This case highlights a high school that struggles with inequities perpetuated by a noninclusive environment. To help confront these issues, the school will hire an assistant principal of diversity. Readers are presented with a dilemma concerning the legality of hiring based on race and research that supports the benefits of racial congruency between administrators, students, and faculty. Readers are then challenged to use the hiring process to first reflect on the school’s state of affairs, have the courageous conversations to chart a different path, and ultimately hire someone with the mind-set that can help the school do so.
BoskeC.Benavente-McEneryL. (2012). The quiet roar: Assistant principals leading for social justice. In ShohoA.BarnettB.ToomsA. K. (Eds.), Examining the assistant principalship: New puzzles and perennial challenges for the 21st century (pp. 125–152). Information Age.
2.
BrezichaK. F.FullerE. J. (2019). Building teachers’ trust in principals: Exploring the effects of the match between teacher and principal race/ethnicity and gender and feelings of trust. Journal of School Leadership, 29(1), 25–53.
3.
BrooksJ. S.Jean-MarieG. (2007). Black leadership, white leadership: Race and race relations in an urban school. Journal of Educational Administration, 45, 756–768.
4.
BuckleyM. R.JacksonK. A.BolinoM. C.VeresJ. G.FeildH. S. (2007). The influence of relational demography on panel interview ratings: A field experiment. Personnel Psychology, 60, 627–646.
5.
CarpenterB. W.BukoskiB. E.BerryM.MitchellA. M. (2015). Examining the social justice identity of assistant principals in persistently low-achieving schools. Urban Education, 52(3), 287–315.
6.
DavisB. W.LippaA. P.LehrM.GoodenM. A.DinhT. V. (2016). Conceptualizing principal–student racial congruence. Journal of School Leadership, 26(4), 554–579.
7.
DerousE.PepermansR.RyanA. M. (2017). Ethnic discrimination during résumé screening: Interactive effects of applicants’ ethnic salience with job context. Human Relations, 70(7), 860–882.
8.
DuBoisC. C.SchanzenbachD. W. (2017). The effect of court-ordered hiring guidelines on teacher composition and student achievement (No. w24111). https://www.nber.org/papers/w24111
9.
FullerE.HollingworthL.AnB. P. (2019). Exploring intersectionality and the employment of school leaders. Journal of Educational Administration, 57(2), 134–151.
10.
GatesS. M.RingelJ. S.SantibanezL.GuarinoC.Ghosh-DastidarB.BrownA. (2006). Mobility and turnover among school principals. Economics of Education Review, 25(3), 289–302.
11.
GawronskiB.HofmannW.WilburC. J. (2006). Are “implicit” attitudes unconscious?Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 485–499.
12.
GershensonS.HartC.HymanJ.LindsayC.PapageorgeN. W. (2018). The long-run impacts of same-race teachers (No. w25254). http://ftp.iza.org/dp10630.pdf
13.
GrissomJ. A.KeiserL. R. (2011). A supervisor like me: Race, representation, and the satisfaction and turnover decisions of public sector employees. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(3), 557–580.
14.
GrissomJ. A.ReddingC. (2015). Discretion and disproportionality: Explaining the underrepresentation of high-achieving students of color in gifted programs. Aera Open, 2(1), 2332858415622175.
15.
GrissomJ. A.RodriguezL. A.KernE. C. (2017). Teacher and principal diversity and the representation of students of color in gifted programs: Evidence from national data. The Elementary School Journal, 117(3), 396–422.
16.
HahnA.GawronskiB. (2014). Do implicit evaluations reflect unconscious attitudes?Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37, 28–29.
17.
HahnA.JuddC. M.HirshH. K.BlairI. V. (2014). Awareness of implicit attitudes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 1369–1392.
18.
KhalifaM. A.GoodenM. A.DavisJ. E. (2016). Culturally responsive school leadership: A synthesis of the literature. Review of Educational Research, 86(4), 1272–1311.
19.
LauraC. T. (2018). Enacting social justice leadership through teacher hiring. The Urban Review, 50(1), 123–139.
20.
LeithwoodK.SunJ. (2018). Academic culture: A promising mediator of school leaders’ influence on student learning. Journal of Educational Administration, 56(3), 350–363.
McCrayC. R.WrightJ. V.BeachumF. D. (2007). Beyond Brown: Examining the perplexing plight of African American Principals. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 34(4), 247–255.
23.
MillerA. (2013). Principal turnover and student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 36, 60–72.
24.
Ricci vs. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009).
25.
RonfeldtM.LoebS.WyckoffJ. (2013). How teacher turnover harms student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 50(1), 4–36.
26.
RuizL. D.McMahonS. D.JasonL. A. (2018). The role of neighborhood context and school climate in school level academic achievement. American Journal of Community Psychology, 61(3–4), 296–309.
27.
SoiniT.PietarinenJ.PyhältöK. (2016). Leading a school through change–principals’ hands-on leadership strategies in school reform. School Leadership & Management, 36(4), 452–469.
28.
StoutR.ArchieC.CrossD.CarmanC. A. (2018). The relationship between faculty diversity and graduation rates in higher education. Intercultural Education, 29(3), 399–417.
29.
SwansonJ.WeltonA. (2018). When good intentions only go so far: White principals leading discussions about race. Urban Education, 54(5), 732–759.
30.
TranH.BonS. C. (2016). Principal quality and selection: Including multiple stakeholders’ perspectives. Journal of School Public Relations, 37(1): 55–78.
31.
TranH.McCormickJ.NguyenT. T. (2018). The cost of replacing South Carolina high school principals. Management in Education, 32(3), 109–118.
32.
TranH.SmithD.BuckmanD. (2019). Stakeholder Engagement: Improving Education through Multi-level Community Relations. Rowman & Littlefield.
