Licensing whiteness: property, privilege, and (re)centering the politics of race within neoliberalism

Neoliberal ideology

In what is perhaps the most simplistic sense, neoliberalism is a theory of political and economic practices, wherein state interventions are minimized to the extent that their primary role pertains to establishing conditions necessary for the maintenance of free markets. In theory, the tenets informing the function and characteristics of the pure/vulgar neoliberal state are relatively straightforward. The abstract ideal or idea of the pure neoliberal state is one that stands in strong support of individual private property rights, free trade and open markets, and the rule of law. It is through these arrangements that individual freedoms are assumed to be both guaranteed and sustained. In other words, embedded within neoliberal ideology is the assumption that individual freedoms emerge only under the conditions of the free market and free trade. Relations of state power under contemporary neoliberal regimes stand in contrast with other state-led sociopolitical and socioeconomic orientations such as that of the strong state (Yu & Crowley, Citation2020) and/or the socialist welfare state (Bourdieu, Citation2003).

Given the wide range of how neoliberalism and its consequences have been presented in the research literature, its meaning has become diffuse in some regards. Discussions of neoliberalism have been applied conceptually in analyses ranging from its impact on the personal behaviors of individuals (Pedroni, Citation2011) to the broader political and socio-economic orientations of nation-states (Hardt & Negri, Citation2000; Jessop, Citation2002b). Proponents view neoliberalism as functioning in support of various freedoms and forms of liberty—within the realm of schooling this often pertains to marketized choice and competition over access to resources (Chubb & Moe, Citation1990). At the same time, neoliberalism’s societal impact is often framed by its critics around how it has facilitated upward redistributions of wealth and enabled greater social inequality, in other words further concentrating power among a small group of economic elites (Harvey, Citation2005).

Attention given to the intensification of inequities and other forms of institutionalized oppression that have resulted from the products of neoliberal reform movements is key to ongoing critical analyses. However, we also believe some of this deflects or minimizes the central and very significant racialized impact of this reform movement. We would further argue that many existing critiques (see e.g. Kotz, Citation2008, Citation2015; Leys, Citation2003, Citation2008), while important to the development of alternative logics and new forms of common sense beyond those mired within the confines of neoliberalism, ought to better or more fully include needed attention to its function as an institutionalized mechanism of white supremacy.

Foundations: neoliberalism and critical race theory

Acknowledging neoliberalism’s operationalization as a racialized form of prevailing logic rooted in the maintenance of structural inequities necessitates an exploration of some of its historical roots, particularly as it relates to some of the key conceptual understandings that underpin critical race theory’s origins in the study of law. As others have also recognized (Ball, Citation2007, Harvey, Citation2005; Jessop, Citation2002a), contemporary iterations of neoliberalism and neoliberal capitalism have historical antecedents that can be linked conceptually as well as philosophically to much earlier articulations of classical economic liberalism (Hayek, Citation1944; Ricardo, Citation1817; Smith, 1776/Citation2003). According to the logic of classical economic liberalism, which frames the foundation for the later emergence of contemporary neoliberalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the social structures of modern nation states are, or ought to be, based exclusively on contract rather than status or social class (Sumner, 1883/Citation2007, 1919).

It is in these beliefs about individuals, public welfare, and related arguments about the absence of collective society that both contracts and the rule of law become paramount. In the context of the United States, such claims about the privileged role of contracts and the function of law are supported and maintained under the US Constitution—protected through what is sometimes referred to as the Obligation of Contracts provision, which has been upheld through later precedent established and outlined in the 1819 Dartmouth College v. Woodward case. The ruling on this US Supreme Court case is significant because it provides important clarifications regarding earlier ambiguities around possible differences between public and private contracts. By ruling in favor of Dartmouth College, future arguments over any potential distinctions between the nature of contracts drawn up between individuals, institutions, and/or the state would perhaps be considered questionable at best and most likely deemed unconstitutional.

