Aristocratic Inclusion

Despite innumerable, and now infamous, initiatives to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academy, elite institutions continue to hire disproportionately from a small number of top institutions, keeping the US professoriate dominated by straight, white, cisgender men with prestigious degrees. In Aristocratic Inclusion, prabhdeep singh kehal reveals how elites committed to equitable inclusion justify hiring from their own. kehal investigates academic hiring as a process of identifying, verifying, and including fellow scholarly aristocrats. Professors maintain the academic aristocracy by devising and deploying notions of hirability that, though purportedly based on merit, rely on deliberately exclusionary, racist, and sexist standards. These standards privilege candidates who display elite-affiliated academic accomplishments and willingness to maintain elite domination through their academic labor. Through these hirability standards, professors control the pace of change and manicure elite diversity, enabling these aristocrats to justify safeguarding their own status. Turning the conversation from who academia excludes to how academia excludes, kehal shows how professors and prestigious organizations employ cultural norms to create an exclusive social group that perpetuates their own domination.