Leadership for Equity-Minded Data Use Toward Racial Equity in Higher Education

This chapter examines how higher education leaders can engage in equity-minded data use to address and reduce racial disparities in student learning experiences and academic outcomes, despite the current anti-DEI sociopolitical climate. Case study examples show that leadership for equity-minded data use requires multiple competencies. It requires knowledge of the craft (i.e., the technical dimensions) of using data disaggregated by race and ethnicity in an iterative, context-sensitive, adaptive, and sustained way, even in contexts where public commitments to equity may provoke political backlash. Access to national databases that document disparities is being diminished in the current anti-DEI era. However, institutional data, when disaggregated, contextualized, and interpreted through a racial equity lens, can guide inquiry into campus policies, pedagogy, and faculty and student experiences. Developing a critically informed, anti-racist approach to the interpretation of racial disparities revealed in institutional data is also essential. Recommendations for leaders to develop racial literacy and the capacities for an anti-racist response are provided.