“We are truth tellers”: Exploring #BlackintheIvory as a digital counterpublic for black scholars

Digital counterpublics: a form of counterspaces online

Due to its public accessibility, marginalized groups formed racialized counterspaces on Twitter. According to Case and Hunter (2012), counterspaces can be thought of as “settings that promote positive self-concepts among marginalized people (e.g., racial and sexual minority individuals, persons with disabilities, etc.) by challenging deficit-oriented dominant cultural narratives and representations concerning these people” (p. 261). Different types of counterspaces operate for racially marginalized people. For example, scholars have theorized the existence of a Black public sphere, which exists in counter to the dominant public sphere belonging to White, middle- and upper-class males (Dawson, 1995; Fraser, 1990). Catherine Squires’s (2002) model describes multiple types of Black public spheres, defining them as either enclaved publics, counterpublics, or satellite publics.

Enclaved publics are characterized as spaces that marginalized groups were forced into due to being denied the right to participate in public spaces run by dominant groups, such as slave quarters or Black newspapers in the Jim Crow era. Enclaves focus on protecting safe spaces for internal discourse and planning, simultaneously concealing specific strategies to maintain survival (Squires, 2002). Counterpublics emerge in response to an increase in resources and often give rise to social movements that aim to reveal hidden truths, foster solidarity with other marginalized publics, or influence the perspectives of those in dominant publics. For example, sit-ins and boycotts during the Civil Rights Movement are examples of offline counterpublics. Mass media facilitates conversations across time and space that propel counterpublicity outside the safety of enclaved spaces (Squires, 2002). Satellite publics are classified as independent spaces, welcoming to members of a particular group, engaging in larger public discourse intermittently, and detached from other publics or the state (Kuo, 2018; Squires, 2002). Satellite publics are independent spaces formed around a group identity; their detachment from different groups is not solely a result of oppression, but also reflects a diminished desire to engage with these publics (Kuo, 2018; Squires, 2002). For example, independent groups such as the Nation of Islam may be considered satellite publics.

This study situates #BlackintheIvory as a digital counterpublic within Black Twitter. Black Twitter can be described as an active network that was bound by the politics of one’s skin color; visible to those with eyes sharpened to the nuances of Black cultures, and reliant on the selective contributions of users who often positively self-identify as Black (Clark, 2024; Florini, 2019). Before the platform became X, Brock (2020) referred to Black Twitter as a satellite counterpublic since the virtual space held attributes of both a satellite public (e.g., it was a sphere that was both independent and informal, where mostly Black users interacted and constructed their own narratives) and counterpublic (e.g., it was still connected to the broader public sphere on Twitter through its ability to produce and sustain social movements) according to Squire’s (2002) theory. Black Twitter was a satellite counterpublic because its users often talked with each other about Blackness in a way that was not related to Whiteness and maintained culturally distinctive traits (like a satellite public) yet they still engaged in discourse focused on achieving solidarity with other marginalized groups or changing the minds of those in dominant public spheres (like a counterpublic; Brock, 2020). Black Twitter represented one of many ways that Black people historically engaged with Black culture despite social constraints, and people who made up this racialized online public suitably bonded over both shared and differential racial interests (Byrne, 2008; Florini, 2019; Hill, 2018; Kuo, 2018).

Black Twitter users’ engagement with other groups was often mediated using hashtags. Hashtags facilitate discourse across different public spheres because they can appear across anyone’s timeline and may even become a viral trend. At times, hashtags offer racial cues that users can relate to or discursively expand on due to shared or opposing experiences (Jackson et al., 2020; Kuo, 2018). For instance, racial justice hashtags provide resources for collective action, amplify and circulate discourse related to the topic, and contribute to the development of individual and collective racial identities (Kuo, 2018). Some digital counterpublics emerge through the creation of hashtags (Kuo, 2018; Squires, 2002). Since Black Twitter was a satellite counterpublic comprising various subgroups of Black people, conversations that emerged within that digital sphere (e.g., counterpublics such as #BlackintheIvory) may have also led to engagements with broader discourses and social movements. Thus, #BlackintheIvory was a racial justice hashtag that originated from conversations among Black scholars on Twitter, serving as a digital counterpublic for Black users. The importance of #BlackintheIvory operating as a digital counterpublic is that it enabled these users to discuss their experiences with racism in higher education while pushing back against inaccurate narratives about their academic experiences.

