Discriminatory organizational contexts and black scientists on postsecondary faculties

Severe underrepresentation of African-Americans among postsecondary faculty is often linked to educational pipeline "supply" problems, while instituti onal variations in "demand" for black faculty labor and barriers to their r ecruitment and retention receive less empirical attention. Using a national ly representative sample of college faculty from a wide array of institutio ns and science disciplines, this study investigates links between internal organizational conditions and black faculty representation. Hypotheses deri ve from competing explanations of the role of race in academic organization s: institutionalized discrimination to protect dominant group privileges; s tatistical discrimination based on expectations of racial group differences in academic preparation; labor supply and political constraints on black f aculty recruitment. A multivariate analysis examines organizational conditi ons that promote or curb these dynamics and their relationship to black app ointments at different tenure levels. Results indicate that although the di scipiline-specific black doctoral labor supply is a powerful constraint on the representation of black faculty, selective organizational contexts are substantial influences as well. Although we find little evidence that insul ation from competition or segmented faculty labor markets influence the rac ial composition of faculties, black faculty are more often found where inst itutionalized discrimination may be checked by greater formalization and bl ack constituencies on campus. Consistent with statistical discrimination, b lack faculty are poorly represented at research-oriented institutions, even controlling for the scholarly reputation of doctoral credentials.