Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20, 2015 When Activism Is Worth the Risk Academics who champion causes may be gambling with their careers. But for some dedicated activists, the choice is clear.
By Audrey Williams June Justin Hansford lives 10 minutes from Ferguson, Mo., where last summer a white policeman shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The incident set off months of protests, as people from all walks of life took a stand against police brutality. Mr. Hansford, an assistant professor of law at Saint Louis University, just back from a conference in Washington, was among them. When he joined the law faculty at the university, in 2011, it never occurred to him to cast his causes aside: "I was an activist before I was a scholar, you could say." In the months since the unrest in Ferguson, Mr. Hansford has become a well-known face in the Black Lives Matter movement. He has served as a legal observer during protests, was once arrested and jailed overnight, and was a key organizer of #FergusonToGeneva, a delegation that frames police violence in the United States as a human-rights issue worthy of global attention. Mr. Hansford and others in the group accompanied Michael Brown’s family to Geneva in November to testify before the United Nations Committee Against Torture. "There’s a tradition of black scholar-activists who fought for justice," says Mr. Hansford, who studies human rights, legal ethics, legal history, and critical race theory. "This particular activism is almost like a calling for me." But he knows it could hinder his academic career. With issues of social justice dominating the national conversation, some academics identify as scholar-activists, a term typically used by those deeply involved in progressive causes. They take to the streets as part of protest movements, work alongside community organizers, and push for policy changes, applying their research to underserved communities. Yet balancing activism and scholarship can be risky, especially while on the tenure track. Scholar-activists must be ready to fend off the perception that their activism taints their scholarship, or that they’re going to indoctrinate students. Another challenge is time: Some academics struggle to contain their work in the community to do what’s needed to advance professionally. Juggling the two identities isn’t new, but the task seems tougher today. The crowd was perhaps thicker during and just after the civil-rights and political movements of the 1960s and ’70s, which drew in so many young people, future professors among them. Now activists are more visible, their protests or remarks potentially bringing unwanted attention on social media or cable news — and prompting complaints to universities. Meanwhile, the academic job market in many disciplines is tight. "We all know that the talented, well-educated young people who are getting Ph.D.s today are unlikely to secure tenure-track jobs," says Frances Fox Piven, a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a longtime activist for the poor. "If they’re more insecure, they’re less confident. And they’re inevitably more eager to seek the approval of the people who are the senior academics who are going to make the judgments on whether they get the job, whether they get tenured, or whether they get promoted." Young academics may decide that now isn’t the time to give those committees an excuse to turn them down. Some give up their activism, for a while anyway. Others choose the hyphenated life, aware of the hazards but hopeful that if their scholarship measures up, their activism won’t count against them. Many look for ways to tie that work to their professional goals, optimistic that, at some point, their universities will acknowledge that. On an online forum for sociologists, someone recently asked if activism should count toward tenure, generating mostly responses that it should not. Still, institutions may find reasons to support scholar-activists, many of whom are women and people of color. Signaling to a new generation that engagement with social issues isn’t necessarily a career-killer could help in diversifying the faculty. Successful role models might be a draw for younger scholars. A sense of urgency, not a calculation of risk, has guided Mr. Hansford. "When the Mike Brown situation happened, there was no time for me to say, ‘Well, I’ll wait a year until I get tenure,’ " he says. His dean has not discouraged him. The decision on the assistant professor’s bid for tenure should come this academic year, but that hasn’t deterred Mr. Hansford: "It would be too much of a compromise for me to hold back on my activism because of that." Many describe the life of a scholar and an activist as one of isolation and constant pressure, but also of determination. When Rebecca Tarlau began a Ph.D. in social and cultural studies in education at the University of California at Berkeley, she was dedicated to both worlds. She helped organize statewide protests of tuition increases and served as a leader in the graduate-student union as it fought for higher salaries and better benefits. "I wanted to be a part of how higher education was being remade," says Ms. Tarlau, now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. But even as she built a reputation as a community organizer, she carved out enough time to establish the bona fides — publications in top journals, for instance — that are respected