Symposium: Transformative Practices of Teacher-Scholar-Activists in the Era of Trump

ABSTRACT

Recent political events have exacerbated the tensions between the expectation that faculty be neutral arbiters of knowledge and information and the reality that many individuals pursue careers in political science because of their commitments to social justice, political activism, and social change. In particular, the November 2016 election of Donald Trump as United States President gave New Political Science’s (NPS) charge to publish scholarship that reflects “a commitment to progressive social change” new meaning for many political scientists. This article introduces an NPS symposium dedicated to examining and showcasing transformative practices within and emerging out of political science toward greater social justice, equity, and inclusivity in the context of Trumpism, neoliberalism, and university corporatization.

Acknowledgment

Thank you to the reviewers who read this article as well as the others in the symposium. Your thoughtful comments improved each article, and the authors are grateful for your time.

Notes

¹ “Special Section: New Political Science at 40, History of the Caucus for a New Political Science,” New Political Science 29:4 (2007), pp. 501–507.

² Ta-Nehesi Coates, “The First White President,” The Atlantic (October 2017), available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/.

³ See, for example, Bryant William Sculos and Sean Noah Walsh, “The Counterrevolutionary Campus: Herbert Marcuse and the Suppression of Student Protest Movements,” New Political Science 38:4 (2016), pp. 516–532. Chris Quintana, “The Real Free-Speech Crisis is Professors Being Disciplined for Liberal Views, a Scholar Finds, “ The Chronicle of Higher Education (April 2018), available online at: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Real-Free-Speech-Crisis-Is/243284.

⁴ See https://www.tpusa.com/.

⁵ See, for example, Farhana Sultana, “The False Equivalence of Academic Freedom and Free Speech: Defending Academic Integrity in the Age of White Supremacy, Colonial Nostalgia, and Anti-intellectualism,” ACME 17:2 (2018), available online at: https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1715.

⁶ Bradley J. Macdonald, “Traditional and Critical Theory Today: Toward a Critical Political Science,” New Political Science 39:4 (2017), pp. 511–522.

⁷ “Here’s Donald Trump’s Presidential Announcement Speech,” Time Magazine (June 16, 2015), available online at: http://time.com/3923128/donald-trump-announcement-speech/.

⁸ Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York, NY: The New Press, 2012).

⁹ Terrance L. Green and Andrene Castro, “Doing Counterwork in the Age of a Counterfeit President: Resisting a Trump-DeVos Education Agenda,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30:10 (2017), pp. 912–919.

¹⁰ Suman Raghunathan, “Trump’s Xenophobic Vision of America is Inciting Racist Violence,” The Nation (January 2018), available online at: https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-xenophobic-vision-of-america-is-inciting-racist-violence/.

¹¹ Glenn Kessler, “Donald Trump and David Duke: For the Record,” The Washington Post (March 1, 2016), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/01/donald-trump-and-david-duke-for-the-record/?utm_term=.f7f3ff72b312.

¹² Rosie Gray, “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protestors: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides,’” The Atlantic (August 15, 2017), available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/.

¹³ Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Defends Initial Remarks on Charlottesville; Again Blames ‘Both Sides,’” The New York Times (August 15, 2017), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-press-conference-charlottesville.html.

¹⁴ Rosie Gray, “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protestors.”

¹⁵ Anti-Defamation League, “ADL Finds Alarming Increase in White Supremacist Propaganda on College Campuses Across United States,” (February 1, 2018), available online at: https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-finds-alarming-increase-in-white-supremacist-propaganda-on-college-campuses.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Anti-Defamation League, “White Supremacist Propaganda Surges on Campus,” (January 29, 2018), available online at: https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/white-supremacist-propaganda-surges-on-campus.

¹⁹ Graeme Wood, “His Kampf,” The Atlantic (June 2017), available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/his-kampf/524505/.

²⁰ Ryan Lenz, “Richard Spencer Cancels Speaking Tour of College Campuses After Speech in Michigan,” Southern Poverty Law Center (March 12, 2018), available online at: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/03/12/richard-spencer-cancels-speaking-tour-college-campuses-after-speech-michigan.

²¹ Ibid.

²² After delivering speeches as Texas A&M, Auburn University, and the University of Florida – each of which was accompanied by growing protests and violence – Spencer ended his tour in March 2018 after a poorly attended speech at Michigan State University that was accompanied by violent outbreaks between members of the alt-right and counter-protestors resulting in a handful of arrests. Anti-Defamation League, “ADL Finds Alarming Increase.”

²³ Jane Mayer, “A Conservative Nonprofit that Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity,” The New Yorker (December 21, 2017), available online at: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity; Turning Point USA, “Our Mission,” Turning Point USA, available online at: https://www.tpusa.com/aboutus/our-mission/.

²⁴ Turning Point USA, “Professor Watchlist,” available online at: http://www.professorwatchlist.org/about-us/.