Racism in higher education

Many Black scholars at every level experience everyday behavioral/environmental insults that intentionally or unintentionally communicate derogatory, racial slights and perpetuate the larger system of racism (Alabi, 2015; Hubain et al., 2016; Pérez Huber and Solorzano, 2015). Black scholars in particular encounter isolation, discrimination, devaluation based on their racial identity or their scholarly work, and hostile racial climates within academia (Harper and Hurtado, 2007; Settles et al., 2021). For example, Black undergraduate students who attend predominantly White institutions (i.e., PWIs) frequently experience race-related stressors and receive racialized messages from peers, mentors, faculty, and supervisors (Gomez et al., 2011; Griffith et al., 2019; Louis et al., 2016). Research on discrimination in higher education has also shown that, regardless of their discipline, Black graduate students often experience racism in their graduate programs (Hubain et al., 2016). For instance, Clark et al. (2012) sought to explore factors that serve as obstacles to the success of ethnic minority students in graduate programs in school psychology. They found that ethnic minority students (whom they defined as Hispanic American, African American, Asian American, and Native American) reported having more negative race-related experiences and, relatedly, higher levels of emotional distress when compared to ethnic majority graduate students (i.e., European American). These experiences of racism can result in Black graduate students feeling isolated, invisible, and/or unwelcome within the context of academia (Borum and Walker, 2012; Hubain et al., 2016).

Racism in higher education also affects Black faculty. Research suggests that Black faculty are often underrepresented across PWIs such that the demographic makeup of faculty in higher education primarily consists of White males (Allen et al., 2000; Constantine et al., 2008; Louis et al., 2016). Black faculty members are frequently subject to microaggressions (Louis et al., 2016) and discrimination in academia (Allen et al., 2000). Specifically, African American faculty members have historically been paid less, denied access to the professoriate, and received tenure less frequently compared to their White counterparts (Allen et al., 2000). Black and ethnic minority staff in higher education experience disparities in career progression and in achieving senior-level university management positions (Mirza, 2018). Considering these inequities, #Blackintheivory was a justified call for Black scholars to respond to and discuss their experiences of racism within higher education.

The present study

At this historical moment, supportive interactions facilitated by counterpublics are no longer confined to physical gathering spaces. Black people often create online spaces that cater to Black expression, forming digital counterpublics. These digital spheres mimic the work of physical counterpublics, creating easily accessible spaces where Black people can explore ways to mitigate their experiences of racism. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether and how Black users’ engagement with #BlackintheIvory reflects the hashtag’s efficacy as a counterpublic. Other research suggests that #BlackintheIvory facilitated discussion of Black scholars’ shared experiences in higher education regarding teaching, mentoring, collegiality, identity, and service (Adewumi et al., 2022; Davis, 2024). An examination of these findings through Squires’s (2002) theory of multiple Black public spheres suggests that users’ engagement with #BlackintheIvory reflects the defining features of a counterpublic. Thus, our overarching research question is as follows: How are Black users engaging with #BlackintheIvory? In an effort to address this question, the authors used Squires’s (2002) theory of multiple Black public spheres to conduct thematic analysis of tweets with the hashtag #BlackintheIvory to examine how the hashtag may have promoted intercommunal political consciousness among marginalized communities by serving as a community resource for Black scholars’ voices, illuminating the contours of racism in higher education, and facilitating conversations across virtual spheres on Twitter.

Researcher positionality statement

As Black feminist researchers, we believe it is essential to disclose our personal stakes in this research. We situate the emergence of this hashtag within concrete sociopolitical events during June of 2020: (1) The increased reliance on virtual communication through social medial platforms during lockdown due to the onset of COVID-19 and (2) the increased exposure to news surrounding police brutality, illness, and the excess of Black people’s deaths that were also widely circulating on social media platforms at that time. In this sociopolitical context, our approach to this digital data is influenced by a feminist ethics of care, such that the underlying assumptions that we made about these tweets as data are that they are (1) constructed by humans and (2) constructed by different relationships to power (Luka and Millette, 2018). By considering the humans behind these responses and incorporating their insights into the research process, we openly acknowledge the power differentials between ourselves as researchers and the users who tweeted to make a point (Steele, 2021). Overall, we aim to utilize this research as an act/practice of care that can promote substantial change for Black people.

Procedure

For this analysis, we used Sysomos to download over 45,000 tweets from June 6, 2020, through June 8, 2020. This period was chosen because this was the height of users’ contributions to the hashtag, within 2 days of its creation. All tweets under the hashtag #BlackintheIvory were downloaded for analysis, including retweets and tweets that use the hashtag but may have irrelevant content. One of the team members hydrated the tweet IDs using the DocNow HydratorSample. ¹ The hydration process is necessary to remove retweets and irrelevant content, and to limit the number of tweets from users whose accounts later become private. Information regarding the tweet’s location, time, language, and hyperlinks was removed in coding sheets for privacy purposes. The current study sample consisted of 1,253 tweets, randomly selected to represent a wide variety of tweets throughout the dataset during the chosen period.

