I have taken part in this tradition since the age of homemade-caps in Kindergarden. And each year, I have asked myself, “What am I going to do with my hair?” In Kindergarden, I walked across the stage with a mishap bees nest on my head (one of many attempts in my childhood made by my biracial mother to style my natural hair). In Middle School and High School, I found the solution of braids – although I admit it was a tight squeeze into those small caps. And then in College, I walked across the stage with permed hair pulled back into a simple bun.

This year is a bit different as I have moved away from chemical straightening and synthetic extensions, and have learned to adore the beauty of my natural afro. And so, as I looked over the graduation attire requirements given to us this week, I paused at the word: CAP. The dreaded thought came back, “How am I going to wear this cap now??”

For many people, this may seem absolutely ridiculous – I should just be grateful that I am graduating. I admit, I was thinking the same thing as I started coming up with alternatives to my natural hair for the big day – not taking my cap off until I go home so no one has to see my flattened hair, and even blowing out my hair to fit the tradition. Searching for ideas, I spent a few hours away from work Googling, “Caps with Afro Style,” “Afro Hair Cap and Gowns” and “Caps Natural Hair” so many times to find ideas and yet it seemed that virtually no had ever posted about it, at least online.

Though I was frustrated, it wasn’t until my (white) partner said that this tradition was “unfair to people of color with natural hair” that I really begin to think about it. Where does this tradition come from? Why would an institution with a multitude of races and ethnicities ask people to wear this? And why didn’t anyone at these academic institutions ever think about how it would affect us?

A little research revealed that the Cap and Gown or ‘Academic Dress’ originated from the early 19th Century Europe. As the tradition moved into the United States, committees were organized to develop the standard of academic dress. It goes without saying that people of color were neither included in this conversation, nor were they (heavily) represented within academia at the time. Essentially, the construction of the cap and gown (including shape, height and structure) never included the bodies of people like me.

But how is it that we have never considered changing this system of celebration to suit people from all over the world? How can an academic institution that encourages diversity within their system, not understand just how stressful a moment of celebration can become for us? Even in an international institution, it appears as though no one’s paradigms (or realities) have allowed them to see this issue for those of us who have learned to appreciate our natural hair and bodies.

I may end up walking down the aisle feeling completely out of place, but I will certainly not revert to an old standard of beauty and tradition that doesn’t include my physical, but also very political, identity as an African American woman. We simply cannot accept an age-old tradition that does not include all members of its communities. I hope that other natural-haired women and men (and our supporters) graduating this year will join me in shifting the paradigms by rejecting a tradition that never included us by rocking our natural hair sans cap.

Cross posted with permission from: http://www.morganerichardson.com

I applied to the University For Peace with the belief that I would be entering into an institution that had none the major issues affecting elite liberal arts universities in the United States. I believed that I would find no signs of discrimination, harassment, or violence; rather, I envisioned a community of yogis, nature lovers and progressive thinkers.  I thought of a commune.

After writing my recommendation letter to UPEACE, my former college professor, Laurie Essig, wrote to me saying that she was curious to see how this school and the concepts of peace would mesh with my beliefs. I knew she had formulated some thoughts about it, but I had no idea what they were. I mean, “How could studying Peace not relate to my work as a feminist activist?” I thought.

I kept asking myself what she meant and now, after six courses and seven months of being within this community, I understand what Laurie was thinking. The road to peace is complex… it cannot always be peaceful, is often based in patriarchy and is certainly not filled with “hippies.”

Peace is understood as the absence of war and the presence of tranquility. But peace can also be dangerously embodied as compromise and remaining silent out of fear of creating a conflict.

Around the world, UN Peacekeepers are sent out on missions to give peace to war-torn countries, and yet they themselves are often theperpetrators of violence (most commonly on women and children). They remain silent on the violence their UN colleagues place on others and often lack the gender lens to understand the specific needs of the men, women and children within those areas. They put an end to the visible signs of war, but don’t cease violence from existing within the crevices of a community.

This is the peace that I am learning about and see happening before my eyes – the silence against harassment and discrimination by an administration and a fear that exists amongst students for speaking out.

I want to still believe in Peace – I know that I would have left months ago if I did not – but not this way.

The peace that I know includes mediation, and an understanding of the world through the eyes of others. Peace is about addressing issues (always using a gender lens) rather than allowing them to exist deep within us. Peace should not be something that we seek to bring only to others, but that we try to create within ourselves.

Crossposted from www.morganerichardson.com

In the 1920’s, medical, anthropological, and psychological studies sought to demonstrate the superiority of White people and placed prejudices as a natural response to “backwards races” (Plous, 2003, p. 3). These ethnocentric perceptions were challenged and transformed during the Civil Rights movement, and rights once denied to people on the basis of sex, and race, were granted. The Civil Rights movement noted that while “social categories form an indispensable part of human thought, because attributes such as race, sex, and age lie along a continuum, social labels are never more than approximations” (Plous, 2003, p. 3).

