Race-Based Discrimination in Higher Education & Mental Health among Students of Color

Anxiety and depression are cited as the two most prevalent mental health struggles among college undergraduates in the United States. I’ll admit, at one point I thought that everyone in my undergraduate career at Clark University in Worcester, MA was dealing with some form of anxiety or depression. It can be both noticeable and invisible.

However, for most students of color who are entering 4 year institutions, this picture of mental health is more than anxiety and depression. Students of color who are exposed to trauma are at risk for poorer functioning due to the further race-based potentially traumatic experiences that await them. This problem goes deeper than the individual and is embedded in the fabric of predominantly white institutions.

So what is race-based trauma? Race based trauma is the consequence of experiences of racism and discrimination and the emotional trauma that arises in these negative events. For students of color, these experiences are commonly found on college campuses. In fact, Asian and Black students report more experiences of racism and discriminatory experiences on college campuses compared to other racial groups (Pieterse et. al, 2010). Experiences of racism and discrimination on U.S. college campuses can lead to anxiety, lower self-esteem, emotional reactivity, and depression among college students. Additionally, more than half of the population of students entering into college report a history of trauma (Boyraz et. al, 2016). These students are at risk for poor psychological functioning and dropout.

Stereotypes, lack of cultural competency, dismissed reports by administration from students who have expressed these concerns, and lack of representative mental health care on college campuses can make this issues worse. As a new therapist in this field, I find that the one most helpful thing that colleges can do, is raise their standards of hiring diverse professionals in their college counseling centers. The level of comfort that exists between a client of color and a therapist of color can vary, but there is no doubt that this representation matters and is effective. Additionally, college campuses need to respond to the experiences of students of color in a way that makes them feel more heard and less silenced.

In my own experience as a South Asian Caribbean woman of color, the spaces of healing that were most effective for me were the spaces in which I found sisters of color and other racial/ethnicity based campus affinity groups. Campus affinity groups are incredibly important in the healing process for students of color. To have a space to unpack the race based trauma in a room of people or a person who gets itis key. So why does this matter? Students of color need to feel safe on predominantly white campuses. These mental health struggles are real, and they exist so prevalently on our campuses across the board. Representation matters. Healing spaces matter, and most importantly the struggles and joys and resiliency of students of color matter.

About the Author

Ravina D. Wadhwaniis a Boston based mental health

therapist currently providing direct services to undergraduate and graduate students at Wheelock College. She is currently a Masters Student at Boston University earning a degree in Mental Health Counseling. As a South Asian Caribbean woman of color born and raised in the United States Virgin Islands, Ravina has worked extensively for the past 9 years with youth and young adults in community based settings, schools, hospitals, social work agencies, mentoring services, and prisons both here in the U.S. and abroad in London, UK. Ravina’s interests in the mental health field are identity formation, multicultural issues, resiliency, and healing from trauma. Ravina’s life work is embedded in decolonizing the mental health spaces she serves in to provide more effective, culturally informed treatment approaches for students of color and of marginalized backgrounds. She enjoys yoga, food, and travel as her primary forms of self care. She believes in healing as being a community effort.

References

Boyraz, G., Granda, R., Baker, C. N., Tidwell, L. L., & Waits, J. B. (2016). Posttraumatic stress, effort regulation, and academic outcomes among college students: A longitudinal study. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(4), 475.

Pieterse, A. L., Carter, R. T., Evans, S. A., & Walter, R. A. (2010). An exploratory examination of the associations among racial and ethnic discrimination, racial climate, and trauma-related symptoms in a college student population. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(3), 255.