Resilience has long been glorified as integral to being a successful student. But research has shown that the higher-education experience often requires that black students employ even more grit than their white peers if they want to achieve both in the classroom and outside of it, where they have to overcome stereotype threat and straight-up racism. In a piece published last December with The Atlantic, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Aisha Sultan explains how teaching and emphasizing grit as a means of encouraging student success doesn’t account for how culture affects learning. Suggesting that students of color who struggle academically don’t have as much grit, she notes, ignores the social resilience that they are already employing simply by being present at school. Tyrone C. Howard, the associate dean for equity and inclusion at UCLA, who was referenced in The Atlantic piece, states that it’s “irresponsible” and “unfair” to talk about grit without the context of social challenges.

Amid the protests of the last several months, the conversation about racism on campuses has prompted debates about free speech, political correctness, and the utility of students being uncomfortable. But do students of color face a more tangible risk than their white peers? Is navigating these complex environments challenging their mental-emotional well-being?

“Weathering the cumulative effects of living in a society characterized by white dominance and privilege produces a kind of physical and mental wear-and-tear that contributes to a host of psychological and physical ailments,” explains Ebony McGee, an assistant professor of diversity and urban schooling at Vanderbilt and co-author of a recent study on black students and mental health, in a post on the university’s research blog. The study, whose analysis is based on critical race theory, explores how racism affects the ability of high-achieving black students to have healthy mental attitudes toward their work and college experiences. “We have documented alarming occurrences of anxiety, stress, depression and thoughts of suicide, as well as a host of physical ailments like hair loss, diabetes and heart disease,” she writes.

McGee and her co-author David Stovall, an associate professor of African American studies and educational policy at University of Illinois at Chicago, discuss how the discourse around the academic survival of black students and their experiences on predominantly white campuses often fails to analyze the effects of societal racism on their mental health. “We have grown accustomed to talking about grit, perseverance, and mental toughness without properly acknowledging the multiple forms of suffering [black students] have confronted (and still confront) as part of that story,” write the researchers, neither of whom are mental-health professionals. Colleges rely on all the positive aspects of grit to define the “college experience” by paying attention only to its static definition: courage, resolve, the innate ability to bounce back from obstacles. But history, the researchers argue, has shown that the types of institutional biases that are at play in the U.S. education system are structured to devalue the work of students of color, which can’t be fixed with an extra dose of mental toughness:

While it is debatable whether pushing oneself to the limit to outwork the next person is an admirable quality, we have witnessed black students work themselves to the point of extreme illness in attempting to escape the constant threat (treadmill) of perceived intellectual inferiority. However, what grit researchers do not adequately examine is the role that race plays in producing anxiety, trauma, and general unpleasantness in students of color engaging in high-pressure academic work. The psychological and emotional energy required to manage stress in academic and social contexts as well as systemic and everyday racism can be overwhelming and taxing.

Worsening these challenges, students of color are less likely than their white counterparts to seek and undergo psychological treatment—a disparity that The Wall Street Journal has reported is widespread on elite college campuses. Barriers to seeking care—such as cost, lack of availability, and the stigmas associated with therapy—combined with a mistrust of the health-care system and racism contribute to the gap, according to a supplement to the surgeon general’s 1999 report on mental health. That black students utilize mental-health services much less may also reflect a cultural mistrust of the universities, according to some research. The racism that students experience on their campuses suggests that colleges and universities are systems that perpetuate their pain. “So going to a counseling center within a university that perpetuates institutional racism is just kind of like a conflict of interest for many students,” McGee says.