Globally, right-wing authoritarianisms and extremists who desire domination have held onto rigid categorical thinking and continue to place stereotype and prejudices on people in lower statues (Plous, 2003, p. 5). Stereotypes created out of ideological trends and internalized by individuals and outlets such as education, and the media, have come to foster prejudice and discrimination of those who are deemed “different” or inferior.  Most commonly, they have given power to white, upper-middle class men from Western worlds and hindered “others’” social, political and economic participation through personal and institutional policies (Plous, 2003, p. 2).

No society or nation has been immune to racism and its manifestations in society. Rather racism is deeply imbedded at the individual and institutional sectors. It is reproduced in “…everyday life on familiar ground where it is taken for granted as a ‘normal feature of the dominant culture and hardly ever questioned” (World Council of Churches, 2002, p. 4). Racism and discrimination has continued to hide itself deep in societies and institutions making it all the more necessary to confront the government for programs that will rid our country of such hatred (James, 2003, p. 130).

A major shift has occurred in the last decade, where a once visible and clear-cut White racism has turned into a “new” racism that has became increasingly disguised or apparently non-existent (World Council of Churches, 2002, p. 4).  Today, we find that racism is most present in tightly controlled global infrastructures of economic, ideological and military interests (World Council of Churches, 2002, p. 5). This systemic form of racism is proving detrimental to society, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to witness and challenge individuals’ perceptions of others based on the color of their race, ethnicity, language or culture.

In structural or institutional racism, minorities are denied access to education, employment and other necessary sectors to move forward and participate in society  (James, 2003, p. 135). For example, minority children, many of which live in poor communities, are forced to attend schools that lack the appropriate resources for education leading to less access to higher education or employment in the future.  As minorities have lived under stereotyping, prejudice, racism and social setbacks their entire lives, many come to believe they are the root of the problem and feed into negative stereotypes of themselves (Plous, 2003, p. 15).

We cannot deny racism because it makes us uncomfortable (James, 2003, p. 155). The empowerment of minorities is a crucial step in challenging systems that continue to oppress others on the basis of power. Refuse The Silence (2008), an organization that seeks to give a voice to women of color in elite liberal arts institutions, is a good example of a grassroots organization that is doing just that.  Through the process of sharing ones stories and seeing ourselves, Refuse The Silence believes academia may continue to confront racism, stereotypes and prejudices in the face and not hidden behind institutions (Refuse The Silence, 2008).

Grassroots activists and NGOs must also work to integrate all people in the public and private sectors. Moreover, corporations, and decision-making bodies (i.e. nation-states, the United Nations, etc) must hire minorities to increase minorities’ access to resources and representation and ensure that all voices are heard.  Speaking the truth and breaking down the walls in which racism conceals itself and, implementing policies and legislation that require equal access to all can achieve this goal.

PART II: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ELITE LIBERAL ARTS INSTITUIONS

Pedagogy and Methodology

 1. Professors should avoid all stereotypes based on gender, ethnicity, class, nationality, etc in the classroom.

2. Professors must be sensitive to the specific needs and challenges that minority communities may face within predominantly white, elite liberal arts institutions. They can begin this process by reading texts on discrimination, prejudice, stereotypes, ethnocentrisms and racism as well as by asking students in the classroom to share their own stories and experiences.

Curriculum

1. Mainstreaming: Topics on race and ethnicity should be mainstreamed in all courses, especially in the math and sciences.

2. Distribution Requirement: All students should be required to take a course that has a focus on race, racism and ethnicity in order to graduate.

3. History: All schools should restructure history courses to include the history of African American, Latinos, Asians, and so forth in the curriculum. Moreover, students should have the option to major in one of these histories that tell a story beyond the traditional ones told by those with global power.

Student Life

1. Dissecting Stereotypes and Racism Event: At the start of every school year, and in the winter prior to the exit of every school year, the campus, with the assistance of students, faculty and staff, should organized an awareness raising event focusing on racism, discrimination, prejudices, stereotyping and ethnocentrism.

2. Diverse dorm rooms: When students are not allowed or not given the space to be around people who resemble them, they can grow to feel isolated and alone especially in predominantly white institutions. With this in mind, students should have the ability to live in housing or dorm rooms that are diverse and comprised of people of similar as well as different backgrounds including, ethnicity, race, culture, etc.

3. Sorority and Fraternity Houses: Campuses and students should discourage the institution of sorority or fraternity houses which are based on the process of singling people out based on their economic status and thus race, ethnicity and cultures. Such houses only continue to divide the student body rather than bringing them together in dialogue.

Administration

1. Anti-Discrimination Policy: Colleges should be committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive campus where intolerance, discrimination and harassment are not tolerated.

2. Center for Diversity: Colleges should have a Dean of Diversity as well as a interdisciplinary academic center that is dedicated to understanding how race and ethnicity affect students lives on campus. As part of this initiative, the center should focus on academic programming for the entire community and support scholarships and research related to this area.

3. Recruitment Policy: The school should work with outside organizations (i.e. The Posse Foundation) to recruit students of color and minorities onto campuses to increase the schools diversity. Furthermore, faculty and staff from underrepresented groups should be encouraged and recruited onto campus.

