Journal of Higher Education Management - Vol 36(1)

The Pandemics of Racism and COVID-19 — Guest Editors’ Comments and Acknowledgements It is an honor and privilege to serve as guest editors for this special thematic issue of Journal of Higher Education Management, The COVID-19 Crisis and Racial Justice & Equity: Addressing the Twin Pandemics. The genesis of this project emerged while participating in the 2019-2020 class of the American Council on Education Fellows program. We were active observers of the decision-making processes institutional leaders made regarding operational and academic priorities across various campuses. We learned a great deal by watching the way senior leaders worked to build new structures to support rapid change brought on by the crisis.

At the time of writing the introduction for this special thematic issue, the following events unfolded: insurrection and White supremacy on full display during the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill; a raging Coronavirus pandemic disproportionately affecting communities of color in the U.S.—so far over 513,000 people have died from COVID-19; prominent American officials publicly described COVID-19 as the “China virus,” which contributed to increased anti-Asian sentiments that—in turn— led to harassment of individuals who share that identity; and we emerged from a summer of protests following the tragic death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans who were murdered by police officers. The events over the past year underscore the prevalence of systemic racism in America today and the inextricable role higher education must play in the solution.

The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the long festering wounds of racial injustice, disrupted higher education’s operations in unprecedented ways. Due to the racial stratification of the workforce at many colleges and universities, we observed a swift pivot to remote work which unduly placed essential workers at risk for exposure to COVID-19. Data from the U.S. Department of Education showed that 46% of workers in low-level service roles were employees of color (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2018). Custodians, food service workers, groundskeepers, and maintenance staff, were required to come to campus more frequently and interact with other workers and students.

Conversely, given the professional or leadership positions they disproportionately occupy, White employees had more flexibility to work remotely and teach online. Moreover, the decision to move to online-only instruction for numerous colleges and universities sparked apprehensions about the quality of educational instruction, and inadvertently created disparities in academic performance for students with limited internet access and those requiring additional learning support services. The pandemic also significantly altered other aspects of college life, from admissions and enrollment, on-campus housing-dining, to collegiate athletics. These concerns complicated our understanding of the financial future of higher education institutions in a time of considerable financial instability, both in the form of unexpected costs and potential reductions in revenue.

It is worth noting, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions of higher education were not free from contributing to inequities. Many colleges and universities struggled in their efforts to close the equity gap between their White student population and low-income, first-generation, students of color.

Structural inequities persist because some institutions continue to deny the ongoing impact of systemic racism and oppression. Preliminary data indicated the pandemic exacerbated the disproportionate impacts faced by students and faculty of color in today’s colleges and universities. According to Cahalan et al. (2020), the uneven landscape in colleges and universities is heavily influenced by race, income, history, geography, a wide range of state policies, and the declining value of federal student aid.

Fortunately, the American Council on Education’s (ACE) 2020 status report on race and ethnicity in higher education (Taylor et al., 2020) offers hope and a data-informed foundation for those working to close persistent equity gaps. If we are to identify one silver lining of these pandemics it is the 5