New Challenges of Hispanic/Latina Women in Higher Education

Hispanic Heritage Month ends today October 15. Instead of closing it, we invite you to continue to engage in conversations on how to support Hispanic communities and celebrate the cultural wealth they bring to our campus. Especially in the current landscape of higher education with the new state policy on intellectual diversity, our faculty and staff with minoritized identities, including those with Hispanic/Latine backgrounds, will face new challenges and have to endure the intensification of long-standing challenges. Hispanic/Latine faculty and staff have greatly contributed to intellectual diversity by bringing non-traditional and critical perspectives to dominant theories and ideas and refining them to be more inclusive. However, they are also likely to be the ones to feel the most pressure to discontinue  these contributions through self-censorship. To face this new challenge as a community, our collaborative and continuous allyship and advocacy are more crucial than ever before for the Hispanic/Latine faculty and staff, as well as all minoritized faculty and staff on campus. In this episode of Ally Tips, we bring to light the new challenges faced,  particularly by Hispanic/Latine faculty and staff. We also provide practical ways to support and advocate their contributions to intellectual diversity. 

Participate in Survey on Gender Discrimination at IUB 

If you haven’t had a chance to participate in our brief Survey on Gender Discrimination at IUB, don’t worry. The survey is still open. We’d like to thank those who have participated because your responses can help us improve women’s experience on campus.  

Renew Your Ally Pledge 

The All Pledge is a yearly commitment that requires renewing every academic year for a fresh commitment to allyship. The pledge will be open until October 31. The pledgers will be listed as local allies and invited to social events regarding allyship.  

Latina Experiences in Higher Education

At Indiana University Bloomington, we have about 6.8% Hispanic/Latina faculty in full-time tenure track positions1  who contribute to our institution in a variety of ways. For example, Latina faculty support Latina students by serving as examples of success.2,3  Cultural capital, personal motivation, and the presence of supportive people (like family) are integral to Latina undergraduate students’ success.4, 5  Latina faculty supervivencia(survivance) contributes to promoting culturally competent mentoring for Latinx students and faculty, collaboration that keep them culturally connected, and community commitments.6  At the same time,we have to consider that an abundance of research indicates that Latina faculty are not always rewarded and given the resources to be successful.7  Tenure can be like a “moving target” for Latina faculty,8  where they feel pressured to be twice as productive as white faculty.9   Furthermore, Latinas often face persistent bias, including expectations for “fiery” personalities, fetishization, rampant cultural appropriation, care-taker stereotypes, and more.10, 11  

New Challenges of Hispanic/Latine Faculty

In an interview on anti-DEI state policies with influential Latine scholars and practitioners in higher education by NBC News,Maria Chávez, professor of political science at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, asserted that “[t]he racialization and stigmatization that Latinos experience in the U.S. are often replicated in the classroom.” However,the anti-DEI state policies around the U.S. stall the efforts to democratize higher education. She further stated that “[t]he direct attack on the knowledge about the experiences about people of color is something that is very antidemocratic, and it is very personally harmful to students in a way that impacts who they are as people, as academics, and as future academics.”Irma Montelongo, director of Chicano studies at the University of Texas at El Paso, elaborated the purpose of ethnic studies is to enable students “to love their communities, to love themselves, to see themselves in history, in stories and literature” while expressing her concern about the misconception of ethnic studies as an attack on dominant perspectives. These remarks offer us an insight that the Hispanic/Latine faculty and staff on our campus could be navigating the new challenges of figuring out how to promote appreciation for their cultural heritage in higher education and tackle racialization in the classroom.  

Ally Action Tips

  • (Re)gain control of the narrative of why we support and celebrate contributions of Hispanic/Latine faculty, staff, and students: Nicholas Pearce, clinical professor of management & organizations at Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, suggested that organizational leaders communicate with employees about how diversity enables true meritocracy. This can be the same reason why Allies and advocates should continue to support and celebrate the culture and knowledge of Hispanic/Latine members on our campus.  
  • Listen to their stories: The diversity in Latin America is immense and cannot be encapsulated by a single term. As such, people with Latin heritage can feel tension with assimilating to the predominantly white culture and limiting demographic terminology forced upon them in the U.S., particularly those people with Indigenous and African/Black ancestry (e.g., Afro-Latinas).  
  • Affirm the legitimacy of Latina academics: Research shows that academics who center marginalized identities rather than conform to dominant perspectives are frequently perceived as less legitimate scholars by their peers with privileged identities.12, 13 Dr. Lorgia García Peña, a Latinx Studies professor at Princeton University, has lived experience with this bias.  She was denied tenure at Harvard in part because some were concerned her work was “not research, but activism.“ To legitimize identities like Garcia Pena’s, vocally support the importance of Latine academics, particularly women, to your community, recognizing that activism cannot be separate from knowledge production process for the marginalized communities who face unjust realities. Learn more about Latine academics in your field and question those who try to devalue Latine work.

Participate in the Survey on Gender Discrimination at IUB! 

Please help us improve your experience by participating in a brief survey on gender discrimination on campus. 

See our Archived Ally Tips

Learn more about Advocates and Allies for Equity

Weekly Ally Resources

Article: 3 Essential Strategies For Business Leaders To Combat The War On DEI. – This article offers insights on creating inclusive businesses, which can also be applied to higher education.  

Article: Trends of Academic Faculty Identifying as Hispanic at US Medical Schools, 1990-2021 –This article offers evidence that the number of Hispanic faculty in medicine has not increased in the last decade in the U.S.   

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