Gender Equity Work through Disruptive Events in the US

Institutions of higher education (HEIs) in the US faced unprecedented and overlapping crises in 2020, responding to a global pandemic, national racial unrest, and a polarizing presidential election. Institutional responses, including policies aimed at maintaining basic university functions during this time, had the unintended effect of exacerbating many existing intersectional inequalities, and many feared that diversity equity and inclusion programs would be the first to be cut and support for gender equity policy measures would vanish. We use data from NSF ADVANCE, the flagship program on gender inequity in U.S. HEIs, to explore how institutional (policy) responses to these overlapping crises used and/or affected ADVANCE teams’ gender equity work and their advocacy for institutional policies. Since 2001, ADVANCE has funded over 390 awards tasked with designing and implementing organizational change projects including institutional policies to advance women in the STEM professoriate at U.S. HEIs. The ADVANCE program has provided resources and lent legitimacy to interdisciplinary teams of advocates for (policy) changes that have included STEM faculty as well as top-level administrators. Analyzing qualitative interviews with faculty, staff, and top-level administrators involved in ADVANCE, we argue that institutional priorities and responses reflected specific geopolitical interests and were shaped by (1) the level of institutionalization of gender equity programs, (2) the status and role of gender equity experts, and (3) the availability of network ties to similar programs at other universities. Through this framework, we discuss pathways for gender equity teams to promote policy change and to significantly impact their institutions’ responses to crises in ways that consider and address equity issues. While the COVID-19 crisis highlighted existing racial and gendered inequities among faculty, institutional (policy) responses varied in their approaches to these deepening inequities. Some ADVANCE teams were able to significantly impact their institutions’ policy responses in a way that considered and addressed equity issues–both those particular to COVID and those that had previously existed. We conclude that depending on the political and institutional contexts, crises can have silver linings and at least the potential for change in progressive directions when gendered or racialized interests align with the university leadership.