4. Free speech events on campus: A few times a semester, the administration should host a free speech and expression event where students can safely express their sentiments regarding the student body, academics and issues of discrimination, segregation and so forth to all members of the community

7.  Entry Requirements: All schools must acknowledge that students have different access to opportunities throughout their lives. Prospective students from lower economic backgrounds or members of minority groups may not have had access to top-notch primary and secondary education prior to applying to college or may have never had SAT testing training. Therefore, colleges must not only look at prospective students test scores or grades, but also examine the work they have done outside of the classroom and how they have overcome difficulties to reach higher education.

8. College website: College websites must accurately portray the ratio of minority students on campus and not disguise it by placing many faces of minorities on the webpage. This will provide students with an honest understanding of the level of diversity present at the schools they will attend.

_________________

Sources

Plous, S. (2003). The psychology of prejudice: An overview. Retrieved from    http://www.understandingprejudice.org/apa/english/pg.27.htm

James, C. E. (2003). Seeing Ourselves: Exploring Race, Ethnicity and Culture (3rd ed.) (pp. 129-163) Toronto: Thompson.

World Council of Churches (2002). Understanding racism today: A dossier. (pp.1-26). Retrieved    from http://www.oikumene.org/fileadmin/files/wccmain/2006pdfs/racismdossier.pdf

Take a look at what today’s youth are doing to change the world.

After a long summer away, we are kicking of the year with a new batch of fabulous writers, incredible interviews captured over the summer, and many new ideas for the path of this initiative.

This year, are incredibly grateful to have the growing staff of our partner digital media company, Mixtape Media, working on all of our marketing this year. Thank you!

Founder, Morgane Richardson, is currently getting her Masters in Gender and Peace Building at the University For Peace in Costa Rica. She will be busy finding ways to expand on this project throughout the year to bring light to all of your voices and experiences. Follow her journey on her website, www.morganerichardson.com or via twitter twitter.com/morgane_r

We are always looking for more writers, editors and marketing pros. If you are interested, please send us a message at refusethesilence@gmail.com

Stay tuned!!

Our prevailing mythology of meritocracy in the U.S. tells us that education is a path to achievement. To do provide that, we expect schools to be free from racism and provide an equal education to all.  Yet, there’s a significant amount of research that tells a different story.  The story the research tells is that students of color at all levels of education face “micro,” or individual level, racism on a regular basis.  Here, I’m going to take up just two of the myriad forms of individual-level racism documented in the literature: 1) microaggressions and 2) stereotype threat.

Microaggressions. The term “microaggression” was originally coined by Chester M. Pierce in the 1970s to describe a form of individual-level racism.  Microaggressions are “…brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.”  In Feagin and Sikes’ book, Living with Racism (1995) middle-class black respondents describe “the racial stare” they experience from whites when entering white-dominated areas.  I think of this as the quintessential microaggression.  It’s so small, it’s hard to call out, yet the message is clear: “you’re not welcome here.”

Microaggressions are not a thing of the past, unfortunately, but are oh so current.  There’s an interesting social media (Twitter/Tumblr) effort to document and recognize the pervasiveness of microaggressions across multiple forms of oppression.

What does microaggression in education look like? Here’s a very recent submission to microaggressionsthat gives you a sense of what this looks like in education:

On Friday morning, as I walked to the cafe between classes at my predominantly white university, the school appointed photographer offered me a free coffee if I agreed to play the role of the cheerful token black woman in a group of strangers, as though the university is not festering with racial tension.  May 2011, at a “liberal” university. Made me feel devalued and furious.

Historically white institutions (HWIs) such as the one described above can be especially difficult, hostile places for students of color.  Morgane Richardson, a 2008 graduate of Middlebury College, has launched an effort to Refuse the Silence about what elite liberal arts colleges are like for women of color.  In an interview with Ileana Jiménez, Richardson explains some of what she experienced in college that led her to become an activist:

“there were a series of events that led me to become a campus activist and a mentor to other women of color at Middlebury. During my first few weeks there, a few students from the Ultimate Frisbee team decided to throw a “Cowboys and Injuns” party. They sent out invitations over the phone to individuals saying, “if you come as an Injun, be prepared to drink fire water and sit in a corner, etc.” I was appalled. I couldn’t believe that my fellow classmates would put this event together, or that the campus allowed it. In the organizers’ defense, they did recognize their mistake and agreed to sit down with us and talk about the significance of their theme party.

About a month later, I came home to a swastika drawn on my door. My only friend on the floor, a man of color, had the word ‘Nigger’ written on his. When I brought it up, the college organized a discussion for students of color, but it was never addressed in a large forum.”

Young men of color also endure microaggressions in educational institutions.  In a recent study (2011) researchers at the University of Utah analyzed data from 661 black men about their experiences in college. Smith, Hung and Franklin found that experiences of racial microaggressions interact with increasing levels of education to heighten stress (Smith, Hung and Franklin, “Racial Battle Fatigue and the MisEducation of Black Men: Racial Microaggressions, Societal Problems, and Environmental Stress,” Journal of Negro Education (80)1, 63-82). Another and related form of individual-level racism in education is stereotype threat.

