Studying Resistance to Racial Inequalities in Higher Education: Moving Beyond an Evaluation of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Policies

The persistence of racial inequalities in higher education remains a significant societal problem in Europe and beyond. Since the 2010s, and particularly following the rise of Black Lives Matter in Europe in 2020, racialized students have increasingly mobilized to demand more inclusive and equitable universities. As European higher education becomes more diverse, the voices of racialized minority students, along with their majority allies, are likely to become even more prominent in advocating for change . However, their calls for racial equality are unfolding in a political climate where “culture wars”, backlash on "wokeness" and accusations of "reverse discrimination" are increasingly used to delegitimize existing efforts for social change.

This paper presents our initial exploration of iniatives aimed at advancing racial equity in higher education, using data from Flanders, Belgium. Rather than limiting our focus to the evaluation of the popular top-down, institutional Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) policies—which have often been criticized as non-performative (Ahmed, 2007)—we expand our scope to include the role of grass-roots, bottom-up initiatives, such as the formation of racialized student organizations, bottom-up staff initiatives and protest movements. While these top-down and bottom-up efforts are frequently studied in isolation, our aim is to bridge these perspectives.

We integrate these approaches using Patricia Hill Collins' (2000) typology of activism for social change, particularly her concepts of institutional politics, survival politics, protest politics, and cultural politics. Through this lens, this paper contributes to discussions about the barriers that racialized minority students face in their educational pathways, particularly in the context of rising political resistance to equity initiatives. It highlights how grassroots resistance intersects with institutional efforts, ultimately expanding the theoretical understanding of strategies to counter educational inequalities.