2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Developing coalitional, accomplice relationships among Black and white women in the academy is a necessary step to building inclusive and equitable organizations both in and outside of STEM. Yet the field of engineering education has few strategies for establishing and valuing these relationships; instead, organizations often reflect the values of the academy, which is rooted in white supremacist, heteropatriarchal principles and allows for equity and inclusion to maintain (rather than redress) inequities. Coalitions, on the other hand, seek enduring relationships that advocate for justice, engage in deep listening, and take risks to protect one another. A central mechanism for coalitional work is accountability that results in Black women holding white women accountable without fear of punishment, which in the workplace, can result in loss of organizational access, position, or worse.

Using a Black Feminist approach, this paper suggests that accomplices working in coalition must hold one another accountable in order to build and maintain inclusive cultures. After using qualitative data to describe the need for Black and white women coalitions, the paper outlines three approaches to accountability that might support Black and white women as they build coalitions.
We argue that both institutional and personal accountability ought to consider:
1) Protection of the most marginalized members of the organization;
2) Restoration and repair in the wake of harm;
3) Transparency about the ways harm and protection are dealt with.
Then we provide case studies to illustrate the ways each of these guidelines have been implemented at a range of institutions.