Data analysis strategy

The current study utilized a codebook thematic analysis to explore patterns within the dataset (Braun and Clarke, 2022). The construction of the codebook was both inductive and deductive as it was informed by research on scholarly devaluation (Settles et al., 2021) and adjacent pre-existing theories (e.g., racial battle fatigue; Corbin et al., 2018 ) as well as the research team’s observations of patterns within the dataset. Digital Engagement was the parent code used to determine whether and how Black users’ engagements with #BlackintheIvory reflect the hashtag’s efficacy as a counterpublic. This code had three subcodes. The Validation/Amplification subcode captured when a user affirmed or uplifted another user’s feelings or opinions as worthwhile. The Allyship subcode captured when users who self-identified as non-Black (i.e., using phrases such as “fellow White people”) affirmed, uplifted, or expressed appreciation for #BlackintheIvory discourse. According to the logics of symbolic netnography and qualitative discourse analytic approaches, all users in the dataset who tweeted under #BlackintheIvory were assumed to identify as Black unless they specified otherwise (Kozinets, 2015; Reyes-Menendez et al., 2020). The Appreciation/Acknowledgment subcode captured when users expressed individual appreciation for the general #BlackintheIvory discourse. Each tweet could be coded into multiple categories. Coding disagreements were discussed and resolved within coding pairs and the larger research team.

The teams stopped coding after reaching data saturation, such that patterns in the dataset felt redundant, the codes seemed to cover the prominent patterns in the dataset sufficiently, and the research team would have to collect and analyze further data to identify new themes (Fusch and Ness, 2015; Guest et al., 2020). Following the coding, the research team identified a set of themes and refined them in accordance with the current literature on digital counterpublics. In this paper, we share quotes from users’ publicly available tweets to “let their words be their words” (Klassen and Fiesler, 2022: 7). However, to limit the recognizability of users, we substituted usernames with the pseudonym “user” and omitted links that would direct readers to the tweet’s location.

Speaking hidden truths

In #BlackintheIvory, Black scholars spent a lot of time discussing their insidious encounters with racism. Racism in higher education can manifest discreetly in offensive interpersonal comments and biased standards of good work, making it difficult to address (Harper and Hurtado, 2007; Settles et al., 2021). Scholars talked about many of the microaggressions or implicit encounters with racism that they experienced. By gesturing toward the private, sensitive nature of the experiences that were being shared and acknowledging the importance of disclosing those experiences, some users illuminated the hidden truths of how racism operates in academia. For instance, one user discussed a specific instance where a White woman made an unsolicited comment about her hair.

A WW [White woman] asked how my hair grew so fast. I replied We don’t comment on Black women’s hair anymore. She cried while another WW told me she grew up in a small town and didn’t know better. She knew enough to get into a master’s program though [thinking face emoji] #BlackintheIvory #WWtearsareviolence.

Given that, in professional spaces, Black women’s hair is often a contentious topic (Donahoo, 2023; Steele, 2021), both White women (perhaps unintentionally) reinforced the existence of racism in higher education for the user by commenting on her hair and attempting to justify their comments. Thus, by sharing her story, the user reiterates and amplifies the veiled reality of navigating racism within higher education.

We also identified three subthemes related to how Black scholars spoke their hidden truths about racism in higher education using #BlackintheIvory: amplification and validation, sharing information, and using culturally coded language. These subthemes demonstrate important ways in which users sought to speak to and support each other, thereby building the community required of a counterpublic.

Speaking to other marginal publics: communication with other marginalized groups

Counterpublics emerge in response to structural and ideological exclusion within dominant spheres. Consequently, different counterpublics coexist as overlapping spaces that openly acknowledge the varying interests of marginalized groups (e.g., people of color, women, queer individuals, religious minority groups, and immigrant groups; Squires, 2002). Some users self-identified with other marginalized groups when contributing to the hashtag. A user tweeted about their #BlackintheIvory experience where they felt like they were forced to do unpaid labor, and then another user (presumed to identify as Indigenous) quote-retweeted them, sharing that they could empathize because the same occurrences happen to Indigenous researchers:

QT @user: The same for Indigenous researchers. My last 10 years [backhand index pointing down emoji] and will probably continue for my entire career. . .; Being #BlackintheIvory is being required to do unpaid labor: getting colleagues to recognize their anti-blackness, doing the diversity work bc your program won’t hire diverse faculty, mentoring other POC students. Meanwhile your white colleagues get to just focus on their science.

In this way, both users alluded to the vast body of research that suggests scholars of color are expected to perform above and beyond their duties (Sharifi et al., 2025). These users imply that scholars of color are often not afforded the privilege of solely focusing on furthering their work because they frequently have to fulfill multiple roles related to diversity.

