Village. In effect, the business and civic elite of Atlanta (and Buckhead) deployed racialized conceptualizations of group identity. In particular, they utilized “public safety” discourses to influence the Atlanta city government to support the redevelopment effort. This led to the elimination of the establishments that attracted African American partygoers in large numbers. Using interviews with government agents, night club operators, and Buckhead civic and business leaders, combined with archival analysis of newspaper accounts, I implemented a hybrid content-discourse analysis to explore the ways in which the discourses of race and place concerning the East Village changed between 2000 and 2008.

Counseling Psychology has emphasized the importance of using multicultural and social justice frameworks in psychotherapy to avoid reenacting in session the privilege and oppression dynamics that exist in larger society. People of Color have historically underutilized psychotherapy services and have higher attrition rates when they do attend therapy, even though they have been more likely to face more sources of psychological distress (Kearney, Draper, & Baron, 2005; Sue & Sue, 2008). Additionally, White therapists have been over-represented in professional and training settings (Fouad & Arredondo, 2007; Hays & Chang, 2003). Add to that the fact that therapists have been trained in and practice psychotherapy theories developed primarily by White men and you have a system of counseling that works for some and not all. Thus, White therapists could be at risk for harming their clients of Color, and possibly their White clients as well, because of the utilization of these Euro-centrically biased ways of conceptualizing and treating clients (Mindrup, Spray, & Lamberghini-West, 2011). In this study, I examined the impact of therapist-reported White privilege attitudes on client-reported counseling outcomes and the therapeutic relationship. Participating therapists (N = 36) were recruited from a community mental health agency in the southeast and administered measures of White privilege attitudes, multicultural knowledge and awareness, and motivation to control prejudiced reactions. Outcome and therapeutic relationship data from clients of participating therapists, seen between fall 2012 and fall 2013 semesters, were provided by the agency. Therapist self-reported White privilege attitudes were not directly predictive of therapy outcomes and the therapeutic alliance. Therapists’ willingness to confront White privilege, White privilege remorse, and apprehension about addressing White privilege moderated the effects first session outcome scores and client gender had on number of sessions attended by clients. Client race/ethnicity was not directly predictive of therapy outcome scores or therapeutic alliance scores. However, client race/ethnicity varied significantly across therapists, suggesting that therapists were differentially effective. Results of this study indicate that therapist White privilege awareness has an effect on outcomes and the therapeutic alliance, although the relationship is complicated. Study limitations, strengths, and implication for future research are discussed.

This study contains qualitative portraits based on the stories of three white university professors who are nominated by their students as white allies. Through the thick description of setting and context, white privilege is named as the researcher's experience and that of each of the participants. The researcher examines ways in which each participant strives to disrupt racism. Using a lens of critical theory applied through critical pedagogy and critical whiteness philosophies, the researcher highlights the following themes as they emerge: education, exposure, empathy, and engagement. This study contributes to the literature by providing examples of white professors challenging racism in a university setting.

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Kakali Bhattacharya / There is minimal scholarship related to modern Osage perspectives in the field of education. Yet, the pursuit of cultural healing relies on self-representation to move Osages toward a higher degree of self-determination, and calls for voices within the community who share zones of cultural and professional intersectionality. Using Red Pedagogy (Grande, 2008) and traditional Osage ribbon work (Dennison, 2012, 2013) as a framework, this critical Indigenous autoethnographic inquiry works to advance conversations about settler-colonial entanglements in education from the perspective of an Indigenous (Osage)-White educator and educational leadership doctoral student. This inquiry uses writing as both field and method (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005) to explore Osage perspectives related to topics of Transformational Indigenous Praxis (Pewewardy, 2017), White privilege (McIntosh, 2003) as a pale-skinned American Indian, American Indian mascots (Pewewardy, 2000) from educational leadership perspectives (NPBEA, 2015; Waters & Cameron, 2007), and ecologically informed consciousness (Cajete, 1994).