²⁵ Cissy Ming, “All Eyes on the Watchdogs: Penn State Professors Clash with Conservative Activists over Alleged Threats to Academic Freedom,” The Daily Collegian (April 4, 2018), available online at: http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_c7f17004-3792-11e8-83ca-a7309ebb53b9.html.

²⁶ Allegations of funding improprieties in student elections abound, but Turning Point USA denies that it has violated any campus campaign funding procedures. Ibid.

²⁷ Chris Quintana, “The Real Free-Speech Crisis.”

²⁸ Ibid; see also Stephanie Saul, “Dozens of Middlebury Students are Disciplined for Charles Murray Protest,” The New York Times (May 24, 2017), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/us/middlebury-college-charles-murray-bell-curve.html.

²⁹ Chris Quintana, “The Real Free-Speech Crisis.”

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ Ibid.

³² Bryant William Sculos and Sean Noah Walsh, “The Counterrevolutionary Campus,” p. 519.

³³ American Civil Liberties Union, “Timeline of the Travel Ban,” available online at: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

³⁴ Karin Fischer, “Trump’s Travel Ban Leaves Students Stranded – and Colleges Scrambling to Help,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 29, 2017), available online at: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Trump-s-Travel-Ban-Leaves/239039.

³⁵ Jie Zong, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Jeanne Batalova, Julia Gelatt, and Randy Capps, “A Profile of Current DACA Recipients by Education, Industry, and Occupation,” Migration Policy Institute Fact Sheet (Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2017), p. 4, available online at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/DACA-Recipients-Work-Education-Nov2017-FS-FINAL.pdf.

³⁶ Elizabeth Redden, “DACA Lives, But for How Long?” Inside Higher Ed (March 5, 2018), available online at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/05/daca-continues-now-colleges-and-students-face-uncertainties.

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Josh Dawsey, “Trump Derides Protections for Immigrants from ‘Shithole’ Countries,” The Washington Post (January 12, 2018), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-attacks-protections-for-immigrants-from-shithole-countries-in-oval-office-meeting/2018/01/11/bfc0725c-f711-11e7-91af-31ac729add94_story.html?utm_term=.8f222b44a108.

³⁹ Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades, “The Neo-Liberal University,” New Labor Forum 6 (2000), pp. 73–79; see also Marta Baltodano, “Neoliberalism and the Demise of Public Education: the Corporatization of Schools of Education,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 25:4 (2012), pp. 487–507.

⁴⁰ Sanford Schram, “The Future of Higher Education and American Democracy: An Introduction,” New Political Science 36:4 (2014), pp. 425–437.

⁴¹ Ibid; see also Adrianna Kezar, “Changing Faculty Workload Models,” TIAA-CREF Institute (November 2013), available online at: https://www.tiaa-crefinstitute.org/public/pdf/changing-faculty-workforce-models.pdf; Joseph M. Schwartz, “Resisting the Exploitation of Contingent Faculty Labor in the Neoliberal University: The Challenge of Building Solidarity between Tenured and Non-Tenured Faculty,” New Political Science 36:4 (2014), pp. 504–505.

⁴² Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades, “The Neo-Liberal University.”

⁴³ Sanford Schram, “The Future of Higher Education and American Democracy.”

⁴⁴ Joseph M. Schwartz, “Resisting the Exploitation of Contingent Faculty Labor.”

⁴⁵ Ibid, 507; see also Vincent Tirelli, “Contingent Academic Labor Against Neoliberalism,” New Political Science 36:4 (2014), pp. 523–537.

⁴⁶ For example, Amanda Erickson, “The Republican’s New Tax Plan Will Increase Inequality. That’s Bad News for Democracy,” The Washington Post (November 2017), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/15/the-republicans-new-tax-plan-will-increase-inequality-thats-bad-for-democracy-2/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35d5e510e9af.

⁴⁷ Gary Anderson, “How Education Researchers Have Colluded in the Rise of Neoliberalism: What Should the Role of Academics be in These Trumpian Times?” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30:10 (2017), pp. 1006–1012.

⁴⁸ Marc Pocan, “Betsy DeVos Denies Trans Students’ Basic Rights,” American Civil Liberties Union Blog (April 2018), available online at: https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights/lgbt-youth/betsy-devos-denies-trans-students-basic-rights; Moriah Balingit, “Education Department No Longer Investigating Transgender Bathroom Complaints,” The Washington Post (February 2018), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/12/education-department-will-no-longer-investigate-transgender-bathroom-complaints/?utm_term=.637d8c85b590; Stephanie Saul and Kate Taylor, “Betsy DeVos Reverses Obama-era Policy on Campus Sexual Assault Investigations,” The New York Times (September 22, 2017), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/us/devos-colleges-sex-assault.html.

⁴⁹ Clare Foran, “Donald Trump and the Triumph of Climate Change Denial,” The Atlantic (December 2016), available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/donald-trump-climate-change-skeptic-denial/510359/.