Stereotype Threat. The term “stereotype threat” was developed by Steele and Aronson (1995) .  Their research, mostly through a series of experiments with college students, found that when race was emphasized in pre-test instructions, black college freshmen and sophomores performed more poorly on standardized tests than white students when their race was emphasized.However, when race was not emphasized, black students performed better and equivalently with white students. Steele and Aronson’s research provide powerful evidence that performance in academic contexts can be harmed by the awareness that one’s behavior might be viewed through the lens of racial stereotypes. They speculate that the mechanisms behind stereotype threat for students include distraction, narrowed attention, anxiety, self-consciousness, withdrawal of effort, or even over effort might all be dynamics at play. Still, there remain somecritiques of the research on stereotype threat (e.g., over reliance on college student samples, the distinction between “threat” and real discrimination) as well as some unresolved issues (e.g., mostly to do with measurement and operatlonalization of the term).
What’s interesting here is that researchers Steele and Aronson have launched a new site devoted to helping educators reduce stereotype threat. Just as performance on tasks can be hindered by stereotype, there are ways to reduce the threat. Stereotype threat based on gender, for example, can be reduced either by ensuring women students that a test is gender-fair (e.g.,Quinn & Spencer, 2001; Spencer, Steele, and Quinn, 1999).  It’s also been suggested that explicitly “nullifying the assumed diagnosticity of the test,” in other words, telling students that a given test “doesn’t show test innate ability” (Steele & Aronson, 1995). Overall, the evidence seems to suggest that simply addressing the racial fairness of a test can alleviate stereotype threat in any testing situation.

Meritocracy Myth. We want to believe that education is a mechanism for leveling the playing field for all children. The whole idea of the U.S. as an “open” society relies on an educational system that prepares all students to succeed with adequate skills.  Yet, while education is marred by racism – whether institutional or individual level – the notion of meritocracy is a myth.

Morgane Richardson is shaking it up. As a self-described “fourth-wave feminist” who takes on issues of race, gender, sexuality, sans the theory and terminology, Morgane is making an impact wherever she goes. As the founder of Refuse the Silence: Women of Color in Academia Speak Out, she has created a space that allows women who have experienced the isolation of liberal arts institutions to come and speak their truths. She has been featured in publications such as Bitch, More,Feministing, and numerous others. She has organized local campus communities as a Posse Scholar, created the social media firm Mixtape Media, and most recently created the conference series Ain’t I A Woman: Race in the Feminist Movement, which had its first panel in Brooklyn, N.Y., and is currently gearing up for a second series in Los Angeles, as well as a speaker for the upcoming SlutWalk in LA. She is a force of nature, speaking on her experiences as a woman of color, a queer woman, and a feminist, all with some serious chutzpah. Please welcome to Persephone the fabulous and amazing Morgane Richardson.

Persephone Magazine: You are the founder of ”Refuse the Silence: Women of Color in Academia Speak Out,” a site dedicated to collecting the stories of WOC students and alumni in elite liberal arts schools. What motivated you to start this space, and what was the process like?

Morgane Richardson: Refuse The Silence came into my mind and into my life about six months after my graduation from Middlebury College.

I was very active as the president of women of color on my campus, and I felt almost as though I was abandoning the women of color who were coming after me when I graduated. I knew that there were many things that still needed to happen in order for women of color to have a safe space, and I was seeking a way to do that as an alum.

The key was that I didn’t want someone else saying what the issues were for us. I wanted to provide women of color on these campuses with a space to share their own experiences. More than that, I wanted their stories to literally be the change, or create the change, in academia.

Once I had the idea in place, it was quite easy to put it all together. My partner and I have a digital media firm, so we were equipped to get Refuse The Silence up online and start spreading the news to others. The hardest part has been getting people outside of the feminist and academic worlds to know that this initiative exists, and that just requires more time and resources.

The process has been as rewarding as it is challenging. I think any organizer will tell you that it is difficult to be the head or founder of an initiative, especially when there is little funding, as is the case with Refuse The Silence. In a perfect world, Refuse The Silencewould be my full-time job and I would be able to get basic healthcare and funding in order to support everyone involved. This would really allow us to dedicate all of our time to watching this project grow and reach out to all the women who need to know that we exist for them.

PM: What were the most obvious issues or obstacles that you confronted in your own academic experience? What were the reactions from your peers and administration?

MR: When I first graduated from college, I was most disappointed with the administration and what I thought was their inability to change the issues that so many students of color face; by that I mean Middlebury’s inabilities to not only speak on blatant issues of racism (swastikas on students’ doors, professors calling out students to explain the Black, Latino, Asian experience, etc.) but to create an environment on campus that did not tolerate such hate.

After almost four years out, my awareness has changed a little, and I think the hardest part was not the administration but living and working with the students that I went to college with. I now recognize that many of the students in these institutions held preconceived notions of who we were as people of color, and in some case students on scholarship. So the hardest part was combating those ideas, feeling unwanted and feeling as though we had to be the voice of all students of color on campus. There was very little time to just be a student and make stupid mistakes… many of us felt that we had to put our activism first and collective identity first and lost the opportunity to be less uptight and a little more reckless.

