March–August 2018 Pop-Up Grant Recipients

Grantee: Lorraine Gutierrez, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the School of Social Work, Department of Psychology, and Latina/o Studies at the University of Michigan

The election of President Donald Trump in November 2016 was significant for Latinx people in the USA. Candidate Trump voiced negative views of “Mexicans” and other Latinx groups. His administration has carried out policies targeting Latinx such as suspending the DACA program, increased immigration raids, and plans for a wall across the US-Mexican border. These events have can contribute to a more hostile social environment for Latinx students seeking higher education. This project will replicate the 2014 mixed-methods study of students at a predominantly white university to compare experiences of campus climate experienced pre and post November 2016.

Grantee: Charles H.F. Davis III, Assistant Professor of Clinical Education

Given the trend of policy efforts dedicated to addressing campus protestors, yet largely unconcerned by the very issues about which students are protesting, higher education researchers have an opportunity to provide the necessary historical, political, and social context of which the aforementioned policies are devoid. Although the field higher education has more recently concerned itself with acts of resistance on-campus (Broadhurst & Martin, 2014; Worthington & Rhoads, 2016), a specific focus on policy analysis and implications remains overwhelmingly absent. Therefore, the Campus Protest Policy Project (CPPP) primarily aims to critically assess, analyze, and counter-legislate policies aimed punishing students engaged in campus protest, particularly those engaged in direct resistance to the presence of hate speech on-campus.

Grantee: Jaime Alves, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York (CUNY) and Associate Researcher at the Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos of Universidad Icesi, Colombia

How might we ethically respond to astonishing levels of racial violence against people of African descent in societies such as Brazil, the United States and Colombia? How might we engage civil society in innovative and forceful responses to this persistent body count? This project will support the creation of a digital platform that combines blogosphere, newsletters, website, digital repository and counter-cartography/participatory GIS technology that will ultimately yield an open-source and interactive spatially-explicit database to inform black activism against micro and macro racial aggressions. The project is twofold: a) it facilitates the creation of an African diasporic permanent network against police violence; b) and the creation of a public digital platform for giving voices to terrorized communities, discussing racism as a public matter and disseminating pedagogies of social/racial justice.

Grantee: Ahlam Lee, Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies at Xavier University

This project will develop a comprehensive conceptual model of hierarchical microaggressions in higher education settings based on a synthesis of existing studies. Young, Anderson, and Stewart (2015) recently coined the term hierarchical microaggression to describe verbal or non-verbal insults toward less powerful or lower-level stakeholders in terms of their professional roles or positions. The conceptual model will show multiple dimensions of the microaggression phenomenon within hierarchical relationships among various stakeholders, including faculty, staff, and graduate assistants. The model will serve as a guiding framework for future research and practice pertaining to this topic.

Grantee: Stephanie Cook, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Biostatistics and Social & Behavioral Health at New York University

Emerging evidence suggests that sexual minority men (YSMM) who are also racial/ethnic minorities are at an increased risk for poor health outcomes as compared to their white and heterosexual counterparts. This increased risk is posited to be, in part, due to exposure to everyday racial/ethnic and sexual orientation discrimination (i.e., microaggressions). Further, these racial/ethnic and sexual orientation-related microaggressions are becoming ever more visible under the current political administration as there are consistent threats to the laws and policies aimed at protecting these individuals. Given these considerations, it is imperative that research examines the association between everyday exposure to both racial/ethnic and/or sexual orientation discrimination on health outcomes of YSMM. In this study, we seek to examine differences in health outcomes between YSMM and Black YSMM. Findings from this study will be disseminated through an Insight paper, a published article, youth community workshops, and Community Advisory Board meetings. Overall, results from this study will contribute to the creation of more comprehensive, culturally-sensitive public health interventions and health policies that impact Black YSMM.

Grantee: Summer Pennell, Assistant Professor of English Education

Missouri is rife with tension over racial discrimination and K-12 teachers need support for critically discussing these issues in their classrooms. This content analysis (Krippendorff, 2012), informed by critical race methodology (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002), of the Missouri Learning Standards (dese.mo.gov) for all grade levels and school subjects will evaluate how teachers can discuss race in the classroom while being compliant with state guidelines. Dissemination will include a free workshop for teachers in NE Missouri to show educators how to include racial justice in the classroom while following the state standards. This project will lead to further research in classrooms.

Grantee: Michael Heaney, Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan 

Social movements for racial justice and gender equity have long faced challenges in mobilizing marginalized subgroups among their constituencies. For example, movements for racial justice have struggled to mobilize women on an equal basis with men, while women's movements have struggled to mobilize people of color on an equal basis with whites. The election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States has prompted new efforts to mobilize people on the basis of race and gender in the United States, which has created opportunities to observe movements work on intersectional issues in real time. This study is based on surveys conducted at marches for racial justice and gender equity in Washington, DC, and other cities, since the election of Trump. The surveys include questions on reasons for marching, political attitudes, history of participation in social movements, organizational membership and participation, and socio-economic factors. Preliminary results show that while movements have recently made strides in giving greater attention to resolving intersectional challenges, differences within movements still remain. In particular, young people, organizational members, more ideological liberal individuals give more attention to intersectionality than do older people, those who are not members of organizations, and those who are more ideologically moderate.

Grantee: Cassaundra Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas 

While there is substantial research on microagressions (Sue et al. 2007; Sue 2010), there is a critical gap in research analyzing how local space impacts how youth may experience microaggressions. Using an interview sample of 42 Latino millennials in Los Angeles, I find that Latinos experience racial microaggressions when they are in predominantly white neighborhoods and spaces. While many Latino youth grow up in co-ethnic communities, they eventually navigate segregated white space where their Latino identities make them susceptible to racial microagressions, including those about their assumed foreigner or “illegal” status. Ultimately, I propose researchers consider a spatial understanding of racial microagressions.

Grantee: Sahana Mukherjee, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Gettysburg College

My objective is to examine whether exposure to a ubiquitous cultural product—US national flag—amplifies people’s reactions towards immigration historical representations. My prior work has shown that exposure to critical (versus nation-glorifying) narratives that highlight historical injustices decreased endorsement of assimilationist identity (defining American identity in terms of assimilation to Euro-centric standards) and increased perceptions of present-day injustices. These effects only occurred in the presence (vs. absence) of the flag. This project extends my prior work by examining how and why exposure to flag moderates people’s reactions towards immigration historical representations.

Grantee: Rosalie Rolón-Dow, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Delaware

The Tell It Like It Is study at the University of Delaware explores microaggressions and microaffirmations experienced by minoritized graduate and undergraduate students in the course of their everyday lives. The project explores the nature of these experiences and the ways they influence perceptions of campus racial climate. This project will advance the dissemination of Tell It Like It Is project findings by initiating the development of a digital audio archive for project stories, preparing an in-house report focused on the experiences of graduate students and presenting the research at an education professional conference.

Grantee: Denise Sekaquaptewa, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan

This project will examine the effects of experiencing microaggressions, using experimental methodology. We will examine not only the experience of being the direct targets of those microaggressions, but also the effects on witnesses to those interactions. We ask, “Can merely witnessing interactions in which someone else is targeted result in negative effects similar to when one is the direct target of microaggressions?” Through this project we will create a pre-test of experimental videos that allow people to experience microaggressions as either a target or a witness, which can be used in research as well as bias awareness demonstrations.