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Coalitional Public Statements as Positive Permission Structures after the Social Justice Turn

Abstract

The authors examine the ways that institutional responses to crises provide spaces for institutional critique and reforms. Using a case study of campus responses to the George Floyd Protests in the Summer of 2020 and in conversation with a coalitional approach, the authors carry out an exploratory sequential mixed method study of the letter corpus using natural language processing and rhetorical analysis. Combining the concept of permission structures from political discourse with Black Feminist Epistemologies, the authors suggest that institutional responses to crises can create positive permission structures that support coalitional change while calling for further reforms.