Disrupting Carceral Logics Within U.S. Higher Education: Black Women’s Lawsuits as Resistance to Institution-Sanctioned Violence

This inquiry focuses on the experiences of black women in U.S. higher education in the less studied realm of gendered and racialized disfunction compared with K–12 education in which violence and surveillance all too often mirror the criminal legal system. The author explores the traumatic impact of carceral logics—surveillance, control, and punishment —on black women’s educational and employment experiences. Black women offer intellectual labor and time as students, athletes, faculty, staff, and administrators; their collective efforts enrich institutions of higher education. By analyzing lawsuits filed by black women who have suffered financial, professional, educational, and emotional harms, the author seeks to bring needed scrutiny to embedded power structures and gendered-race assumptions that undermine equity in higher education.