Speaking Equity, Enacting Whiteness: A Critical Discourse Analysis of White Women Leaders in College Sport

White women occupy a paradoxical position in sport leadership: marginalized by gender yet empowered by race. We challenge this paradox by exploring the discourses that White women senior-level administrators called upon when discussing race and racism as college sport leaders and how these discussions connected to sociocultural and sociopolitical dimensions of whiteness. Data were collected through two in-depth interviews with each of five White women senior-level sport administrators in Division I intercollegiate athletic departments. Using critical whiteness studies and White identity management as theoretical frameworks, and critical discourse analysis as methodology, we found that White women leaders expressed comfort discussing their marginalized gender identity but reinforced dimensions of whiteness by skirting around the social power of race, valuing meritocracy, and evoking gender marginalization to evade centering the material benefits of a White racial identity. Our findings highlight how feminist coalition building within sport organizations is hindered by the entrenched and often unexamined nature of whiteness.