Sociology Professor Littisha Bates Recognized for Social Justice Efforts

It’s not uncommon for one of Littisha Bates’ students to find themselves standing in the grocery aisle, holding an apple, experiencing a small revelation. 

Each semester, Bates, a newly tenured professor in the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Sociology, sends her students to two Kroger stores—one from list A and one from list B. Most students figure out the difference toward the end of the assignment: One Kroger is in an urban and impoverished area. The other in an affluent one. 

“They usually can’t believe it,” Bates said. “They see that the apple in the Mount Lookout area looks a lot different from the apple in the Lower Price Hill Kroger.” 

Bates has found that when students examine commonplace spaces, they’re more likely to find tangible experiences that reveal the more complex disparities that are often inextricable from American systems like education and nutrition.  

Another syllabus staple has her students keep an educational biography, or diary, in which they transcribe anything they can remember about their schooling. At the end of the semester, after they’ve learned about the inequalities prevalent in structures of learning, the students take fresh looks at their entire educational lives. With new knowledge of tracking systems that stem from race and gender-based discrimination, students then rewrite their educational histories using the discourse of a sociologist. 

“They get to really see inequality and how it’s impacted them or people around them in real life,” Bates said. “The goal is to get students to talk about why these differences exist in something as simple as a grocery store. In ways like these, I enact my vision of social justice in the classroom.” 

This vision hasn’t gone unnoticed. Bates is one of three faculty members in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences to be granted the Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence, part of a partnership between the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research that recognizes exceptional contributions to respective colleges and to UC. 

Bates’ contributions are many. Since her arrival at UC in 2009, she has shaped countless students and recently co-founded the Black Faculty Association, which will work to connect black faculty members at UC through orientations, networking opportunities and other resources. 

When she started teaching at UC—her first job out of graduate school—she was the only black professor in the sociology department. Although she found some solace in the supportive, open-minded faculty in her department, there was also loneliness.

“For the first two years, I probably couldn’t tell you who the other black faculty were, because we’re so spread out across the university,” Bates said. “There’s no critical mass of black faculty.”

Along with many other members of the UC community, Bates is working to change that. By reviving the Black Faculty Association, she hopes to prevent other faculty from feeling the same isolation she did. “It’s an exciting time to be a black faculty member at UC,” Bates says.

She admits that although many might not use the term “exciting,” the sense of change and involvement is hard to deny, even if some of that activism was made more visible and catalyzed by tragedies like the death of Sam DuBose in July 2015. 

Although she attends protests and marches, Bates sees her own activism as one rooted in academia rather than being the “boots-on-the-ground” activism of some of her peers, even if the latter practice is one she draws inspiration from. 

Bates, a Chicago native, conducts research and publishes peer-reviewed papers focused on inequality in education, studying racial and ethnic achievement gaps, resource gaps in schools and other socioeconomic outcomes. Bates is also currently writing a book about the enrollment practices of Cincinnati’s magnet schools, and is frequently an expert for the media, serving on panels and being quoted in articles on topics such as parenting and policing.

Bates learned the significance of academic mentorship through personal experience.

Her interest in sociology began in undergraduate school. At Grand Valley State University in northwest Michigan, the campus was overwhelmingly white. “The first black professor I had was a sociology professor,” she said. “It was the most exciting class I’d ever taken. It was the only department that had full-time black faculty, and they had a black woman. I took more classes in that department, and realized this is what I wanted to do.”

Now Bates acts as a mentor to students, sparking interest in sociology and social justice both in her department and in UC’s African American Culture and Resource Center. But she also credits students for being her mentors, helping spur her own leadership on campus. She cites the student activist group The Irate 8, which was formed to raise awareness of black students’ experiences on campus, as an example.

“They were models for us,” she said. “The amount of bravery that it took to create the Irate 8—I know I wasn’t that brave when I was 19 or 20. I often tell them that they are simply amazing and truly energized us.” 

Bates sees the Dean’s Award as an indicator that the university is starting to think differently about the kind of work that traditionally might not get acknowledged. As someone whose mentorship is sought out by many, Bates spends many nights lying in bed thinking about the ways she can help solve other people’s problems. She sees the award as a kind of reimbursement, a symbol of gratitude and appreciation for those sleepless nights.  

“To get this award that recognizes my contribution to the college and university makes me know it’s not all in vain,” she said.