Obstructing Transformative Change: Whiteness and Organizational Constraints on Graduate Leaders’ Attempts to Implement Equity Initiatives

Central to this study is the possibility of racially just transformative change. However, institutional change models that do not disrupt whiteness within organizations may ultimately fail to alter racist structures and, in not addressing whiteness, prohibit racially just transformative change. In this critical comparative case study of three graduate schools and nine graduate programs across three institutions, I examined how graduate schools, programs, and leaders planned and implemented equity initiatives. Data reveal that racially just transformative change was largely tempered through organizational constraints and drawbacks in programs’ approach to equity-related changes that were often nonperformative, including practices that reproduced whiteness.