To be clear, our purpose again here is not about questioning or challenging whether or not contracts have value or that the rule of law ought to be abandoned—such debates may well be warranted and worth exploring; however, they exist outside of the scope of this particular article—rather, we have taken the time to note the points above because we believe it is important to recognize in our critical analysis and discussion the presence of certain key points of intersection between neoliberalism and critical race theory. While ostensibly different perhaps in their understanding of the rule of law, the obligation of contracts, and relations to race, we contend that critical race theory presents crucial analytical and conceptual tools for unraveling the institutionalization of whiteness within neoliberalism. The proposed conceptual notion of a whiteness license within neoliberal contexts is contractual, which pertains to the need to better recognize that racism is learned in corroboration with institutional support for the purpose of maintaining white supremacy structurally.

We are not the first to interrogate the braided dimensions of race and institutionalized structures—such work includes the examination of the racialized structuring of social contracts (Mills, Citation1997), race and racism as integrally embedded within US society (Bell, Citation1992), the interplay between race and issues of both state power and nationalism (Arendt, Citation1951), the racialized understandings of organizational theory (Ray, Citation2019), among others. Much of this scholarship has proven invaluable to advancing our own thinking and arguments here. We not only believe it necessary in discussions of neoliberalism going forward that race and racism are recognized as very much cemented within neoliberal institutionalized structures and corresponding practices, but we also want to argue that critical race theory is necessary for furthering critiques of how neoliberalism supports and entrenches white supremacy through its own false and deceptive race-neutral logics of radical individualism and free market political economies.

Origins

First emerging in the field of law during the late 1980s, critical race theory was a race-centric response to what is considered the color-evasiveness (Annamma et al., Citation2013) within critical legal studies. Taking law as its point of departure, critical legal studies focused on the indeterminacy of law—the ability or potential for established legal principles to produce contradictory results. Critical legal studies sought to expose how law functioned in ways that favored the wealthy in a manner that differed from those without the same financial means. In doing so, critical legal studies explained that the discourses surrounding how rights are constituted was in fact part of the problem, insofar as it prioritized “individualist ideology” and undermined attempts to bolster solidarity (Tushnet, Citation1993).

In many respects critical race theorists, on the one hand, have agreed with core principles of critical legal studies scholarship—perhaps most notably with regards to the assertions it makes about the indeterminacy of legal doctrine. On the other hand, critical race theorists rebuffed critical legal studies critique of rights rhetoric and instead noted its utility in critical analyses of law. As critical race scholar Patricia Williams (Citation1991) cogently articulates, “In discarding rights altogether, one discards a symbol too deeply enmeshed in the psyche of the oppressed to lose without trauma and much resistance” (p. 165).

Along with noting some of the conceptual origins and foundational purposes within the study of law, it also remains worthwhile to recognize that critical race theory is not a monolithic theoretical construct. Critical race theory scholars do not espouse the same ideals. However, according to Matsuda et al. (Citation1993), there are key tenets that anchor critical race theory and inform its purposes not only within legal studies scholarship but also across other different fields of study.

Critical race theory first recognizes that racism is endemic to American life in the United States. Traditional interests and values, subsequently, serve as vessels in the ongoing maintenance of racial subordination. Second, while not dismissing the very real impact of racist and discriminatory acts perpetrated by intentionally prejudicial individuals, critical race theory casts is primary focus on emphasizing that racism results from entrenched, systemic forces—stressing that racism and white supremacy find both support and refuge within the dynamics of complex social and institutional structures. Third, critical race theory incorporates a dubiousness toward liberal ideology, in part because liberalism privileges a formal or restrictive notion of equality. According to Kimberle Crenshaw (Citation1987), a prominent and highly influential critical race theorist, restrictive equality “treats equality as a process, downplaying the significance of actual outcomes” (p. 1342). And fourth, in taking seriously the endurance of diminished opportunities and outcomes for those belonging to racially marginalized and historically oppressed racial groups, critical race theory further embraces a necessary skepticism about normative claims of neutrality, objectivity, colorblindness, and meritocracy. Critical race theory, in turn, questions the legitimacy of the types of assertions that claim that legal or legislative efforts promoting race-neutral or colorblind responses to longstanding inequities and systemic forms of oppression will sufficiently address centuries of injustice.