The professors and heads of student organizations that I have worked with have been incredibly supportive of Refuse The Silence and have made sure their students are aware that it is available to them. I give them a lot of credit, because it takes courage to not only recognize that there is a problem but to research ways to help. I do wish that administrators were more involved, and yet I also recognize that I haven’t reached out to them as much. As one person, it is difficult to do all the things that require Refuse The Silence to be incredibly successful on all elite liberal arts colleges around the United States.

PM: Do you think Refuse the Silence can be translated for the experiences of women in, say, community colleges or state schools? What are the reasons for focusing specifically on “higher ed” private institutions?

MR: There are certainly issues that are specific to private schools of this nature, such as often being the only student of color in the classroom, and I wanted to make sure that those were addressed. Yet I recognize that many of the issues that we hear from women of color are not exclusive to elite liberal arts institutions. Hate crimes, sexual assault, eating disorders, and the like happen all over the world in colleges and universities.

My intention was not to separate the two but to speak on what I know and give voice to those in the community that I have been a part of. My hope is that one day so many people will want to be a part of Refuse The Silence that we can grow to be adopted on all college campuses across the United States, and even internationally. In fact, I am always thinking and dreaming about having Refuse The Silence for women in community colleges and state schools, but I also have learned to take it one step at a time, or else nothing will get done.

Video still from Refuse The Silence. Image courtesy of Refuse the Silence.

PM: You define yourself as a professional feminist, and on your site talk about the feeling of being “invited to their venue, even inviting us to speak, but being neglected to provide a microphone so we can be heard.” Can you talk about WOC’s representation or lack of in the larger feminist community, academic or otherwise, and how feminism can be better at including voices beyond the ones it has become easily accustomed with?

When I say that women of color aren’t given a microphone to be heard, I mean that people are often speaking for us. I was referring primarily to academic institutions, but I do think that this exists across the board, in the feminist community but also at home and in the workforce. People often feel comfortable speaking about race at a distance without asking for those directly affected to speak and share their stories and experiences. I think this largely exists because we live in a society that is still terrified of speaking on race, as many have never been given the vocabulary to do so. Unfortunately, many others simply think that race is no longer an issue.

Those at the forefront of the feminist community can greatly assist women of color’s voices being included in the movement by creating a space for us to speak out. We can organize more events with women of color activists and scholars, and we can have more conversations on race, class, and identity. We can also support organizations and initiatives founded and run by fellow women of color feminists. I think if we had any more specific answers than that, we really wouldn’t be where we are today. We must continue to figure out how to help by first acknowledging that there is an issue. Not enough people believe that there is a dire problem for women of color, even within the progressive feminist movement.

I, personally, have broached this issue by refusing to wait for someone else to give me a space or permission to organize on the topics that I deem important.

PM: What do you think are the largest obstacles facing young feminist are right now? What about the positives?

MR: Though it may sound cliché, I think every obstacle that we face as young feminists is a positive one. How can you learn if you have nothing to fight for and/or against? But for a solid answer, I think that the feminist community is working hard on creating an environment where all people can feel comfortable in finding a space to take action on the injustices they see in the world.

Some of the biggest things that are hindering us are the history of feminism and the notion that it is a middle class, white woman’s movement from the ’60s. Once we move away from that idea, we can start to organize as a collective and address the issues that are present today, largely immigration rights and combating the (naive) belief that we live in a post-racial society.

Morgane and crew at the first Los Angeles panel of Young Feminists Speak Out. Image courtesy of Young Feminists Speak Out.

PM: What do you feel that we have learned from those who came before us?

MR: There is a huge debate in the feminist community as to whether or not younger generations appreciate all that those who came before us have done. I don’t think it’s fair for one person to speak on behalf of everyone, but I personally think a lot of what we know as people, as activists, comes from those who have lived before us. That being said, there is even more that must be learned on our own through experience. For example, I was trained to deal with racism on college campuses as a posse scholar, but I didn’t know what that meant or how to deal with it until I experienced it myself.

In terms of what we have learned, that’s different for everyone and is incredibly difficult to answer.

PM: You and your partner also did something that most people are scared or seemingly unable to do – you both hopped into a car and lived off very little, mostly the support and help of people. Can you talk about why you both made that decision and what it was like?

MR: It sounds more poetic to say that choosing to pick up and leave was an easy decision, but the reality is it wasn’t at all for me. While I was ready for more adventures and control than my job at the time was giving me, I was afraid of the repercussions that came with not being able to pay off my student loans and lose my healthcare. I was also afraid of what my mother would think. Yet, I didn’t see a future for myself sitting at a front desk answering phones and not making enough to pay for my own housing (I was making less than $20,000 a year). Luckily, I had a partner who saw that it was slowly eating away at me, and she helped me find the strength to get up and leave.

Once we were on the road, it was much easier. You would be surprised at how many people are willing to help two young women living out of their car. We had random strangers offer up their time, really good traveling tips, showers in their hotel rooms, and even blankets to keep us warm as we drove in the dead of winter. We also got our then-puppy on the road, which was a great way for us to focus our (sometimes nervous) energy.

