ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Mindful Innovation for the Ethical Disruption of Racial Inequities: A Case Study of Student Affairs Practice Stimulating Organizational Change
Michael Lanford 1
Brooklyn Cole Herrera 1
Carlos Galan 2
1. University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, United States
2. California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, United States
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Abstract
This article brings together two distinct fields of scholarship - disruptive innovation and equity-minded student success - to analyze a case study of student affairs practice stimulating organizational change. Utilizing examples from the authors' asset-based peer tutoring initiative in a rural Hispanic Serving Institution in the Southeast United States, the article argues that a new conceptualization of "disruption" is necessary for organizational change that supports racially minoritized students. As a starting point, the article outlines Clayton Christensen's influential business-oriented theory of disruptive innovation first proposed in 1997. The article then critically analyzes current rhetoric on disruption in higher education by private consulting firms and leaders who wish to portray "executive disruptions" to higher education institutions as an existential necessity. An analysis reveals that this rhetoric is a cynical appropriation of Christensen that leverages the rhetorical power of disruption as a justification for undermining public higher education through ideologically driven program cuts and attenuated student access. As a corrective, this article therefore proposes a reframing of disruption that builds on equity-minded organizational change literature by Estela Bensimon and Adrianna Kezar, Lori Patton's (2016) argument for disrupting higher education through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens, Victor Ray's (2019) theory of racialized organizations, and Lanford and Tierney's (2022) identification of the environmental factors and dimensions which support mindful innovation in higher education. Inspired by this literature, the article proposes a conceptualization of ethical disruption which is considered through six frames: philosophy, discourse, agents, instruments, leadership, and organizational impact. The final section of the article depicts a praxis-oriented institutional case study of ethical disruption by identifying three barriers to organizational equity - and the methods used to disrupt them for the benefit of student success.
Summary
Keywords
Critical Race Theory, Disruption, Equity, innovation, Organizational Change, peer tutoring, Racialized organizations, student success
Received
30 May 2025
Accepted
17 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Lanford, Herrera and Galan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Michael Lanford
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.