Content area
Full Text
THE TERM "PREDOMINANTLY WHITE INSTITUTION" FREQUENTLY GETS TOSSED AROUND WITHOUT THOUGHT TO ITS SIGNIFICANCE. IN THIS ARTICLE, THE AUTHOR USES CRITICAL RACE THEORY AS A LENS TO EXAMINE THE TERM PREDOMINANTLY WHITE INSTITUTION. THROUGH THIS ANALYSIS, THE AUTHOR HIGHLIGHTS WHITENESS IS EMBEDDED INTO INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES OF PREDOMINATELY WHITE INSTITUTIONS.
Institutions of higher learning are regularly identified in scholarship and conversation by their racial composition, which generally reflects a distinction between predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs). While PWI is not an official designation for any institution in the United States, six categories of MSIs are classified by the Higher Education Act: Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Alaska Native Serving Institutions (ANSIs), Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions (NHSIs), and a general category of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) (Benitez and DeAro 2006). The designation of a particular MSI type may be based either on mission or student enrollment. HSIs, ANSIs, and NHSIs are typically defined by the percentage of enrollment of the student group identified in the category name. For example, the Higher Education Act requires that HSIs have at least ^^ percent of their fulltime equivalent enrollments be Hispanic and at least 20 percent of those be low-income individuals (Dayton et al. 2006). In contrast, HBCUs and TCUs have unique missions and/or federal acknowledgment of their responsibility to their respective populations (Benitez and DeAro 2006). These labels are based on the compositional diversity of the institutions or on a specific institutional mission to serve a specific racial group. The term "predominantly white institution" is used without thought being given to its significance: that race and racism are the cornerstones upon which these institutions were built and currently operate (Hughes 201^).
The seemingly quick rise of campus protests connected to the Black Lives Matter movement helped demonstrate the prevalence of the extent to which race is embedded in PWIs throughout the United States (Kingkade, Workneh and Grenoble 201^). What has been protested is that racism (which relies on the prevalence of whiteness) is woven into the very structures and systems on the basis of which colleges and universities function. Something that has been clarified about the historic role of race in U.S. higher education is...