Public administration has an ethical problem with race and racism. Researchers find that race is a nervous area of government public administrators avoid confronting, resulting in their eschewing discretion and creating administrative evil. Administrative racism occurs when administrators rely on technical rationality to avoid making difficult decisions about race. The authors argue public administration curricula must prepare students to address the root causes of racism. There is a need for race-conscious pedagogy to prepare administrators to competently negotiate this nervous area of government. This article presents one model for public administration programs to better prepare students to respond to ethical dilemmas dealing with race and racism. Drawing on critical race in education, this essay presents a race-conscious public administration dialogue, links this dialogue to public management ethics, and specifies a classroom-tested antiracist pedagogy for public administration.
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