Property rights & whiteness

One of the crucially important aspects of critical race theory’s contribution to scholarship advancing the study of law as well as other fields of social science research pertains to its theorization of property rights. While constitutional law scholars continue to debate and shape the evolution of how rights have been understood and interpreted over time, property rights play a significant role in shaping articulations, parameters, and functions of the law. And as we have discussed, the rule of law is fundamental to neoliberalism’s ascension and disparate impact. The rule of law, by design, serves to protect property rights. Infringement upon those rights can therefore be challenged through the court system.

In some regards, scholars of critical race theory sought to understand how racism continued to persist in ways that allowed for it to remain endemic to American life despite the passage of laws directly addressing civil rights and racial equality. To better understand this deeply disturbing problem, legal scholars theorized that, under the rule of law, whiteness itself can be thought to exist as a form or property (Harris, Citation1993). Therefore, the protection of property rights under the rule of law, according to critical race theorists and scholars, ought to be recognized as simultaneously serving to protect whiteness as a form of property within legally established institutional arrangements—such as contractual relationships or processes of licensure—that in turn shape society and societal relations.

Individualization & compartmentalization

Individualizing actions and/or beliefs offers a possible, but problematic, response to the persistent issues of racial inequity—an approach ultimately resulting in a line of reasoning based upon ignoring, minimizing, or otherwise dismissing the structural existence of racism as endemic. It is an approach reflective of what Sumner (1883/Citation2007, 1919) argues is a need for individualized action to be limited simply to being kind or having good will towards others while fulfilling contractual obligations, as an adequate ideal for modern democratic society. However, this hallmark of both classical liberal thought and neoliberalism neither eliminates nor sufficiently mitigates the structures that enable and promote racism. One might extrapolate from here to consider other overlapping and intersectional forms of marginalization; however, that important work exists beyond our humble arguments, given our broad yet narrowed focus on neoliberalism, critical race theory, and whiteness as licensed.

Having noted at the outset of this article in our discussion of Plessy and continued in the above discussions of neoliberalism as well as critical race theory, the law has played a long and important role in delineating various parameters of societal relations. For example, the law has not only been used to justify the racialized subordination of entire groups of people, but laws have also been used to define which people count as actual people or the degree to which one might be counted as a full person. Moreover, given that property rights are upheld by the rule of law and that critical race theory posits that whiteness must be recognized as a form of property, it becomes clear that the rule of law can be understood as functioning in protection of whiteness under imagined threat.

As Mills (Citation1997) notes with regards to the obfuscation of race—and it is worth quoting him at length here—there is a corresponding historical loss of collective memory that becomes reified through the entrenchment of beliefs about race as marginal in the history of the West:

Along lines similar to some of the various discussions of neoliberalism and its perpetuation through both state and non-state institutional structures, organizational theory scholars (see e.g. Perrow, Citation1970) have sought to develop theories for examining complex bureaucracies as well as types of social units aimed at meeting institutional goals. This area of research and its related subfields of study have historically tended to overlook structural examinations of race (Bonilla-Silva, Citation1997) in favor of identifying demographic features of organizations. This has arguably resulted in underdeveloped analyses of both the functional role of race within organizational structures as well as the institutionalized mechanisms related to the role that organizations play in processes surrounding the social construction of race.

Keeping in mind our argument about licensing whiteness and that neoliberalism is itself an approach to (re)organizing institutional functions and operations, Ray’s (Citation2019) research addresses certain important gaps in the organizational theory research literature by examining the role that organizations play with regards to the social construction of race proves helpful. Drawing in some ways upon Bourdieu’s (Citation1986) arguments about forms of institutionalized cultural capital and applying these understandings to the role that forms of distinction play within fields of power (Bourdieu, Citation1984), Ray explicitly seeks to consider how organizations themselves are racialized structures. Ray interrogates this idea along multiple dimensions. However, for us as scholars whose perspectives and positionalities are informed by research traditions that draw upon critical race theory and abolitionist schooling, transnational intersectional feminisms, and the politics of urban education reform, in addition to our current work in both teacher education as well as K-12 education, Ray’s argument that whiteness is a credential recognized by organizations resonates powerfully.

