Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

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Author(s): Stephen D. Brookfield (University of St. Thomas, USA)
Copyright: 2022
Pages: 13
Source title: Research Anthology on Racial Equity, Identity, and Privilege
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Information Resources Management Association (USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-4507-5.ch063

Keywords: Gender and Diversity / Information Science Reference / Political Science / Social Sciences & Humanities

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Abstract

This chapter uses Herbert Marcuse's notion of repressive tolerance to examine the ways that higher education institutions manage diversity so as to ensure that the ideology of white supremacy stays in place. Instead of condemning challenge and trying to repress it head on, organizations in a society supposedly devoted to the project of becoming more open and tolerant appear to be engaged in substantive change whilst still maintaining the status quo. Repressive tolerance holds that all these measures can be taken without any fundamental change to the structures of power within the organization. Whites will still be overwhelmingly in positions of institutional power and authority and, ensnared by the ideology of white supremacy, will continue to act in racist ways. Institutions that create a diversity requirement for students often approve new courses on race and diversity and hire faculty of color to teach these. The problem is that very little changes at a deeper, structural level.

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Repressive Tolerance and the “Management” of Diversity

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