Pursuing Tenure and Promotion in the Academy: A Librarian’s Cautionary Tale

The author examines her journey before and as she pursued tenure and promotion in the academy. She argues that the path to tenure and promotion in higher education institutions was not one designed to provide a fair and equitable process for Black female faculty who function as academic librarians. Further, she suggests that librarians in this role are marginalized due to two factors-presumed incompetence based on their gender and/or race, and their ambiguous fit among the disciplines within the academy. This autoethnography, with Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Critical Race Feminism (CRF) as its theoretical framework, outlines the struggles and successes of a Black female academic librarian as she addresses the challenges inherent in the culture of her discipline compounded with well-documented issues related to sexism and racism.