I think the hardest part of the entire journey was when we realized that, eventually, we had to go back home. Coming home was when things got tough… when we suddenly had to be a part of society again. But we have learned that we are, indeed, wanderers at heart and have created a life for ourselves that allows us to do that by starting our own company and learning to let go a little. In fact, we are moving to Costa Rica in the fall to continue on our journey!

“Ain’t I a Woman Event” poster. Image courtesy of Lucy McLaughlen.

PM: Now you are living in L.A. and organizing your own feminist community, creating events like Young Feminist Speak Out: Los Angeles and the Ain’t I A Woman Conference that took place in Brooklyn. Can you talk about how you are reframing these discussions in a way that are more inclusive and what it’s like to organize these events?

MR: Despite what people think, the feminist community closely reflects the energies that you find in a corporation or even at the United Nations. People are striving to be at the top of the ladder and are so involved in making policy changes that I think we often forget to reach out to those who have little to no understanding of what feminism means.

I love the fast-paced, get-it-done energy that New York feminism has, but I strongly appreciate the laid back vibe that Californians have on life. So when I started organizing events on a large scale, I wanted to create a space where we could have the conversations that needed to be had but also have fun while doing it. I think there are some people who can learn in an academic setting, but many more who can appreciate good music, dancing, and socializing all the while talking about ways we can change the world for women. Ain’t I A Woman in Brooklyn and Young Feminist Speak Out in Los Angelesreached out to not only the feminist community but to artists, musicians, and many other people who may have never known about feminism and felt ostracized by the term.

In terms of the discussions that we have, I try to keep it very simple with minimal heady questions. I have found it works to have shorter panels so that people are only given enough time to answer a question but not delve too deep into it; this way, the audience is encouraged to come back to more events but also engage in a conversation with panelists in a beautiful space and over good music once the panel itself is over.

When organizing, I am very anal and require that every single detail is planned out and thought of. I am all about having the right flow and having events look so effortless, so organizing them takes a lot of time. I often feel bad for my co-organizers, but so far all of the events have turned out to be a success, so we must be doing something right!

PM: What other awesome work can we look forward from you in the future?

MR: For one, it’s time Refuse The Silence turns into book form, and I am working extremely hard at that. I have sat down with a few different publishing houses and agents in the past few months to really push this project into print from. Let’s cross our fingers that you will all be holding a copy of Refuse The Silence, The Book this time next year.

I am also in the process of organizing another Ain’t I A Woman: Race in the feminist movement panel. It will be in Los Angeles this time and with my Los Angeles co-organizers, Myra Duran and Miranda Peterson. We are hoping to have the event in June, but you can stay up to date by checking back to my website,www.morganerichardson.com/events or the Ain’t I A Woman site, aiaw.tumblr.com.

Interview by: Coco on May 20th, 2011
Cross-posted with Permission

And then there was last week.  I had planned to sit in on a panel at New York University titled, Asians in the Ivory Tower: America’s Equity Agenda and the Blurring of the Color Line in Higher Education on the same day that the ‘news’ broke.  The panel discussed a new book by Robert T. Teranishi called Asians in the Ivory Tower: Dilemmas of Racial Inequality in American Higher Education and was sponsored by NYU’s The Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy.  Teranishi himself sat on the panel, along with Kiran Ahuja (executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders), Walter Allen from UCLA, and fellow NYU faculty member Pedro Noguera.

Teranishi began his talk by providing the audience with statistics about AAPI achievement at the university setting and drew profiles of AAPI students who were entering college.  He took this one step further and went beyond the basics in each profile, detailing ethnicity, immigrant generation, the type of high school each student attended, and a few other markers he used in his research.  This was all done to illustrate why the statistics that we currently have available are problematic: these statistics are all-encompassing and do not always distinguish between ethnicities within the AAPI community, and numbers often used to define achievement vary across these ethnic groups and across generations.  AAPI research also groups foreign-born and American-born AAPIs, thus skewing the data even further.

After discussing data, Teranishi and his colleagues stepped back to analyze why research continues to produce flawed data, and what needs to be done in the higher ed community to get a more accurate numerical representation of the AAPI student community.  The model minority myth has framed research, producing results that ‘prove’ that the myth that AAPIs are high achievers is true.  These are the same numbers that lead outlets such as <i>Newsweek</i> to allege that Asians are “out-whiting the whites,” and Teranishi argues that the academic community needs to rethink the normative paradigm that allows for such arguments.  Walter Allen expanded on this by saying that we also need to take the act of challenging the notion of a white majority to heart, particularly in light of the most recent census numbers that show an unprecedented growth rate in the Latino and Asian populations.

Kiran Ahuja took a few minutes to speak from her policy-making perspective, and pointed that the US Department of Education, which actually governs the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, has low numbers of AAPI staff members, which in turn does a disservice for policy-making that is meant to benefit the AAPI community.  The panel noted as a whole that because higher education lacks AAPI faculty members and researchers in general, research about this community is even more difficult to come by.  (Case in point: panel attendance was required for graduate students who were enrolled in certain classes, but there didn’t seem to be many other AAPIs in the audience.)  Ahuja emphasized that AAPIs who do work in higher education need to be more selfish and conduct research within their own community, as this is going to be the only way to obtain more accurate numbers – and unfortunately, numbers are what drive policy, funding, and resources.