Privileging the (white) individual

The possession of whiteness is often referred to as a privilege or is described in terms of its range of privileging functions (see e.g. Harris, Citation2020; McIntosh, 1989). By no means would we disagree. In fact, because we see important value in this, we want to suggest a further framing of white privilege to incorporate aspects of Ray’s argument about whiteness serving as a credential recognized by the institutionalized structures of organizational entities. With our concerns primarily directed at challenging neoliberalism’s explicit and implicit inculcation of whiteness—especially as we have sought to address it in this article with our focus on racism’s structural considerations around the promotion of certain discourses, the advancement of certain legal/governing policies and economic relations, and its impact on various levels or forms of social practice—we believe it to be worth considering whiteness as a form of licensure. As we will discuss shortly, while a license is a form of credential, we believe that conceptualizing whiteness as a license better highlights the state’s official role in approving and sanctioning specific institutionalized norms. However, prior to this, we first want to note our reasons for extending the existing discourse of privilege as it relates to whiteness and neoliberalism.

One of the key mechanisms responsible for leveraging much of neoliberalism’s broad impact pertains to its success in reconstituting collective identities in ways that promote radical understandings of individualism and the self. Possible conceptualizations of thick democratic participation become evacuated of meaning and replaced with thin versions of marketized choices by individual consumers (Crowley & Apple, Citation2009). Within this context, we would argue that many notions of privilege—regardless of however achieved or obtained—become attributed to individuals who possess them in ways that minimize the structural factors creating them, in much the same way that challenges, obstacles, and other forms of discrimination come to be considered in terms of individual personal failures. Constructing privilege as superficially innate to certain people, as earned through the unique circumstances or talents of individuals, and as individualized in ways that are absent of historical considerations arguably supports neoliberal regimes and broader neoliberal reform agendas. Moreover, societal or institutional rewards may be conferred on the basis of white privilege, yet such advantages seem largely to remain ensconced within discourses of both individual privilege and personal achievement in the context of neoliberal sensemaking. We therefore believe there is a need to better address the institutionalized complexities of race and racism as structural conditions by first better naming and identifying them as such.

Though it should go without saying, we want to be clear that race is not a fixed biologically-based category or determinant. As a social construction, the racialization of groups of people have shifted over time in ways reflecting changing political purposes and socioeconomic contexts/conditions. Yet to recognize that racialized identities are socially constructed is not to say these exist without real and material consequences. Indeed racial subjugation has been and continues to be fiercely violent and abhorrently cruel. We therefore have no interest in entering into a debate over the existence of race or racism—we would view engaging in such a debate as a frivolous exercise in giving false credence to a topic around which consensus has been widely and repeatedly established within a vast swath of scholarship and research across disciplines and areas of study. Far more important is to engage in working collaboratively towards addressing some of the most significant and pressing issues we and others are facing as members of minoritized groups of people. Consequently, we want to propose the idea that whiteness is a license supported, recognized, and promoted by neoliberal regimes and institutions.

Privileging whiteness through institutions

One of our reasons for suggesting the notion of whiteness licensure or of a whiteness license as an extension of existing critiques of white supremacy framed around notions of privilege is to emphasize the structural and institutionalized mechanisms undergirding race and racism. It cannot be denied that some people inherit from circumstances of birth various forms of privilege that extend from both the historical and current construction of racialized social identities. Yet in some ways to insinuate or leave open to misinterpretation the idea that race is static and not undergoing continual processes of systemic reinforcement would be to again overlook nuances and complexities related to how race and racism operate. We view it as important to engage in a politics of refusal (Marcuse, 1964/Citation1991) specifically related to challenging the types of individualization that neoliberal logic promotes and which obscure collective notions of diversity.

The class-derived anxieties of whites presupposes that only white people have class-status and that only their anxieties are valid or deserving of legitimation through institutional and/or adequately supported state-based responses. It can be further suggested that people of color and their labor are the backdrop against which whites are able to cast their class anxieties. In doing so, the class anxieties and labor of racially minoritized people are rendered invisible at the same time that their labor serves as the springboard from which white people’s illogical and irrational demands spring. The labor of people of color creates the conditions upon which whiteness can level class critiques as well as critiques of not having their (white) labor recognized, valued, and compensated. The discourses surrounding this are promoted via neoliberal logics and, in turn, become intertwined with accompanying practices that then produce new policies.