in academe. "You have to do the scholarship just as well as the activism," says Ms. Tarlau, who studies the intersection of social movements and education and the development of global educational systems, particularly in Brazil. "I knew I had to hit the steppingstones of what’s considered successful in graduate school." That’s the time when some aspiring scholar-activists doubt they can pull it off. Rajani Bhatia saw a Ph.D. as a way to enhance her work in the reproductive-rights movement, including a job at an advocacy group. But once in a women’s-studies program at the University of Maryland at College Park, she found that staying on top of her courses, teaching undergraduates, and pursuing a research agenda stripped her of spare time. "I realized the very first year that I was going have to give up certain aspects of my life," says Ms. Bhatia, who is now an assistant professor of women’s studies at the University at Albany. "For me, it was my activism." With her tenure clock ticking, Ms. Bhatia still keeps her activist work at a minimum. She maintains connections to groups she used to collaborate with and tries to attend some academic conferences that draw scholar-activists, but that’s about all she can manage, she says. "My clear priority is getting tenure." The pressure to tamp down activism can also be external. April L. Few-Demo remembers, as an assistant professor of human development at Virginia Tech, a turning point in her academic career. In her fourth-year review, she was told to publish more, she says, and to cut back on service that had an activist bent. On the advice of her department chair, she chose community outreach and service activities that could yield strong submissions to academic journals. She altered her teaching, informed by black feminist pedagogy, by giving fewer writing assignments, so as to limit the time she spent grading and focus more on research, she says. Ms. Few-Demo, who chronicled her efforts to balance activism with the demands of earning tenure in a journal article, became a tenured associate professor in the department in 2006. "People are still facing the same challenges as I did then," she says of young professors today. Scholar-activists at any point in their careers have to reckon with the perception of bias and watch how they represent themselves to students. "Calling yourself a scholar-activist, in a way, puts a target on you in the classroom," says Carl S. Taylor, a professor of sociology at Michigan State University and an expert on youth violence in urban America. A native of Detroit, he conducts research there and works with young people and various organizations to help reduce violence in the community. "You have students who will applaud you for what you do," he says, "and those that won’t." Mr. Hansford, of Saint Louis University, can relate. After his night in jail, last October, he went to teach his first-year torts class. He didn’t bring up the experience of his first time behind bars, he says. "I didn’t feel as if it was a safe space to mention it." Some students in that class had already complained to his dean, Mr. Hansford says, that he was difficult to meet with because he was so busy. Others, he knew, agreed with the steady stream of alumni who emailed him, he says, to make clear that they opposed his activism and to threaten to withhold donations to the institution. In some cases, it can at least appear that a scholar’s activism plays a role in his or her career’s going awry. David Graeber, an anthropologist and radical activist who helped to set up the Occupy Wall Street movement, had trouble finding an academic job in the United States. Yale University decided not to renew his contract in 2005, though it didn’t point to his activism as an underlying factor. Mr. Graeber is now a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Even when the details of a hiring, tenure, or promotion decision are complex or unknown, a denial can deter younger scholars. For now, if they find support, it’s more likely to be individual than institutional. Many scholar-activists point to a mentor or role model they looked to for guidance or inspiration early on. Laura Pulido, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, is one of those role models. Over the years, says Ms. Pulido, who is known for her work on social and environmental justice, she has entertained countless questions from young academics about how to navigate their careers. She wrote a chapter for a book on methods of activist scholarship, published in 2008, that featured answers to frequently asked questions. At the top of the list: How her institution responds to her activist work. For the most part, Ms. Pulido wrote, she hasn’t "faced any real problems with administrators." Producing top-notch scholarship is key. So is landing in an academic home that embraces scholar-activists, she says. That might not always be the most highly ranked destination in a given field. Such a trade-off is often necessary, says Rose M. Brewer, a professor of African-American and African studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Also crucial is a group of like-minded people, to avoid what can become crippling isolation. Even then, says Ms. Brewer, a founding member of the Black Radical Congress, aspiring scholar-activists should know what they’re getting into: "There might be tremendous battles and struggles if you go down this road." Some people do manage