“You Can Attend”: Gatekeeping, Surveillance, and Resistance Among Black Women Faculty in the Anti-DEI Era

This analytic autoethnography examines how anti-DEI legislation and institutional responses shape the professional experiences of Black women faculty in social work education. Centering the author’s standpoint as the only tenured Black woman in a predominantly White academic unit, the article explores how informal surveillance, preemptive gatekeeping, and racialized scrutiny operate as institutional practices that undermine autonomy, belonging, and social work’s commitments to equity and justice. Grounded in intersectionality, Black feminist thought, and organizational surveillance, the analysis illustrates how routine interactions—including unsolicited oversight, assumptions of nonbelonging, and the reframing of legitimate concerns as interpersonal conflict—reflect broader efforts to constrain equity-oriented teaching, leadership, and scholarship. Findings suggest that anti-DEI climates intensify cultural taxation, increase psychological burden, and threaten both student learning and the profession’s ethical commitments. Implications for social work education include addressing hostile campus climates, strengthening institutional accountability, and supporting resistance strategies rooted in communal care, documentation, and public scholarship.