Clearly acts of racism perpetrated by individuals ought to be confronted, challenged, and addressed both seriously and accordingly. However, individualizing racism as something evidenced either primarily or exclusively by specific people’s actions in isolated incidents is gravely problematic, not only absolving institutions of their responsibility but also bleaching out possible mechanisms for addressing systemic and enduring problems.

Somewhat unlike certain forms of privilege that can be construed as unique and/or innate to certain individuals—such as those biased toward benefitting people who are deemed white on the basis of northern European ancestry or otherwise considered “white passing” in seemingly individual ways—a license is instead granted through approved and officially recognized processes of learning to conform to both explicit and implicit institutionalized norms relating to designated purposes or functions. We would agree that a license can be considered a type of privilege because, unlike an inalienable right, a license is not only granted but it also can be revoked. Similarly, people may undertake the process of obtaining a license by applying for one or completing an accompanying program prior to application; however, a license can always be denied by the granting state institutional authority.

Structural privilege: licensing & whiteness

For us as educational researchers whose work also entails various kinds of involvement in university-based teacher education, we recognize that distinctions between licenses, certifications, and degrees—all of which are forms of what Bourdieu (Citation1986) would refer to as types of cultural capital—are not only significant for analyzing institutional purposes and functions, but also important in shaping our own emerging theoretical conceptualization of whiteness as a license. Though regularly conflated on their basis as institutionalized cultural capital, we want to be clear about our understanding of particular key differences. For example, a degree can be said to symbolically represent the successful completion of coursework or a sequence of classes related to an area or program of study through offerings provided by an officially recognized educational institution such as a school, college, or university. Relatedly, a certification can be said to recognize the completion of various forms of pre-professional training, competencies, or formalized preparation connected to an area of study or subfield related to specific existing or standardized proficiencies. A license, however, is an officially recognized mechanism directly related to institutional approvals regarding specific actions, practices, or possessions.

To explain some of the origins of our thinking behind the idea of a whiteness license, we would first like to offer a concrete empirical example of how otherwise seemingly minor differences between forms of institutionalized cultural capital—degrees, certifications, licenses—have very real material consequences. As we have mentioned, some aspects of our current work entail involvement in university-based teacher education programs. To find employment as public school teachers, students enrolled in many university-based teacher preparation programs will in all likelihood need to obtain: an undergraduate or graduate degree, an endorsement from an approved teacher education preparation program indicating completion of necessary certification requirements, and a passing score on a state licensure exam related to the specific area in which one intends to work. However, the ability to successfully obtain one such credential does not mean that one will be able to obtain another despite their interrelation and seemingly direct connection to performing the same job. In other words, it is quite possible for some preservice teachers to have tremendous success in their degree-related coursework but simultaneously struggle with supporting real students’ learning in actual classroom settings. Other preservice teachers may conversely perform outstandingly in their work with children in real schools related to certification requirements but find themselves unable to obtain a satisfactory score on a state teaching license exam. Petchauer (Citation2019) notes, for example, that such cases may arise particularly for those underrepresented within the existing teacher workforce (i.e. people other than middle-class, white, monolingual English-speaking women), despite known benefits of recognizing the significance of culture (Ladson-Billings, Citation1999) and ethnic matching (Easton-Brooks, Citation2019) and related calls for increased diversity among K-12 teachers. Clearly this is an imperfect parallel or corollary with what we are attempting to argue in relation to the idea of a whiteness license; however, the relevance to our emerging thinking lies in our interest in seeking to emphasize the significance of neoliberal state institutional power in the maintenance of established hegemonies and corresponding resistance to change around better addressing structural issues of race, racism, and white supremacy.

Again, our interest in extending existing discussions of white privilege while also trying to be clear about how we are approaching the role that established distinctions between forms of institutional cultural capital play in proposing the conceptual idea of a whiteness license, comes back to critical race theory’s proposition that emphasizes an understanding of whiteness as a form of property—evidenced in terms of how the rule of law is interpreted and its centrality within neoliberalism and neoliberal reform agendas. As CRT scholarship and critical whiteness studies suggest, it can be argued that whiteness exists relationally with racialized constructions of otherness in ways that function along epistemological, ontological, and axiological dimensions. Its entrenchment and inculcation within neoliberalism’ race-negligent logics and philosophical basis highlights the potential significance of CRT’s contributions towards challenging long-standing racialized socioeconomic and political inequities. In other words, returning to the idea that, unlike other forms of credentialing, a license relates primarily the granting of specific permissions associated with actions, practices, and/or possessions by a politically empowered institutional authority, a whiteness license ought to be understood conceptually as not only reinforcing particular ways of knowing, being, and valuing but also violently obstructing, excluding, or otherwise limiting access to rights to property.

