Discourse of denial: moral disengagement and the racist subtext of state takeover of an urban school district

This is a study of moral disengagement in the political discourse of the 2015 state takeover of Little Rock School District. The purpose of this study was to propose and describe a framework through which institutionalized racism could be understood as the effect of individuals' actions justified through policy discourse. Moral disengagement is a social psychological framework that focuses on the role of individual agency in maintaining a system of social values in contradiction with the societal circumstances those values bring about. In a critical discourse analysis of the policy rhetoric of white elite policy actors, we identified broad use of every mechanism of moral disengagement. White policy actors sought self-exoneration for racially stratifying outcomes through various means of rationalization of the takeover. Implications for educational leaders and researchers are discussed.