Savannah Keyse - Week 10

Savannah Keyse
Section 2
Week 10

Fight the Tower: Introduction

This excerpt the book Fight the Tower explains what each chapter of the book will address with the overall theme of combating the detrimental forces that academia puts on those who teach and gain an education from universities. Fight the Tower was written to continue exposing the injustices of academia and give a new view of how the future of higher education can be without the discrimination used to suppress the advancement of women and specifically women of color from obtaining tenure and professorship. While systematically decreasing the amount of uncensored knowledge that turns students into non-thinking reproductions of their courses without checking the material for validity themselves academia then cashed in on the student's tuition without returning their payments in forms that students can benefit from. The final section, section five, provides an insightful view of fighting against academia and exposes the limitations that proponents for this fight face due to being in academia while fighting against it. The authors write that as Asian American studies often uses its position to "destroy the 'deathstar,'"or the forces that perpetuate myriad forms of oppression, they often have to be careful in recruiting staff in case the university finds out they are going against their censorship and discredits the field of study. The purpose of this book and the actions the authors take in the classroom is to empower different actors in academia to not simply abide by the rules handed to them through the university but critically thing of the effects that the rules have like engendering racism, sexism, and oppression of marginalized groups. 

Question: Will there be a time that a prominent university can truly stop forms of corruption and oppression and create an entirely transparent administration?

• Valverde, K., & Dariotis, W. (n.d.). “The Time to Fight is Now”: When Asian American Women in Academia Go Rogue. 
• Image retrieved from http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star. Death Star [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved June 4, 2017, from http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star