Dr. William A. Smith

Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Dr. William A. Smith

Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

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Academic Career Length

29Years (1998-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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1 December 2009 in Harvard Educational Review

Journal Article

Critical Race Theory, Racial Microaggressions, and Campus Racial Climate for Latina/o Undergraduates

Tara Yosso

William A. Smith

Miguel Ceja

Daniel Solórzano

1 December 2007 in American Behavioral Scientist

Journal Article

“Assume the Position . . . You Fit the Description”

William A. Smith

Walter R. Allen

Lynette L. Danley

The present study examines the experiences of 36 Black male students, in focus group interviews, enrolled at Harvard University; Michigan State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Illinois; and the University of Michigan. Two themes emerged: (a) anti-Black male stereotyping and marginality (or Black misandry), which caused (b) extreme hypersurveillance and control. Respondents experienced racial microaggressions in three domains: (a) campus—academic, (b) campus—social, and (c) campus—public spaces. Black males are stereotyped and placed under increased surveillance by community and local policing tactics on and off campus. Across these domains, Black males were defined as being “out of place” and “fitting the description” of illegitimate nonmembers of the campus community. Students reported psychological stress responses symptomatic of racial battle fatigue (e.g., frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear). There was unanimous agreement in the subjective reports that the college environment was more hostile toward African American males than other groups.

30 June 2016 in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Journal Article

‘You make me wanna holler and throw up both my hands!’: campus culture, Black misandric microaggressions, and racial battle fatigue

William A. Smith

Jalil Bishop Mustaffa

Chantal M. Jones

Tommy J. Curry

Walter R. Allen

Black males are scarce on White campuses. Still, they experience hypervisibility and are targets of hypersurveillance. This study used focus groups and semi-structured interviews to examine the experiences of 36 Black male students attending seven ‘elite’ historically White Research I institutions. Two themes emerged: (a) anti-Black male stereotyping and marginality and (b) hypersurveillance and control directed at Black men by Whites. Participants reported stereotyping and increased surveillance by police on and off campus. They also reported being defined as ‘out of place’ and ‘fitting the description’ of illegitimate members of the campus community. As a result, students reported psychological stress responses symptomatic of racial battle fatigue (e.g. frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear). The study finds the college environment was more hostile toward Black men than other groups, exemplifying Black racial misandry.

1 December 2007 in Educational Administration Quarterly

Journal Article

Racial Primes and Black Misandry on Historically White Campuses: Toward Critical Race Accountability in Educational Administration

William A. Smith

Tara J. Yosso

Daniel G. Solórzano

Background: Racial primes are an outgrowth and inculcation of a well-structured, highly developed, racially conservative, “race-neutral” or “color-blind” racial socialization process in which children learn race-specific stereotypes about African Americans and other race/ethnic groups. As they get older, they continue to receive—both involuntary and voluntary—corroborating messages of anti-Black stereotypes from adults, friends, games, folklore, music, television, popular media, and the hidden curriculum. A result of this belief system is Black misandry. Black misandry refers to an exaggerated pathological aversion toward Black men created and reinforced in societal, institutional, and individual ideologies, practices, and behaviors.

24 April 2018 in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

Journal Article

Trapped between justified anger and being the strong Black woman: Black college women coping with racial battle fatigue at historically and predominantly White institutions

Nicola A. Corbin

William A. Smith

J. Roberto Garcia

Using the unique form of a composite counterstory culled from the experiences of 13 Black women at historically and predominantly White colleges and universities in a Western U.S. state, this paper explores the psychological tensions and silencing Black college women face as they navigate social constructions of their selfhood under a White gaze. This study centers these Black women’s voices through a tradition of storytelling and examines the ways they try to carve their own place by often engaging liberating, yet repressive, historically constructed STRONGBLACKWOMAN imagery to counteract equally silencing Angry Black Woman imagery. The historically and predominantly White institutional spaces within which these women study, live, and play exacerbate this tension, propelling them to model and rely upon stereotypically ‘positive’ representations of Black womanhood to deal with the pain of microaggressions. Altogether, these factors create instances of enhanced racial battle fatigue.

3 July 2014 in Journal of Hispanic Higher Education

Journal Article

Racial Battle Fatigue for Latina/o Students

Jeremy D. Franklin

William A. Smith

Man Hung

Previous literature demonstrates that as a result of racial microaggressions and hostile campus racial climates, Latina/o students often state they experience psychological, physiological, and behavioral stress responses during and after racialized incidents on campuses. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively test the racial battle fatigue framework for Latina/o students using structural equation modeling. Findings suggest that psychological stress responses for Latinas/os are most impacted by racial microaggressions in the racial battle fatigue framework.

About Me

Dr. William A. Smith, the scholar who introduced the concept of Racial Battle Fatigue in 2003, is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah and holds the Jon M. Huntsman Presidential Endowed Chair, with appointments in the Department of Psychiatry, the Department of Education, Culture & Society, and the Department of Ethnic, Gender, & Disability Studies. As Chief Executive Administrator at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute (HMHI), he leads internal, local, and national initiatives to raise mental health awareness and advance mental health justice. The Stanford University/Elsevier Data Repository has named Dr. Smith among the world’s top 2% of scientists every year since 2022, and he placed in the top 1% of U.S. research professors in the RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings in 2023 and 2025. His work has been cited nearly 13,000 times on Google Scholar. He is a Fellow of both the American Educational Research Association (2025) and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (second class of Fellows). His honors include the Spencer Foundation’s National Mentor Award, the University of Utah’s Distinguished Graduate and Postdoctoral Scholar Mentor Award, the University of Utah Distinguished Research Award, the 2022 Derrick Bell Legacy Award from the Critical Race Studies Education Association, and the 2026 Elizabeth G. Cohen Distinguished Career in Applied Sociology of Education Award from the AERA Sociology of Education Special Interest Group.

Dr. William A. Smith

Dr. William A. Smith

Research Focus & Metrics

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Representative Publications

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