By Brianne Posey
The intersections of media, gender and justice have always fascinated me, and led me to a career in advanced research in Criminology and Criminal Justice. I came to Washington State University to pursue my PhD in the field because I wanted to work and study with the best.
But I soon learned that love of the subject and faculty who produce great scholarship don’t make up for the serious problems that aspiring scholars — particularly students of color like me — face while pursuing their degrees. It is commonly known that faculty of color are significantly underrepresented in higher education compared with students of color (in 2017, around a quarter of postsecondary faculty were nonwhite (24%), versus 45% of students). While there are many systematic reasons for this disparity, I believe a union for student workers at WSU is an important part of the solution and can help more aspiring scholars from different backgrounds stay in academia and diversify the workforce.
Looking back to my grad school experience, my opportunities were stunted by harassment and institutionalized racism. Due to my research interests in intersectionality and crime, I was regularly assigned to teach classes on the subjects of race and gender. These classes can be difficult to teach, as they often cover sensitive topics, as well as spark a degree of dissonance for some students. Things got worse after the U.S. Presidential election in 2016, when we saw a surge in aggressive challenges to curricula like those I had been assigned to teach. I found myself in a new type of environment, where some students would challenge me in hostile and disruptive ways and the university administration showed itself unable to provide meaningful and consistent support.
One semester, for example, a student in my gender class was so disruptive to the learning environment that I ran out of strategies to maintain a safe and respectful space. I’d always been good at finding ways to foster openness and respect — even when students disagreed with me or each other — but this was different. Within the first month of class, he repeated sexist and racist jokes, mocked violence survivors, and became verbally aggressive when presented with information that he did not agree with. For example, when I presented the legal definition of stalking in the state of Washington (RCW 9A. 46. 110) during a lecture, he became increasingly agitated, arguing that stalking is not a “valid” crime, as women “enjoy the attention.” I went to various faculty advisors for advice, and was mostly given strategies for how to mediate “less progressive ideologies.” While this was well intentioned advice, most of these strategies were of little effect, as the issue was not with how “progressive” this student was or wasn’t — it was this student’s continual disruptive behavior which was rooted in racism and sexism, and was being masked as a “difference of opinion.”
This student’s behavior did not only negatively affect me, but it also affected my students. At many points during the semester, students, many of whom were survivors of violence and/or assaults, confided in me that his comments impacted their ability to speak openly during discussion, fearing they would become the targets of his conduct. In an effort to get his behavior to stop, I emailed him and explained that his comments were inappropriate. He confronted me in person and defended his comments, going so far as to justify some of his own past predatory behavior. I then sought advice during a campus graduate student workshop on teaching strategies for TA’s. One of the workshop facilitators gave me the advice, “We need to meet students where they are, not where we want them to be.” On the one hand, I understood and agreed: teach with compassion; recognize differences and find ways to open people to new ways of thinking. But on the other hand, this student’s behavior was verging on threatening and harassment, and was also preventing other students from learning. And I was supposed to look past that?
I went to the Graduate School to seek additional support. They directed me to the Title IX office (now called Compliance and Civil Rights). There, I again met a dead end. I was told that no action could be taken because the student’s conduct did not meet the legal definition of “sex and gender based” harassment. I was instead referred to Counseling and Psychological Services. This was disparaging and frustrating for me, as I felt as though my toxic and unsafe working conditions as a graduate instructor were being reduced to a function of my individual mental health.
With no institutional backing or alternatives of any kind offered, I just had to get through the semester as best I could. In spite of the disruptions from this student, I finished up and tried to turn my focus to the new class I’d be teaching in the spring. But my serenity didn’t last long. Over winter break, this student emailed me with the subject line, “I’m back.” He had signed up to take another class with me.
Right away, I alerted my chair. I had serious concerns about his behavior continuing for yet another semester. Further, I had concerns about safety, as there were other sections both in person and online offered, and it felt like he was purposefully seeking me out. While the chair was sympathetic and attempted to problem solve with me, they could not prevent him from enrolling in the class.
This time the class was juvenile delinquency, and he continued to make inappropriate comments related to sex and race, display combative behavior, and challenge me in the classroom. Again, my students felt the disruption as much as I did, and voiced their frustration about his dominating class discussion, introducing unverified claims and statistics, and going far off topic.
When the university was not able to adequately address my concerns or provide the support and resources I needed for a second time, for the sake of my mental health and safety, I decided to leave my teaching assistant position. I had to seek alternative forms of graduate student funding for the duration of my doctorate in another department. These funding sources were less germane to my course of study and paid less, which increased my stress and precarity.
Throughout my graduate school career, I was particularly close with one faculty member, whom I confided in regularly. They explained to me that unfortunately the university just didn’t know how to adequately handle sexism and racism directed at graduate students because there were so few grad students of color, and no one had ever worked on policies or procedures to support non-white instructors. I think this perfectly sums up the issue at hand. When a system is predicated on white privilege, top-down decision-making and rooted in a culture historically not inclusive of women, POC, and grad students, it is not built to support the needs of diverse students and workers. Non-white and other underrepresented grad students like me have little power as individuals to hold our institutions accountable or to make systemic change.
Fast forward to today. I finished my PhD and am now an assistant tenure track faculty at another institution and I’m part of the union there. In retrospect I see that if I had had a union at WSU, things could have been different. Unionized academic workers at many universities have bargained terms that make it easier for individuals to speak up without worrying that they’re risking their livelihood and their careers. Unionized student workers can effectively hold administration or department decision-makers accountable if they fail to act on reports of an unsafe, hostile, or discriminatory working environment, because having a union means the administration doesn’t have unilateral say over the final response or outcome — those of us who are directly affected have an equal say. Under many collective bargaining agreements universities are obligated to find solutions to the situations I faced: like assigning a replacement instructor or providing training or additional resources. I would have had peer advocates at every step of the way who are trained in identifying every resource available, and ensure that there aren’t additional adverse consequences that follow from taking action.
Unions also are a force for changing the culture of academia. At the University of Washington, for example, unionized student employees and Postdocs have bargained peer-led trainings focused on changing cultural norms to anticipate and prevent these kinds of problems before they start, and providing tools so that people can more easily respond to discrimination and harassment. They also are organizing to increase diversity and dismantle white privilege throughout the University, recognizing that top-down initiatives from the administration can be positive but that the work to meaningfully change university culture can’t succeed without a grassroots movement.
I’m supporting the union for student workers at WSU because I strongly believe it’s necessary to create a more equitable and inclusive university. When you have power through a union and a collective bargaining agreement, it’s possible to make lasting, important changes, and make a better working environment for everyone.
Brianne Posey received a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice and Criminology from Washington State University in 2020. She is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies at California State University, Northridge.