Shardé Davis and Joy Woods were discussing systemic racism in academia via text Saturday night when an idea came to Davis. "I said to her, hey, I'm about to use this hashtag, what do you think about it?" Davis, an assistant professor of communication at University of Connecticut, said. "And Joy said, 'I already tweeted it.'"
Shortly after Davis and Woods posted using #BlackInTheIvory, other academics followed suit, sharing stories of their own experiences about being one of few black scholars at their majority white institutions. The hashtag trended on social media over the weekend and many are still posting their stories with it.