The Time Has Come: Broadly Integrating Critical Race Theory as an Analytic Lens in Public and Nonprofit Management

Over the last few years, the disciplines of public administration (PA) and nonprofit management (NP) have actively contributed to the discourse surrounding the importance of documenting and understanding historically marginalized voices (Blessett & Gaynor, 2021). We seek to continue this tradition by building off the work of Blessett and Gaynor (2021) and others (cf Alexander & Stivers, 2020; Danley & Blessett, 2022; McCandless & Blessett, 2022; Portillo et al., 2020; Wright & Merritt, 2020; Zavattaro & Bearfield, 2022) who have highlighted the importance of intentionally integrating marginalized voices into the study of nonprofit management and public administration practice. This discourse is not only a byproduct of the academic disciplines’ foci on social equity, but their more concerted effort to officially engage with the effects of historical discriminatory and/or oppressive institutional structures as a means of pursuing social equity (Riccucci, 2021). This interest has become even more salient in the past several years with the prominence of situations requiring public and nonprofit solutions to address the desperate impacts of COVID-19, police brutality, climate change, and depressed economic conditions (Gooden, 2020). Along these lines, at the American Society for Public Administration’s 2021 and 2022 meetings, one of the overarching themes of these conferences related to the need for applying new theoretical lenses for understanding Black, Indigenous and People of Color’s (BIPOC) experiences and their interactions with public administrators and nonprofit organizations. The interest partially stems from the acceptance within the discipline that racism, either subtle, overt, or institutional, molds the everyday experiences of minorities within the United States (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). As such, in order for public administration as a field to pursue social equity, it must also address and understand the legacies and continued impact of racism (Gooden, 2014; Riccucci, 2021). One such approach to developing this understanding is through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its subcategories. According to Blessett and Gaynor (2021; see also Crenshaw et al., 2015; L opez et al., 2018), CRT provides researchers with a conceptual and empirical foundation to study a host of social issues with the understanding that contemporary social, political and economic systems are the byproduct of racialized structures that are sustained without the racist behaviors of individuals. As such, the use of CRT in research typically is interested in two things. First, to explain how white supremacy has created and maintained institutions and systems that disadvantage people of color, in addition to privilege Whites. Second, to transform the connection of institutions, the law and public policy with the power of BIPOC to pursue social equity (Crenshaw, 1995, 1996; Brown, 2003). CRT is not only intended to understand the lived experiences of people as a result of racialized structures, but also to illustrate that the essentialism upon which many systems of oppression are created is factually inaccurate (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Moreover, this same