ABSTRACT
Allied health professions, including faculty within allied health professions education programs in the United States, are woefully misrepresentative of the US population. Regarding race and ethnicity, there is a substantial and unjust underrepresentation of persons from systemically excluded culture groups, including Latina/o, Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ communities. There may also exist a relative underrepresentation by gender among faculty, especially above the junior academic ranks, and among leaders and administrators in academic allied health professions programs. These disparities in race, ethnicity, and gender among faculty yield significant consequences downstream regarding workforce diversity, and by extension, health inequities among persons from systemically excluded culture groups. Critical race theory, and broadly critical theories, seek to provide relevant sociohistorical context to the contribution of factors such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender among a spectrum of apparent inequities, including within higher education and healthcare. Cultural taxation or the "minority tax" has been proposed as a systematic mechanism through which faculty from systemically excluded culture groups fail to attain academic ranks above assistant professor, often accompanying a denial of tenure. This can have far-reaching consequences and contribute to what is colloquially referred to as racial battle fatigue. Critical race theory and the phenomenon of cultural taxation are proposed as viable frameworks through which these problems can be examined and solutions developed. Solutions may range from pathway and mentoring programs to accreditation standards and benchmarks, and perhaps simply to a realization by all relevant stakeholders that many qualified individuals from systemically excluded culture groups are fully ready, willing, and capable of effectively operating at all levels of the academic, as well as administrative, ranks, certainly on par with our White male counterparts.
