Week 1

Week 1
Rachel Ibrahim
Section A03

This week’s reading of Professor Valverde’s, Fight the Tower, was a unique, eye-opening piece that shed light on an underrepresented topic. The structure of the piece provided an effective platform for telling a story that contained a clear message. Valverde’s fight began with a personal story about her struggles for tenure and resolved in the message that discrimination and bullying within the university needs to be stopped with the help of friends, family, colleagues, students and the public. Her story reached out on a personal level that effectively pulled me (and I think all readers) in to help fight racial injustice. This reading not only exposed universities for being heavily plagued with discrimination, but also showed that this discrimination has an enormous effect on the career and lives of deserving individuals. Even though the article focused primarily on Valverde’s story and her struggle for tenure, I think an even bigger message can be pulled. Her ability to reach out and use the public as a source of support and power proves that when acting together, we can make a difference.

I think a reading like this is extremely important to share in order to for it gain a larger audience because it addresses an issue that not a large population of students are aware of. Personally, despite being Asian American, I have never faced this type of discrimination and wasn’t even aware it existed at such a detrimental level. Agreeing with Professor Valverde, I believe a call to action to stop this is critical, yet no such action will be successful unless more people are educated and aware of these issues. Valverde’s fight for tenure is an empowering one that helps inspire our generation to be the change that needs to happen.

This image represents how universities are a facade that appear to be welcoming and inclusive of all people, but behind the facade is the evil laughing guy that represents discrimination.

Question: What happens when a professor does not get tenure? What are the differences between the period in which they teach before getting tenure versus after a tenure is denied? Professor Valverde talked about how many women are denied tenure, so succeeding that denial do most of them leave academia?

References:

Valverde, K. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle Journal of Social Justice. 12(2). 367-419.

Chauhan, A., & T. (2017, February 07). Gujarat universities top in caste discrimination - Times of India. Retrieved April 05, 2017 from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/gujarat-universities-top-in-caste-discrimination/articleshow/57009136.cms