Compliance bureaucracy and the hidden "survival tax" of women of color faculty in academia

Abstract

This study exposes how compliance bureaucracy and metricized pipelines in higher education systematically marginalize Women of Color faculty. Triangulating qualitative narrative inquiry with professional artifacts (CVs and NIH portfolios), we dissect the institutional trauma and survival of eight multi-generational minoritized female scholars. Findings conceptualize a "Hidden Survival Tax," exposing four predatory mechanisms: forced Anglo-conformity, uncredited emotional extraction, lateral friction, and intersectional motherhood penalties causing forced scientific attrition. Conversely, we document how these scholars deploy tactical micro-political agency to subvert this compliance machine, demanding critical policy interventions to transition university governance from extractive auditing toward an authentic epistemology of care.