Week 5

Vince Olanda

ASA 002

Section 1

Week 5

In this week’s reading, Imperial University, Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, former students of University of California Riverside and Davis, take it upon themselves to highlight the inconspicuous problem of the so-called ‘Imperial University.’ Due to the concept being so underrated, most people that would hear of this term would immediately associate the word ‘Imperial’ with establishing their influence over another. I find it really interesting and beneficial that they bring this topic up because they’re finally attacking a topic that’s not talked about in most conversations on campuses, mostly due to the fact that they’ve been influenced by the very ‘Imperial University’ problem that both Piya and Maira are talking about in the first place.

As a student from a university, this particular topic really piqued my interest because now that it has been brought to my attention, I notice the small tendencies around my campus that support the very reasoning behind their controversial arguments. Protests, no matter how small, were suppressed by the University. the students, following the university’s lead, were taught to normalize the act of suppressing these acts of defiance. Students exercising their right to free speech were soon looked down upon by their fellow peers for speaking out, when in reality it should be the exact opposite.

This made me realize that I, too, are one of those students that have been taught that suppressing protests around campus are a normal act to do, but instead I should become more aware and knowledgeable about what each of them are founded upon. We should be aware of the university’s hidden agenda, rather than turning a blind eye to it. 

Questions: How is it that the University is able to effectively convince us to look down upon protesting without having to explicitly say it? In what ways can students protest freely without having to worry about potential consequences?

References: Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). Imperial University: Academic Repression and Scholarly Dissent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.