Debunking the “Teachers Who Look Like Them” Myth

A mysterious fever gripped the nation in 2020. Some called it mass formation psychosis. Others called it hysteria. It was a result of three distinct events, as well as institutional responses designed to exploit existing societal tensions. Those three events were the Covid-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd, and the impending re-election of Donald Trump. So much of what we were told by the authorities and the experts at that time has now been debunked.

But those who work in academia know that, as crazy as life was out in the “real world,” it was even crazier in the realm of higher education. Universities have long advanced and promoted left-wing ideas and intellectuals, and this has ensured that devout, doctrinaire leftists make up a large segment of professors and administrators. With so many campus radicals agitating for fundamental alterations, university life changed very quickly in 2020 and 2021.

When campus activists say that “students need teachers who look like them,” they almost always refer to a single feature. The recent return to sane governance has already rolled back many of the most extreme policies imposed by campus activists during that time. But, to date, one particularly dangerous idea has not been decisively rejected. Specifically, that is the backwards belief that “students need teachers who look like them.”

To be fair, this idea isn’t new. It dates back at least 50 years. But, during the panic of that awful year 2020, this belief began to circulate in a new way, as an unquestionable, unassailable truth. By “unquestionable,” I don’t mean to suggest that there were no meaningful questions that needed to be addressed. There were many. Rather, I mean that you weren’t allowed to ask those questions. To do so was to announce yourself as a bigot. After all, everyone knows that students need teachers who look like them.

Putting this belief into practice would amount to institutionally enforced racial segregation. But what does that mean? As a 47-year-old professor, I am bald. Does this platitude mean that balding students should be channeled into my courses for the sake of their academic success? Do obese students need obese teachers to learn? No. To say otherwise would be patently absurd. When campus activists say that “students need teachers who look like them,” they almost always refer to only a single feature of one’s physical appearance: race.

The logic, then, is that black students need black teachers in order to meet their academic potential. And Hispanic students need Hispanic teachers. Of course, putting these beliefs into practice would amount to institutionally enforced racial segregation. But advocates of these policies never acknowledge a glaring logical contradiction in their rhetoric.

If students need teachers who look like them, then it follows that white students need white professors. Strangely, though, the people who advocate for segregation in education believe precisely the opposite. White students, it seems, do not need teachers who look like them. In fact, they are better served by people who don’t look like them, at least not in terms of complexion. White students are benefited when they are exposed to “diversity,” especially when figures of authority are in question.

Understanding this contradiction shows why putting the “teachers who look like them” canard into practice would be impossible. It would require that the faculty be entirely non-white. The students who belong to ethnic minorities would need teachers who share their ethnic heritage, and the white students would need teachers who don’t share their ethnic heritage. But in a nation where about 60 percent of the population is white, disqualifying white people from teaching positions would ensure a crippling shortage of teachers—for everyone.

Still, the matter of faculty hiring and recruitment provides a big clue as to why the “teachers who look like them” axiom continues to circulate, largely uninterrogated. The goal was never to ensure that every student sees someone of his or her own race or ethnicity at the front of the class. Instead, the rule was mostly used as a justification for ignoring equal-opportunity standards and laws against discrimination in hiring.

If a school’s student body is 50-percent non-white, but its faculty is 70-percent white, then hiring another white professor would “materially damage” the academic prospects of the minority students—assuming, that is, that they can give their best academic performance only when the teacher “looks like them.”

And this is why the assertion cannot be questioned: To do so would be to remove the finger that it puts on the scale in favor of minority applicants for teaching positions. To push back against the claim is to risk the social opprobrium of one’s colleagues. So no one does it. And no faculty member wants to be accused of impeding their students’ academic success. Thus, there is an unstated rule that minority candidates, when available, will be preferred. The beauty of the graft is that there is no official policy of racial preference—just a tacit, unstated one that allows universities to ignore anti-discrimination laws with impunity.

Questioning the assertion would remove the finger it puts on the scale in favor of minority applicants for teaching positions. All of that aside, some dinosaurs in the professoriate still believe that the purpose of academic inquiry is to pursue truth. We must ask, then, is it true that students perform better when they have teachers who “look like them”? An advocate for that position can point to a wealth of published research that purports to prove its veracity. But that admittedly wide vein of “scholarship” (if we can use that term) is deeply flawed.