Given the interrelationship between the points we have outlined above and returning to the idea that, unlike other forms of credentialing, a license relates primarily the granting of specific permissions associated with actions, practices, and/or possessions by a politically empowered institutional authority, the theoretical conception of a whiteness license’s connection to whiteness’s function as property becomes more apparent. It is worth noting that the idea of a whiteness license is by no means suggested to serve as an indicator of unique abilities, rare professional knowledge, technical proficiencies in limited supply, etc., despite the potential for the misconstrual of licensing in this way in some circumstances. The granting of a whiteness license authorizing the individual possession of whiteness as a form of property to be maintained through contractual relations and upheld by the rule of law presents a unique and complex dilemma with regards to both confronting and challenging what Bell (Citation1992) describes in terms of the permanence of racism in US society, and which we would further argue become intensified under neoliberalism. Furthermore, the granting and institutional recognition of a whiteness license exists symbiotically with its denial to BIPOC and other members of historically minoritized and oppressed groups. As a form of symbolic licensure, again the idea of a whiteness license concerns contractual relations with power via the state sponsored institutional recognition of whiteness—something that again has very real and material consequences for people but also simultaneously presents exclusive benefits to a select few. Key to some of our thinking is that, unlike how a certification can be linked directly to specific training or preparation, it is in some ways possible to argue that a license functions more as an official state-sponsored form of regulatory oversight and less as a direct recognition of competency or ability. People can and regularly do engage in activities requiring a license of some kind without having obtained one, but they do so at the potential threat of negative consequences or repercussions for such actions—indeed there are entire economies, for example, that operate underground and outside of regulation; however, those engaging in these activities do so at either greater risk or disadvantage.

Neoliberalism argues that social equality can be achieved within a societally-expansive marketplace of individual choice based on the pursuit of self-interest. An embedded contradiction of neoliberalism’s focus on the deregulation and marketization of socioeconomic relations is that it simultaneously requires the use of regulation (i.e. utilizing the rule of law to ensure the proper provision of contracts) to uphold the structuring of those same deregulated markets. Here the idea of a whiteness license that we are offering can be viewed conceptually as linked to analyzing endemic racialization determining both the degree and the nature of access afforded to individuals within various neoliberal marketplaces and organizational structures.

One need not look long or far to find other examples where neoliberalism and neoliberal reforms can be recognized as intersecting directly with issues of race and racism through licensing whiteness in education. Such instances ought also to be viewed critically through theoretical lenses that simultaneously help to reveal not only the racialized implications for minoritized communities but also how these exist in tandem with white supremacy and do so in a manner allowing whiteness to function hegemonically through the neoliberalization of social institutions. In cities such as Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, schools and housing represent key sites to expand and reinforce the neoliberal-carceral agenda (Henry, Citation2021; Lipman, Citation2011; Pedroni, Citation2011). Public and private entities have co-conspired for decades, seizing opportunities to capitalize upon large city school districts’ reform efforts, by removing resources and funding from schools while forcing schools to comply with education reforms embedded within a free-market ideology that prioritizes money—namely profit maximization—over people themselves.

Simply put, white elites’ investment in society shifted from support for social programs during the decline of the Keynesian welfare state once the civil rights movement’s legal victories forced those social programs to extend their services to marginalized groups to a narrowed investment in their own capital accumulation by way of functional opportunity hoarding. The funding allocation for social service programs, for example, decreased and was redirected into efforts focused on expanding and intensifying policing (Camp, Citation2016; Gilmore, Citation1999; Meiners, Citation2007). Neoliberal-carceralism herein thrives off of the practice of indoctrinating society into an ideology and discourse that centers meritocracy, individualism, and freedom (Harvey, Citation2005; Lipman, Citation2011). Simultaneously, it depicts inclusive imagery that argues that all people, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual-orientation, age and ability distinctions will benefit from this way of life. Yet reality directly contradicts these myths.

