For social justice academics, traditional advice does not apply
Ever get any advice from senior faculty, maybe a department chair or dean, and you thought, “taking that advice would require denying my core identity and values?” Me too. This seems to be a pretty common experience for social justice academics.
Last year, I gave a talk at a university with a slide devoted to advice that hits a little different, and more harshly, for SJA folks. I titled that slide, “Stop giving this advice.” Thought I might share some of these with you. Perhaps you are now a mentor or advocate for graduate students and early career faculty and you want to avoid these advice missteps. Or perhaps you know someone who could benefit from reading a fresh perspective on how best to support SJAs (I’m talking about non-SJAs).
Note- colleagues extending these tidbits of advice are well-meaning, at least most of them. They may be sharing what worked best for them or passing along what they think is currently required for promotion. Just remember, being further along in your career does not equal being attentive to the needs of SJAs, even if the advice comes from an SJA. if they occupy a privileged social location relative to your own, they may not understand the negative implications of their advice for someone from your particular marginalized group.
Common problematic advice:
Wait until after tenure to pursue social justice passions;
Wait until after tenure to engage with the community;
Wait until after tenure to teach controversial topics;
Stick to traditional research and high impact journals;
Spend less time on teaching and mentoring;
Don’t rock the boat;
Just say no to service;
Find a mentor.
Traditional advice falls flat for faculty engaged in IDEAS labor:
inclusion, intersectionality, diversity, decolonization, equity, anti-racism, accessibility, social justice, sense of belonging
Why common advice hits different for SJAs
The advice above sounds solid at first glance, right? I agree. I am guilty of telling people to just say no to service. Not so simple if the kind of service you are overloaded on speaks directly to your soul. For SJAs, this is not just a job. And that ends up being part of our balance problem. But let me focus back on why these little advice snippets might feel “off” for SJAs. And mind you, I am not even covering all of the reasons why these are no bueno.
Saving my social justice passions for after tenure is painful advice. How could I stall and deny my IDEAS research passions, my need to do work WITH real people in my community, or my drive to provide spaces for learning about tough topics? I cannot. We cannot. When we do, we are pushing down the souls into a quiet box deep inside. And there is frustration and rage bubbling up inside that box. We feel we are denying who we are at the very core. By the way, what are people outside the tenure track supposed to do with this advice? This equates to saying NEVER pursue social justice passions for people without a tenure option.
Stick to high impact/traditional journals. Sigh. Okay, we get it. The academy still values certain very traditional metrics that were created by and for the privileged few. How is it that we continue to deny the structural biases built into the entire journal “enterprise.” And I use the word enterprise on purpose given that capitalism, not science or discovery, drives the journal machine. Traditional journals and their reviewers label SJA study topics and populations as “special” or “niche” in ways that do not generalize (cringe) to the broader population (read: do not generalize to middle-class white people in the U.S.). In 2023, SJAs continue to utilize fantastic journals and other publishing sources that recognize the innovations of our work and VALUE the inclusion and even sole focus on groups that have long been neglected and overlooked in research. Stop giving this advice. And while you are at it, get on that P&T policy review committee and advocate for moving away from impact factors as a signal of high quality research.
Spend less time teaching/mentoring. I get this one. Depending on the institution, you may get advice to strip your schedule of anything that is not moving your research forward. Whether your teaching course load is 2/2 or 4/4, you may still hear this advice. What if you are teaching 100 level courses with tons of first-year students and they come to you as a trusted faculty member? Maybe students of color are in crisis because of a racist incident on campus or the university’s closing of the LGBTQ+ Center, and they seek your guidance. Providing detailed feedback on writing assignment is fueled by your desire to support student growth and their ultimate success in systems designed to fail them. As an SJA, this speaks to your soul and why you do this work. Nothing is as simple as just closing yourself off from student needs. Doing less might feel like denying your own humanity.
Don’t rock the boat. No. No no no no no. I shared previously that a feminist senior faculty member told me I better keep quiet if I wanted to get tenure. That was my first semester as an assistant professor. □ We are being told to stay small, quiet, and neutral when we see inequities and injustices spreading like wildfire. We cannot sit by and say nothing. Some SJAs in my life get physically ill when they even try to stay silent in the face of some new academic affairs policy change that will further harm low-income students, for example. We need advice on how to effectively rock the boat and build coalitions. Advice to be quiet has got to go. As a reminder — NO.
Just say no to service. I mean, if only. First of all, no one can escape service. Second, all service? Which service? Without any nuance, this advice falls flat because saying no could mean increasing invisible labor for another SJA colleague. Saying no to service as general advice does not help SJAs navigate the overwhelming extra labor demands that come to, for example, faculty of color, who are asked to be on every committee to prove the university values diversity. Some service can help advance SJA careers, so how do we find those opportunities? We need more reflection on how to navigate service from a social justice perspective.
Find a mentor. Often this might be presented as “join the university mentoring program that will match you with a mentor.” Most mentor programs and mentoring models are decades old and outdated. Hear me now. SJAs do not need to be told to find a mentor. We do not need to be matched with mentors who may have zero understanding of how we operate from the soul’s work. Most assigned mentors or senior faculty members who may be open to mentoring are not equipped to guide SJAs through the current choppy waters of academia.
What SJAs need
What SJAs need are community (network, squad, crew, invisible college), resources (time and compensation), and institutional rewards for justice labor (I mean merit raises, awards, and promotions). In this context, community means other SJAs that can share perspectives, validate experiences, reduce isolation, and expose the hidden curriculum of career success. We need that more than some individual mentor or “guru” who can only offer one perspective.I am curious about what advice you were given that proved incongruent with your own social justice values or your intersectional social location. Let me know!
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