Centering the role of institutional racism within graduate education remains an understudied topic in existing literature on Black doctoral student socialization experiences at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI). This leaves us with a void of sorts--or a Black (w)hole--whereby numerous studies acknowledge challenges within the collective Black doctoral student experience, yet, a hole (or void) exists within our understanding of how researchers interpret institutional racism at the center of their scholarly inquiry. Thus, this systematic literature review applied a critical organizational theory perspective to examine how higher education scholars grappled with the issue of institutional racism within their studies on Black doctoral students at PWIs.