The vast majority of academics want it to be true. In keeping with broader trends in social-scientific research, the vast majority of the studies that support the “look like them” thesis have not been replicated. Replication, obviously, is a crucial factor in validating empirical claims. It is true that there is a dearth of research that disproves the “look like them” perspective, but that’s not surprising. The vast majority of academics want it to be true. And the few who don’t aren’t stupid enough to pursue a research project that debunks the idea. Even in the unlikely event that they were able to find an editor willing to publish their results, there would be high professional and social costs for doing so.

Nevertheless, there are considerable qualitative and quantitative data that seem to support the claim that minority students perform better with teachers who “look like them.” The qualitative evidence isn’t very compelling, as it mostly consists of testimony from minority students that demonstrates their pleasure from and preference for having a teacher from their own ethnic background.

The quantitative evidence comes in various forms. Some shows that minority students earn better grades when they have a teacher who “looks like them.” But I have yet to encounter a study that seriously considers why that might be the case. There are many possible answers which, if true, would invalidate the thesis that those grades are actually indicative of higher academic performance.

For example, it is possible that minority teachers tend to be easier graders in general. Further, it is possible that minority teachers demonstrate more leniency in grading the work of students who “look like them.” Conversely, it’s possible—if doubtful, given the professional incentives—that white teachers unconsciously penalize the work of non-white students en masse. But if any of those possibilities are true, it would show that any correlation between students’ grades and the race of the professor is not indicative of any actual academic performance or learning. Rather, it would be an effect of teachers’ biases.

There is another possibility. Universities depend upon adjunct labor more than they ever have. Adjunct professors do not have the possibility of tenure, and they make significantly less money than tenure-track or tenured faculty. Their employment status is often precarious. Given that student success is seen as a powerful indicator of teachers’ aptitude, we would expect adjunct professors to award higher grades, since grades are the main measure of student success. There is a powerful incentive for adjuncts to inflate grades. Universities want to keep effective teachers, so it is important for adjunct faculty to generate “proof” of their efficacy.

There is significant evidence that minority instructors are more widely represented among adjunct labor than among the ranks of the tenured and the tenure-track. Taken in aggregate, this could explain the statistical evidence that shows higher performance among minority students who have minority professors.

Social-justice warriors would point to the overrepresentation of minority teachers among adjunct faculty as de facto evidence of “systemic racism.” That assertion is also flawed, but radical professors’ certainty about its truth provides clues about their dedication to the “teachers who look like them” canard. By favoring minority candidates in tenure-track faculty searches, they strike two blows for “social justice”: They have a hand in rectifying the racist underrepresentation of minorities in the upper ranks of the faculty and they provide minority students with teachers who have the right racial make-up to help them succeed.

Professional success depends on one’s ability to work with others regardless of ethnic differences. Suffice it to say, then, that there are many possible explanations that suggest the higher grades of students who have teachers who “look like them” are not indicative of improved academic performance. And I haven’t even addressed the question of student motivation. It may be true that minority students are more motivated to perform in courses where their professor “looks like them.” But, if that’s true, it’s probably a bad thing. Professional success in a multicultural society like ours depends on one’s ability to work effectively with others regardless of ethnic and cultural differences.

None of the scholarship arguing that “students need teachers who look like them” demonstrates any interest in eliminating any of these alternative explanations. This suggests that the “looks like them” thesis is being shielded from rigorous empirical scrutiny. And the explanation for that is simple: Politically motivated faculty on the left (a large contingent of professors) need the thesis to be true. To undermine it would be to eliminate a critical instrument for concealing discriminatory hiring practices. Given that faculty diversity is a core metric of political “progress,” the finger must remain on the scale.

After all, the progressives tell us, they are on the right side of history. The moral arc of the universe is long, they say, but it bends toward justice. And, if it doesn’t, then it will have to be bent.

Adam Ellwanger is a full professor who studies rhetoric, writing, and politics at the University of Houston-Downtown.