Higher education access and racial equity for students

Access to higher education has broadened across the United States and much of the globe; however, entrenched inequities persistently face racially minoritized communities. Addressing inequities requires both structural and ideological change, a critical reconfiguration of policies and practices combined with examination and reimagination of mindsets and values rooted in white supremacy, Western hegemony, and settler colonialism. This chapter explores organizational choices that racial equity change agents have made to challenge racism occurring at the level of individuals, organizations, fields, and institutions. Recognizing the complexity of these change efforts, our analysis relies on sociological and sociocultural frameworks to explicitly name, explore, and critique the relationship between the social structures of race and the creation, ideology, habits of practice, and norms of organizations and institutional fields. The chapter concludes by grappling with barriers that impede transformative change toward racial equity and proposes a series of recommendations for response.