In sum, the concept of a whiteness license we have sought to present in this article not only emphasizes CRT’s recognition that racism and white supremacy are endemic but also the fact that whiteness plays a role in the symbolic and material regulation of access to an array of neoliberal institutional structures and marketplaces. We are well aware of the claims that have been made about neoliberalism’s creation of a deregulated marketplace and the rhetoric surrounding its supposed promotion of equality, as we are of various influential historical antecedents in the emergence of neoliberal thought. We not only question but also have very deep concern over neoliberalism’s apparent rearticulation of multi-level institutional mechanisms that inculcate whiteness and white supremacy while simultaneously creating a facade of post-racial free market society of individual consumer choice. The hollowed meanings of equity promulgated by neoliberalism have proven to make little inroads towards substantively addressing socioeconomic inequality and instead have resulted in greater economic inequality and racial tension. Our conceptual and epistemic alignment with CRT in the process of framing our analysis of neoliberalism’s white supremacy problem emphasizes the realities of how entrenched racialized vestiges are re-interpellated through the formation of new structural policies, individual practices, and ideologically-based discourses. Our hope in proposing the conceptual idea of a whiteness license has been to implicate and challenge state structures and institutions in their continuation of neoliberalized notions of separate but equal.

Necessary relevance

Unexpectedly or not, as we were working on this article in 2020 and into 2021, critical race theory seemed to shift curiously from being what might be considered a debatably obscure academic frame of theoretical analysis—something more likely to be discussed in advanced graduate seminars at elite universities, special topic courses in law schools, and at select academic research conferences and scholarly meetings—to becoming a direct target of conservative/right-wing fanaticism, grievance, and misconstrued outrage. With critical race theory dislocated from its actual meanings and purposes during this time, misinformation was promulgated by extremists and spread among certain conservative groups who were receptive to various lies and conspiracies regarding the agenda of the “radical Left” in the United States. Manufactured indignation and panic created false beliefs that, for example, public school teachers were/are indoctrinating young children in communist ideas and that “critical race theory” was being taught to students as a part of their official school curriculum.

There is a long tradition of contentious struggle over the school curriculum in the United States (Kliebard, Citation1999), within which conservative and right-wing political groups remain especially impactful (Apple, Citation2000, Citation2006). In this particular instance, as a result of these seemingly loosely coordinated efforts mobilized under the rhetorical umbrella of opposition to critical race theory, conservative activists inundated local school board meetings and community town hall sessions organized by elected officials. These strategic efforts—punctuated by the intense outrage of an overwhelmingly white group of extremists—led to the advancement of various pieces of legislation across the United States intended to prohibit the supposed teaching of critical race theory in schools. At best this appeared to be a misconstrued interpretation of the school curriculum since there was no clear evidence of critical race theory actually being taught to schoolchildren ever provided. More realistically, this contentious struggle over the curriculum seemed to be another instance demonstrating a tremendous lack of understanding regarding the work of educators—especially given the inability of those involved to define what critical race theory is or how it was being embedded within instruction. Regardless, pieces of legislation were constructed and put forth at a variety of governmental levels with the stated intent of either prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory or, in other instances, topics that consider or discuss issues of longstanding racial and/or economic inequity in the United States.

Much like what john a. powell (Citation2021) noted about Plessy not really being about the physical separation of races, the manufactured crisis surrounding critical race theory—with its numerous ambiguities and misunderstandings—ought to be recognized as not truly about the curriculum or teachers’ instructional practices. Moreover, the irrational panic over critical race theory serves as yet another important example of how critical race theory provides an essential lens for theorizing the power relations that constitute various mechanisms of oppression and marginalization. The pursuit of efforts by white conservative groups and policymakers is more about using the law’s established institutional structures to maintain and further entrench white supremacy. Irony notwithstanding, the push to pass laws and use the legal system to prohibit discussions of critical race theory—despite no evidence being provided that this was even occurring in the first place—seems to illustrate not only the relevance but also the utility of the analytical tools and frameworks critical race theory affords to explain what is occurring here and why.

