AADS Journal for Undergraduate Research

Blackness in Higher Education

To occupy educational spaces as a Black person is to carry history into every room. From the criminalization of literacy during slavery, to the enforced separations of segregation, to contemporary debates over affirmative action and diversity initiatives, there persists a throughline: a persistent questioning of whether Black students belong, whether we have earned our place, or merely been permitted it. 

Because of this characterization and its contemporary manifestations, the narratives we produce and circulate demand careful attention. Narratives are not passive; they shape the conditions of our reality. They inform policy, justify exclusion, and seep into the interior lives of students who must navigate institutions that simultaneously admit and interrogate them. When our presence is politicized, when our legitimacy is made conditional, it does not remain external. It fractures inward.