Revisiting the faces of whiteness in the distinguished scholars controversy

This essay deals with a controversy that erupted in June 2019 surrounding the National Communication Association and a decision made by its Executive Committee to change procedures for selecting Distinguished Scholars (DS). In the aftermath of this decision, a series of responses, letters, and public posts to a discipline-specific listserv (CRTNET) emerged from many of the DS, as well as a vast array of scholars within the discipline. In this essay, I revisit John T. Warren and Kathy Hytten's "faces of whiteness"and propose a fifth problematic face of whiteness that I argue is readily identifiable within the discourse of multiple DS.