Concluding thoughts

Much of our focus and attention in this article has been to outline the theoretical foundation for better analyzing how the politics of race and neoliberalism are powerfully intertwined. We have noted how neoliberalism promotes forms of marketization as it constructs discourses, policies, and practices in race-negligent ways—in addition to leveraging the rule of law as the basis for establishing and maintaining contracts. We have also discussed how critical race theory emphasizes an understanding of racism as endemic, and that critical race theory offers a powerful analytic framework for interrogating contemporary socio-economic and institutional/organizational constructs. Therefore, considerations of the impact that neoliberalism has on institutions, people’s lives, and society must be understood as connected integrally to race and racism.

We have explored how critical race theory’s contributions to academic scholarship and social science research are grounded in the study of law and the analysis of how race is constructed in ways that allow whiteness to find protection within established legal understandings of property rights in the United States. Parallel to this, we have argued that neoliberalism is maintained by social and institutional relations operating under the rule of law and structured through contracts. Our argument regarding the idea of whiteness as licensed is most concerned with emphasizing how whiteness itself is supported both within and across institutional structures by contract-based forms of state power under contemporary neoliberal regimes.

To close, we would like to consider some possible implications with regards to analyses that examine intersections between issues of race and neoliberalism. In doing so, we also want to raise questions that we view as worth further consideration in examinations of how critical race theory has the potential to offer more pointed critiques in the analyses of neoliberalism’s disparate impact on racially marginalized groups targeted by the most aggressive and radical experiments in educational reform.

Implications

The emergence of neoliberalism in the U.S. during the post-Keynesian welfare era in the 1970s advanced during the rollout of welfare reform and law and order politics. While using “neutral” or coded economic policy terms, collectively the new orders affirmed consensus from the public through anti-Black depictions of the Welfare Queen and the hyper-vigilant Black male criminal (Haymes, Citation1995; Roberts, Citation1997). Lipman (Citation2011) discusses race as central to “constructing consent for privatizing public goods, including schools” (p. 12). Haymes (Citation1995) breaks down the racial coding of the words “private” and “public” altogether. The legacy of over 400 years of white-supremacy, settler-colonialism, and racial formations have imprinted our schemas to read Black as “bad” and white as “good.” Haymes expands this analysis to argue that “public” gets read as Black and “private” as white in this context. The public good, when viewed through the formulation of neoliberal discourses, represents the exaggerated, stereotypical images of lazy, dependent Black people (e.g. Black welfare queen)—while the “private” represents contractual access to exclusive spaces and high quality services for the “deserving.” This results in impoverished whites fighting against their own political interests to abstain from being associated with the “undeserving.” Moreover, critical educational theorists further assess accumulation by dispossession to ask questions about the dialectical relationship between white accumulation and Black de-accumulation/divestment (Fine & Ruglis, Citation2009; Harris, Citation1993; Picower & Mayorga, Citation2015).

The operation of institutional processes such as those we discussed in this article maneuver through formal systems and structures in conjunction with attempts at the further solidification of existing state power that levies the divisive framing of both economic relations and cultural/identity politics to its own advantage. The conceptual and material implications of this become evident when neoliberalism is viewed through a critical race theory lens at a policy level, a practical level, and at a discursive level. Returning to what we discussed in the beginning of this conclusion section, the manufactured panic over the teaching of critical race theory in schools—despite a complete lack of evidence—illustrates the rearticulated opposition to establish greater senses of inclusion and belonging. There have been long-standing attempts to reshape the curriculum in ways that allow for more responsive and culturally relevant approaches. These efforts seek to build upon forms of community and cultural wealth as opposed to promoting the erasure of identities and knowledge. The ultimate goal here is one that simply seeks to provide students with more accurate and factually-based understandings of presented content. However, oppositional efforts successfully reframed this into an absurd fear about critical race theory. As critical race theory scholar Adrienne Dixson (Citation2021) stated in response to the concerns being raised about the teaching of critical race theory, “it is not taught in K-12 schools as a curriculum of any sort formally” (p. 2).

To consider whiteness as licensed within state-sponsored neoliberal institutional structures and contracts, one must continually ask: who has access to spaces of power and authority? Who is heard and how? Whose voices and perspectives are valued? And whose knowledge is recognized as having worth or legitimacy?