to find a good fit. Stephany Rose, a newly tenured associate professor of women’s and ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs says her interview in 2010 encouraged her that she could flourish there. For starters, her future colleagues already understood her area of research, critical whiteness studies. For almost a decade, the university had co-sponsored a national conference on white privilege. She got the impression that activist work was considered appropriate in her line of scholarship. "They had done their due diligence on me," she says. "They were very forthcoming and let me know what they value." The Women’s and Ethnic Studies Program tries to make that impression, says Andrea Herrera, the program’s director. "When we created our tenure-and-promotion criteria, it’s implicitly stated that we value community activism," Ms. Herrera says. "Now when we hire people, that’s the kind of people that we attract, the kind who value that kind of work." Some institutions and academic departments recognize "engaged scholarship," or research done in partnership with communities. Revised tenure policies at Michigan State, Portland State, and Syracuse Universities regard engaged scholarship as legitimate work. Syracuse’s faculty manual says the university is "committed to longstanding traditions of scholarship as well as evolving perspectives" and will continue to "support scholars in all of these traditions, including faculty who choose to participate in engaged scholarship." Activism hasn’t reached that level of acceptance. But some scholars see signs that it is gaining traction as a worthwhile pursuit. Gregory C. Ellison II, a recently tenured associate professor of pastoral care and counseling at Emory University, is still trying to "figure out how to broker" the scholar-activist life, he says. He founded the organization Fearless Dialogues, which brings together unlikely groups of people — pastors, gang members, government leaders, drug dealers, and students, for instance — to discuss the issues that plague young black males and come up with ways to improve their communities. Traveling to at least 30 cities with that group, trying to change how black men are perceived, he saw his work as risky. But during a recent presentation for some Emory administrators and trustees, the response was more affirming than he expected. "They began to talk about my role as a professor and my role as an activist," Mr. Ellison says, as well as about how best to measure success for those who are both. "It was humbling, but also gratifying, to know that there are actually allies at the upper echelon of the university who are concerned about this." Jan Love, dean of Emory’s Candler School of Theology, says its "bottom-line standard" for evaluating research — publications in refereed journals and books published by top presses — accommodates the kind of activist work that is the backbone of Mr. Ellison’s scholarship. "Within that standard, we are determined to support a wide range of styles of scholarship," Ms. Love says. "One of our intentions as an entire school is to shape public debate about pressing moral issues of the day. We don’t think there’s a trade-off between very fine scholarly work that’s informed by one’s guild and public engagement." Such support may grow, if it does at all, only in pockets. Meanwhile, scholars like Mr. Hansford are trying to fulfill personal commitments along with professional expectations. He recently co-wrote a scholarly article based on a report he helped draft to present to the United Nations. His trip to Geneva also informed the human-rights course he teaches. And as a Fulbright scholar, he is now in South Africa to study the legal career of Nelson Mandela. During a recent panel discussion at the University of California at Los Angeles on the Black Lives Matter movement, Mr. Hansford was pointed about priorities: "How important is this movement, and what are we willing to risk?" 3 Scholar-Activists Balance Passion for Activism With Life in Academe Laura Pulido Professor, American studies and ethnicity U. of Southern California Activist work: Environmental justice; political and antiracism movements "Theoretically your activism should not affect your tenure and promotion, but we all know that it can. They may not like what you do as an activist, so you definitely have to have a scholarly record to defend." Stephany Rose Associate professor, women’s and ethnic studies U. of Colorado at Colorado Springs Activist work: Antiprivilege movement "Waiting until after tenure to be an activist is a strategy, but it’s not a strategy for me. I feel like if I can’t be upfront with you from the beginning, I don’t want to be here long term. I need to be able to live life out loud." Gregory C. Ellison II Associate professor, pastoral care and counseling Emory U. Activist work: Young, black, marginalized men and their communities "Being a scholar-activist, at its core, is being a bridge builder. I feel like I’ve been afforded some access and resources that I can’t hoard for myself. If that involves me moving between the academy and the church and psychology and the community, then that’s what it takes." --- Audrey Williams June is a senior reporter who writes about the academic workplace, faculty pay, and work-life balance in academe. Contact her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter @chronaudrey. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
