Challenging Calls for Civility

In conjunction with her article When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about civility codes and free speech for Academe Blog

When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not

In this essay, I argue that the debate on free speech as pushed by the conservative right is a strategic apparatus to undermine the various diversity initiatives on college and university campuses. While supporters of the right wing extremists around the globe have pushed for various modes of exclusions (social, racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and sexual), here in the United States, such exclusions are most evident in the collapse of academic freedom and the rise of civility codes as students and educators use the platform of free speech to promote various forms of injustices and exclusions. Our neoliberal college and universities and their administrators, I argue, are caught in this precarious and tenuous conflict of protecting academic freedom against the pressures from the outside (the political right) to stage ideas and ideologies that are harmful for the public good in the name of “free speech.

In the Name of Merit: Racial Violence in the Academy

Racial violence in the academy is enacted upon faculty of color, particularly women, in multiple disciplines. This essay attempts to both expose and suggest that everyday systemic racism has become a pervasive and normalizing feature within disciplines that continue to privilege white and Eurocentric forms of knowledge-making while devaluing others. Furthermore, attempts to challenge such supremacies are immediately countered by calls and charges of incivility. This is an essay about the costs of unmasking norms of civility as it bears upon constructions of both whiteness and meritocracy

Academic Prioritization or Killing the Liberal Arts?

Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, professor of English at Linfield College, laments the downsizing of liberal arts and humanities programs and departments by college administrators bent on promoting more job-oriented disciplines. This essay originally appeared as part of Conditionally Accepted, a career advice blog for Inside Higher Ed providing news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community

The Pandemic, India’s Lockdown and the Fear of the Indian-Americans

Journal #9 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt. From India. Quarantined in United States (Portland, Oregon).This essay narrates the fear and anxiety faced by the Indian-Americans (NRI’s) about their parents and the elderly living in India as they navigate the ramifications of the lockdown in both India and the U.S.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian

The Pandemic, India’s Lockdown and the Fear of the Indian-Americans

Journal #9 from Media Rise's Quarantined Across Borders Collection by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt. From India. Quarantined in United States (Portland, Oregon).This essay narrates the fear and anxiety faced by the Indian-Americans (NRI’s) about their parents and the elderly living in India as they navigate the ramifications of the lockdown in both India and the U.S.Media Rise Publications. Quarantined Across Borders Collection. Edited by Dr Srividya "Srivi" Ramasubramanian

Exploring Creativity

Six professors share their views of the creative process in a liberal arts environment

Not So Minor Feelings

This creative nonfiction essay by Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt about race, silencing, and families originally appeared in Entropy

Are You Supporting White Supremacy?

Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, professor of English at Linfield College, provides an opinion piece in the form of a checklist of 15 “troubles” she has identified to help others in academe recognize (un)conscious contributions to white supremacy. This essay originally appeared as part of Conditionally Accepted, a career advice blog for Inside Higher Ed providing news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community