"You say diversity, we say adversity" : white nationalism, student protest, and administrative diversity discourses in the neoliberal university
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This dissertation explores the contemporary landscape of the neoliberal PWI university through multiple discourses surrounding issues of inclusion, diversity, and equity. Using the University of Missouri as a case study, I analyze multiple types of data to investigate the diversity discourses of student protestors, white nationalists, and administration from the shake-up and wake-up of Concerned Student 1950 movement and the following six and a half years, from fall 2015-- spring 2022. The focus of this study are the narratives of a spectrum of conservative voices, student protesters, and administrative Inclusive, Diversity and Equity initiatives. Building upon Critical University Studies and Critical Diversity Studies, this project contributes to the field of sociology by offering a qualitative, critical ethnographic case study that utilizes critical discourse surrounding one contemporary university that speaks to the interactions of the current sociopolitical moment and a cornerstone social institution, higher education. My findings suggest that neoliberalism, which informed the formation of the three groups, is flexible enough to encompass the disparate discourses surrounding the university and IDE. This project aims to foreground the power of student movements and aims to raise questions about challenges and reifications of the university's investment in hegemonic relationships to state, power, and capital.
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Ph. D.