⁵⁰ Nadja Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka, and Kendra Pierre-Louis, “67 Environmental Rules on the Way out Under Trump,” The New York Times (January 2018), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?mtrref=www.nytimes.com.

⁵¹ See, for example, Lisa Friedman, “E.P.A. Announces a New Rule. One Likely Effect: Less Science in Policy Making,” The New York Times (April 2018), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/climate/epa-science-transparency-pruitt.html; see also Nadja Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka, and Kendra Pierre-Louis, “67 Environmental Rules on the Way out Under Trump.”

⁵² Arguably, there is a relationship between anti-intellectualism (including anti-science) in the era of Trump and the policing of “progressive” academics and campus discourse.

⁵³ See, for example, Andrew C. Revkin, “A Deeper Look at Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest in ‘Frackademia,’” Dot Earth New York Times Blog (August 1, 2012), available online at: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/a-deeper-look-at-undisclosed-conflicts-of-interest-in-frackademia/?_r=0; Richard Schiffman, “‘Frackademia’: How Big Gas Bought Research on Hydraulic Fracturing,” The Guardian (January 9, 2013), available online at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/09/fracking-big-gas-university-research.

⁵⁴ See, for example, Bryant William Sculos and Sean Noah Walsh, “The Counterrevolutionary Campus”; Dani McClain, “Can Black Lives Matter Win in the Age of Trump?” The Nation (September 2017), available online at: https://www.thenation.com/article/can-black-lives-matter-win-in-the-age-of-trump/.

⁵⁵ See, for example, “The #MeToo movement,” The New York Times, available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/series/metoo-moment.

⁵⁶ See, for example, https://www.marchforscience.com/.

⁵⁷ See, for example, Audrey Carlson and Jugal K. Patel, “March for Our Lives: Maps of the More than 800 Protests Around the World,” The New York Times (March 2018), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/22/us/politics/march-for-lives-demonstrations.html.

⁵⁸ See, for example, “Scholars Respond to the Trump Regime: Varieties of Critique, Resistance, and Community,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30:10 (2017), pp. 901–1059.

⁵⁹ For one clear exception to this rule, see Dean Caivano, Rodney Doody, Terry Maley, and Chris Vandenberg, “Critical Pedagogy in the Neoliberal University: Reflections on the 2015 York University Strike through a Marcusean Lens,” New Political Science 38:4 (2016), pp. 501–515.

⁶⁰ See, for example, Sarah T. Romano and Wendy Highby, “Campus Organizing towards the Democratization of Shale Oil and Gas Governance in Higher Education,” in John Whitton, Matthew Cotton, Ioan M. Charnley-Parry, Kathy Brasier (eds), Governing Shale Gas: Development, Citizen Participation and Decision Making in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018) [in press].

⁶¹ Miguel A. Guajardo, Francisco J. Guajardo, and Leslie Locke, “An Introduction for Ecologies of Engaged Scholarship: Stories from Activist-Academics,” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 30:1 (2017), pp. 1–5.

⁶² Ibid, 1.

⁶³ Rob Kitchen and Phil Hubbard, “Research, Action and ‘Critical’ Geographies,” Area 31:4 (1999), p. 193.

⁶⁴ The Autonomous Geographies Collective, “Beyond Scholar Activism: Making Strategic Interventions Inside and Outside the Neoliberal University,” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 9:2 (2010), p. 247.

⁶⁵ Biography of Distinguished Professor of Political Science of the Graduate Center, CUNY, Francis Fox Piven, available online at: https://politicalscience.commons.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/frances-fox-piven/.

⁶⁶ Francis Fox Piven, “Reflections on Scholarship and Activism,” Antipode 42:4 (2010), pp. 806–810.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah T. Romano

Sarah T. Romano is an Assistant Professor in Environmental and Sustainability Studies at the University of Northern Colorado. She holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and studies the intersection of social activism and environmental politics and policy in Latin America and the United States. She has published in The Bulletin of Latin American Research, Society and Natural Resources, International Journal of Water Resources Development, Water, and Water International. Her book, Rural Water Governance in Nicaragua: From Resource Management to Political Activism, is forthcoming in 2019 with The University of Arizona Press.

Courtenay W. Daum

Courtenay W. Daum is a Professor in the Political Science Department and the Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research at Colorado State University. Her research focuses on the interactions between law and society including LGBTQ politics, feminist legal theory, and social movement mobilization strategies. Her recent publications include “Counterpublics and Intersectional Radical Resistance: Agitation as a Mechanism for Transforming the Dominant Discourse” published in New Political Science (39:4), and “Marriage Equality: Assimilationist Victory or Pluralist Defeat? What the Struggle for Marriage Equality Tells Us About the History and the Future of LGBTQ Politics” in LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader (eds. Susan Burgess, Marla Brettschneider and Cricket Keating). Daum is completing a book under contract at SUNY Press that offers a critical assessment of the limitations of transgender rights movements for queer liberation.