Lincoln University students outside the administration building protest and call for the removal of school President John Moseley on Jan. 18, 2024, in Jefferson City, Missouri, after the death of Antoinette Candia-Bailey. When Lincoln University administrator Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey took her own life last month, the news broke the internet, a family friend said in a eulogy during homegoing services in Joliet.
Antoinette “Bonnie” Candia-Bailey, right, poses for a selfie with her friend, Monica Graham, in October 2023 during homecoming at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. “It’s a constant dance between being told we’re too much, and we’re not enough all at the same time,” said Morgan Roberts, who has spent the past 20 years studying Black women in leadership.The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
“We’re hoping that the Lincoln University investigation provides an opportunity to send a message that bullying in the workplace will not be tolerated,” she said. “From this, I hope employers learn to listen to their employees when they have an outcry of needing accommodations for their well-being.” The irony is that Candia-Bailey herself addressed the hurdles Black women have to overcome to excel in the workplace in her 2016 dissertation, “My Sister, Myself: The Identification of Sociocultural Factors that Affect the Advancement of African-American Women into Senior-Level Administrative Positions.” The work detailed the obstacles Black women face in academia; struggles that Candia-Bailey herself would endure.
These networks provide safe spaces where Black women support one another, validate their experiences and ultimately, speak their truth, Allen said. indicating that out of 1,500 women, 70% of women of color felt they had to prove themselves over and over again just to be rewarded fairly and almost 20% were less likely to feel supported by their managers and feel their skills and experience are valued and leveraged.