After the panel ended, I took a moment to approach Dr. Teranishi and speak with him about Refuse the Silence and the alumni communication with Kalamazoo College, and hopefully I’ll have a moment to sit down with him in the near future to talk more about his research.  The panel was unable to go into too many details because of time constraints, but so much of what the panelists spoke of is reflected in my own academic experience at K.  I’m hopeful that Dr. Teranishi’s work with Asians in the Ivory Tower serves as the groundwork to enact change at the research level.

Cornell University Provost Blasted for Plan to Move Africana Center - Diverse Education
“A fiery debate has been brewing on the upstate New York campus ever sinceProvost W. Kent Fuchs announced last December that the center would no longer beautonomous but under the direction of the College of Arts and Sciences as of July 1,2011. The resulting outcry has become so fierce that Fuchs is now considering renegingon his decision.”

California Schools Move Towards LGBT Lessons – Colorlines
“The California Senate recently passed a bill that would add LGBT history to thesocial studies lessons that public schools must include in their curriculum, reportedthe New York Times. If the state Assembly adopts the bill and Gov. Jerry Brown signs it,California will be the first state to require that gay history be taught in its public schools.”

Win a Trip to D.C. By Telling Us How You’re Creating Racial Justice – Colorlines
“In your own life, how are you changing the rules of our race conversation, and creatingreal solutions for racial and social justice?” “The 2011 Campus Progress National Conference will center on the theme “TurningTruth to Power,” emphasizing ways in which young people are turning their vision of abetter world into a strong, progressive youth movement”

Perspectives: Desegregating the Legal Community – Diverse Education
“In fact, Justice Sotomayor was merely stating what many in the legal community havebeen saying for decades: the legal community’s lack of diversity has a serious impacton access to justice in America. This impact is seen in the disparate criminal arrest andsentencing rates.”

Excerpt: On Race, Class and the Duke University Lacrosse Scandal – Racialicious

GOP Budget Slashes Pell Grants - Campus Progress
“The Ryan budget uses the wrong data to come to the wrong conclusions and thus
its solutions are faulty. What’s more, these solutions will impede America’s abilityto compete globally and they will increase income inequality by denying deservingstudents the opportunity that college affords to pursue the American Dream”.

On the evening of Oct. 13, 2010, members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale University marched across campus chanting, “No means yes! Yes means anal! No means yes! Yes means anal!” A video of the chanting men was posted online and quickly went viral, spurring an uproar on Yale’s campus and nationwide. The message was clear: making light of rape — an abhorrent, violent, dehumanizing crime — is not acceptable, whatever the circumstances.

While the university was quick to issue a letter two days after the incident expressing outrage that such words were shouted on campus (and has issued several statements since), the response has been called into question in a complaint filed by 16 current and former Yale students who allege the school did not adequately punish the students involved in this incident (and a long list of past incidents). And in this inadequate reaction, complainants say, Yale appeared to condone the type of behavior the chant glorified, which in turn, precludes women from having the same access to an education at Yale as their male counterparts.(See “Fighting School Violence by Pinpointing Its Victims.”)

The controversy has inflamed an ongoing national debate over whether universities are doing enough to fight rape and sexual harassment of women. The discussion raises all kinds of questions including what constitutes consent and whether students accused of serious sexual violence should be expelled even if they haven’t been convicted in a criminal court.

Groups promoting campus safety say that a school’s failure to properly deal with these issues violates rights guaranteed by Title IX, which passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 and ruled that any educational institution that takes federal funding cannot discriminate against women. (Sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are all considered discrimination on the basis of sex.) And, by that standard, the university has an obligation to act.

In Yale’s case, the complaint prompted the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation of Yale for its “failure to eliminate a hostile sexual environment on campus, in violation of Title IX.” For its part, Yale has not received a copy of the complaint and, though school officials acknowledge they conducted an investigation into the incident, they are not permitted to disclose what punishment, if any, the fraternity received.

While the Department of Education’s investigation has gained wide notice in part because it involves one of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Yale is hardly alone in dealing with issues of sexual harassment and assault on campus. The Office for Civil Rights has a handful of inquiries and reviews under way nationwide in addition to the Yale case, including one investigation of an incident at the University of Notre Dame in which a student at neighboring St. Mary’s College committed suicide after an alleged sexual assault by a Notre Dame football player.(See the top 10 crime stories of 2010.)

The statistics on these incidents are sadly familiar. One in five college women will be the victim of a sexual assault (and 6% of men). Less than 5% of those assaults will be reported to campus authorities or the police. Those numbers from the Department of Justice have been virtually unchanged for at least a decade despite a host of awareness programs, which begs the question, What more can colleges and universities do to combat sexual harassment and assault on campus?