Some users also talked about having marginalized identities aside from their racial identities. For instance, one user labeled another user’s experience as intersectional after they discussed their experience of making less than a livable wage as a Black scholar:

QT @user: Intersectionality at its finest; #BlackintheIvory Making less than $1000 per month and having food stamps denied because I worked 1 hr more or less and having my job fudge the hour so I could get my benefits while I researched food insecurity.

Intersectionality is a theory coined by critical race and legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how intersecting social identities, such as race and gender, as well as systems of power, such as racism and sexism, overlap to create unique experiences for individuals (Crenshaw, 1991). In these tweets, the users referenced how race and economic status intersect, such that Black people who also experience a low socioeconomic status may recognize both the separate and combined struggles of these marginalized groups. In this way, these users utilize the hashtag to communicate with various marginalized groups and to illustrate the ways in which academia affects how Black scholars experience their overlapping identities.

Through this hashtag, Black and other marginalized scholars note the similarities and differences in the way racism manifests within higher education. By acknowledging that Indigenous researchers also experience racism within higher education, or that financial instability differentially impacts a Black scholar’s well-being, users show a concrete awareness of how discrimination against Black scholars is a product of anti-Black racism as well as evidence of the intersecting nature of oppression. Acknowledging the intersectionality of experiences across marginalized groups can be beneficial in building coalitions (Cho et al., 2013).

Communication between dominant and counterpublic spheres

In a counterpublic, users at times direct and receive communications from dominant social groups. Indeed, the telltale marker of a counterpublic is an increase in open communication between dominant and counterpublic spheres (Squires, 2002). Interactions of this nature help broaden the audience for counterpublic activity by facilitating direct communication about the intricacies of issues within counterpublic spheres to those in dominant spheres, and by allowing those in counterpublic spheres to observe how people in dominant spheres respond or intend to respond to their specific causes. We identified these bidirectional exchanges in two subthemes.

Limitations and future directions

Several notable limitations require attention in the current study. For instance, this study uses a randomly selected sample of tweets rather than the most popular tweets from the hashtag. The research team opted to randomly select tweets in hopes of viewing a larger variety of tweets. However, choosing only the most popular (i.e., the most retweeted and most liked) could have emphasized the experiences with which other users identified the most.

It is also worth noting that the research team did not closely examine user identity. This limitation extends to social media research in general, as it can be challenging to determine the racial demographics of a social media sample without directly asking users about their racial identity. In this case, the research team was focused on examining the culture that exists within #BlackintheIvory, and user identity was surmised based on one’s involvement with the hashtag.

Another concern when using social media data is the difficulty of determining whether tweets were created by humans or bots. Since we did not attempt to explore user identity in detail, certain users may have been difficult to distinguish as human or bots under the hashtag, and their tweets may have become more visible to other users through increased engagement, depending on algorithmic dynamics. Although this limitation applies to the present study, we took a number of steps to minimize the possibility of its effect. Specifically, the authors addressed this limitation by randomly selecting tweets from the dataset and viewing profiles of users during analysis to determine whether they were human.

Furthermore, this study also did not capitalize on the conversational dynamics of the users talking back and forth on Twitter (e.g., direct replies, threads). Empirical research examining how social identity is generated online suggests that group identity membership is established through behavioral involvement, interactions (i.e., verbal and nonverbal), and the social transmission of shared meanings (Ashmore et al., 2004; Fujita et al., 2018). Furthermore, it was common for people to use Twitter in the construction of their social identity; Twitter provided users with various rich, coalesced sources of social identity (Fujita et al., 2018; HerdaĞdelen et al., 2013). Therefore, closely examining the conversational dynamics between contributing users may have yielded further insights into the social transmission of shared meanings and behavioral indicators of group identity membership.

Considering the information this study has provided about the value of Black scholarly communities, further research on how Black scholars communicate online can illuminate how specific features of different social media websites uniquely function and facilitate interactions that buffer the adverse effects of academic racism on mental health. Other social media websites have different affordances (DeVito et al., 2017), so investigating how specific virtual features on various sites can be used to mediate racist traumas that are experienced in real life would be helpful for Black scholars and Black people more generally. In this case, researchers may even consider how new ownership of Twitter, now X, may impact the feasibility of or engagements with new social justice movements on the website.

Further research should also examine the experiences of Black scholars who are additionally marginalized due to holding other devalued social identities (e.g., queer Black scholars or Black women scholars). For instance, researchers may investigate how intersectional experiences of discrimination at HBCUs (e.g., identifying as queer and experiencing discrimination at an HBCU because of queerness) might result in some Black students having negative feelings toward HBCU contexts, even though these contexts are more commonly geared toward the needs of Black scholars (Lenning, 2017). Relatedly, researchers may consider conducting a closer examination of the specific types of scholars (i.e., faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students) who contributed to #BlackintheIvory, as well as the different ways in which Blackness expresses its heterogeneity within the hashtag.