Misogynoir, a term coined by Moya Bailey (2017) to refer to the deep-rooted societal hatred of Black women, is extremely pervasive in higher education. Despite stated movements toward the opposites, Black women in higher education are continually systemically oppressed by a system that refuses to change. However, when they speak about their experiences, they are disbelieved, discredited, and even punished. Writing centers are deeply implicated within this system of higher education and even create their own unique systems of oppression for Black women administrators, consultants, and staff. While writing center scholarship has acknowledged these systems and even made stated moves towards equity and anti-racism, the structures inherent in the writing center and an unwillingness to change keep writing centers exactly the way they are. In this study, I interview three Black women that work in a writing center inside of a primarily white midwestern university: Lana, Sasha, and Victoria. I interrogate how these co-researchers narrate and experience this emotional burden caused by the institutional structures of the writing center. This paper concludes that writing centers in theory claim to be anti-racist, equitable institutions, but in praxis, enforce a culture of misogynoir, resulting in a reality where Black women enter writing centers with the understanding that they will be welcomed and accepted in the space, but once in the space, they begin to disproportionately feel the emotional burden of working in a writing center that privileges whiteness. I end with the recommendation that in order to resist this reality, writing centers must (a) center an ethic of care in policy and practice, (b) hire Black women in clusters and leadership positions, and (c) implement ideological filtering for everyone hired. While these actions alone won't end the culture of misogynoir perpetuated by writing centers, they will be major strides in lifting some of the emotional burden felt by Black women in writing centers.
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