The workplace politics of U.S. accounting: Race, class and gender discrimination at Baruch College

There are significant differences between the U.S. and European academic workplaces (and therefore the way struggles against class and race discrimination are waged) however there are also important commonalities and convergences. This shared experience may be accentuated in the U.K. as a post-research assessment exercise (RAE) era approaches. This paper offers an account of U.S. workplace politics at a macro and micro level. We introduce our paper through a macro approach providing context for our analysis via a brief overview of a progressive research journal assessment exercise, designed to assist critical accounting faculty in promotion, tenure, hiring, and firing struggles. We then report our findings from our survey of progressive academics’ views on journal assessment and the implications of for higher education staff and students and potential students alike. Through our micro focus we present an in-house expose of the anatomy of discriminatory practices at the largest accountancy department, and the largest business, in the U.S.: Baruch College at the City University of New York (CUNY). There are specificities that are unique to the U.S. (and even between Baruch and other U.S. schools) however these differences should not be overstated. Nor should we minimize the possibility of distilling some broad lessons: the systematic subordination of education and research to capital accumulation processes and market pressures that evoke similarities that span academic workplaces across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australasia.