The answer, according to the Office for Civil Rights, is a lot more. On April 8, on behalf of the agency, Vice President Joe Biden announced a new guidance on Title IX. Addressing the men in the crowd at the University of New Hampshire, Biden said, “Look, guys — all you guys in the audience — no matter what a girl does, no matter how she’s dressed, no matter how much she’s had to drink, it’s never, never, never, never, never O.K. to touch her without her consent. This doesn’t make you a man, it makes you a coward. A flat-out coward.” The Vice President’s statement seems obvious, but in actuality, knowing what constitutes consent is one issue universities have to work very hard to be sure students understand.

The new federal guidance, delivered to schools nationwide in an 18-page “Dear Colleague” letter, goes a long way in clarifying some of these issues and how universities should respond. One point is that colleges are required to perform their Title IX investigations even as criminal proceedings are under way. Which means that even while a police investigation is moving forward, measures must be taken to ensure the victim is not forced to re-encounter her assailant on a daily basis — an excruciating experience that can often lead to the victim dropping out of school, thus lowering her equal access to education under Title IX. In some cases, that may mean moving the alleged perpetrator to a different dorm, changing classes or removing the accused from the school altogether.

Laura Dunn knows that experience all too well. During an investigation that occurred while she was a student at the University of Wisconsin in 2004, Dunn was forced to spend an entire year on campus with one of the men who she says raped her — an experience she calls “horrific.” (The other alleged rapist had already graduated by the time Dunn came forward to report the incident.) Dunn says that throughout the course of the investigation the university dragged its feet until time ran out and her alleged assailant graduated. “It was as if they were going above and beyond to ensure nothing would be done in my case,” Dunn told TIME. “I felt extremely disappointed to know that the institution in charge of ensuring my safety did not recognize the massive distress the sexual assault caused me. Furthermore, I was disappointed that when I sought justice through their system, I was treated with hostility and disrespect. I was clearly not believed, and was often blamed for what had happened.” (In a report released four years after the incident, the Department of Education found that the University of Wisconsin had acted properly, though neither of the men Dunn says raped her were punished.)

Dunn raises an important point that the Office for Civil Rights is attempting to better address: promptness. The department’s guidance requires that universities resolve cases “swiftly and appropriately,” according to assistant secretary for civil rights Russlyn Ali. The problem with “prompt” is that it varies case by case, university by university. There is no way to require a set schedule for how these investigations should proceed. Some cases have much more complicated issues than others and take much more time to work their way through the system.(Why are so many female Florida teachers sleeping with male students?)

“What we are making clear is no matter how long the process takes, the institution has a responsibility to provide interim support for the victim,” Ali told TIME. “We’ve heard from too many students who said they were being revictimized by the process.” And that situation may be contributing to the fact that so few women come forward in the first place. The guidance, while it doesn’t set specific timetables, will ideally spur universities to change policies that may have not been in the best interest of the victim, according to S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of campus crime. He cited one university that stipulates cases must be resolved by the end of the following semester — that means victims can often be held in limbo for the majority of the year before receiving any form of resolution.

The new directive also clarifies universities’ commitment to deal with those incidents that happen off campus. Handling off-campus incidents is an area that colleges and universities have not always been so good at. “There were some institutions that felt if assaults occurred off campus it wasn’t their responsibility,” Carter told TIME. Though off-campus incidents do not fall under their jurisdiction for criminal prosecution, Carter says they do have a responsibility to carry out the same sort of measures as they do with on-campus incidents to mitigate a hostile environment for the victim, like switching dorms, etc.

And finally, the guidance also clarifies the standard of proof for sexual harassment. “Far too often universities use the higher standard when it comes to Title IX,” Ali says. “Colleges need only a ‘preponderance of evidence’ showing it’s more likely than not that a crime occurred.” Meaning that even if police don’t have enough evidence to take the case to court, a college or university can act. This point is especially supported by Title IX activists and students, including those at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., who staged a four-day sit-in in March to demand the college change its policies, which students said were too lenient in their punishment of rape and sexual assault. The standoff ended only after the college agreed to lower its standard of proof and punish those students found guilty of rape by a university investigation with mandatory expulsion.(See “When Bullying Turns Deadly: Can It Be Stopped?”)

The department’s directive and a new federal bill known as the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act — which was introduced April 14 by Senators Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington — urge, and in the case of the bill, require, more prevention education, which supporters hope will lead to a change in the overall culture of a campus and how sexual violence is seen among students. But even that may not be enough. Melanie Boyd, who is both the director of undergraduate studies in Yale’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies department, as well as the special adviser to the dean of Yale College on gender issues, told TIME that the Administration going in with policies and rules is important but can only do so much — what really needs to happen is to make incidents like the fraternity’s chant socially unacceptable. “We could try to fix this by saying, ‘Let’s expel the guys who chanted,’ but it won’t change the culture,” she says. “You need a campus community that is really well educated about this, that says, If you do this, no one will come to your parties anymore.”

To promote that idea, Yale developed a workshop between members of the campus’ student-run Women’s Center and a fraternity on topics like what is nonconsensual sex and what are the situations that lead to it. All of which Yale and other universities nationwide, who carry out similar initiatives, hope will go a long way toward increasing the understanding that, despite what any fraternity may chant, no really does mean no.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2065849,00.html#ixzz1JuPi2sGf