The SWS Social Action Committee and Student Caucus drafted this statement and SWS Council voted to endorse this statement on November 16, 2022.

Student protests at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI have recently made media headlines including Inside Higher Ed, but the institutional racism and deleterious campus climate for students of color is far from recent. On August 25, 2022, Marquette students gathered at the New Student Convocation to protest the lack of institutional resources and support for students of color on campus. Following the protest, 10 Marquette students of color were charged with student conduct code violations, including violating university policies. Soon thereafter, they were sanctioned, fined, and removed from campus leadership roles including elected positions of student government president and vice president, and leaders of campus groups including the Latin American Student Association and the Black Student Union, recently honored with the 2021 Student Activist Award from the Wisconsin Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. 

Marquette’s new demonstration policy requires most protests to be cleared by university administrators before they take place. This policy was adamantly opposed by faculty and students when it was first introduced in 2019 (see open letter in The Chronicle of Higher Education). Faculty criticized the policy, arguing that it restricted student and faculty demonstrations so severely that almost any form of protest could be categorized as “disruptive” and thus the policy further silenced the voices of the most marginalized on campus. Soon thereafter, the Marquette University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was formed in 2020, standing up for academic freedom, free speech, and shared governance. AAUP members convened the chapter in response to threats of hundreds of faculty layoffs and permanent changes to university structures, policies, lack of transparency and, notably, lack of support for students, faculty, and staff of color.

Our solidarity

SWS members are invited to be in solidarity with Marquette students of color and their right to freedom of speech as a foundational value of a democratic society. As educators, we value students’ voices and their right to act together in dissent – and to speak out against institutional racism. These events and concerns at Marquette are not isolated but are part of a long history of systemic racism against students of color across college and university campuses, especially predominately white institutions. Our institutions continue to recruit and yet tokenize students of color without resourcing services and staff needed or adequately addressing discriminatory and hostile campus climates. And in this case, campus leaders retaliated and disciplined students of color for speaking out against unjust treatment and lack of support. 

The concerns and experiences of Marquette students of color Matter, and they ought not be silenced or punished. SWS members value raising voices of dissent because through them we clearly see the systems of inequality embedded in our institutions and supported by campus leaders across the country. Educational systems must seek truth and knowledge free of suppression, free of threats, and free of fear of retribution. To address social challenges and injustices facing our communities, universities must stand up as places for critical analysis, discovery, reflection, growth, humanity, and active citizenship. A community of scholars and learners listen and engage each other toward generative conflict; not disproportionate punishments that further silence and marginalize a community of students and a campus of support

Our action. 

As a community of scholar-activists, we call each other in, to be in solidarity with Marquette students of color and encourage all students and scholars across our institutions to actively support each other to make Black Lives Matter on our campuses. This call to action includes promoting social justice and change through education, activism, and demonstration aimed at eradicating the injustices on our campuses. We call on universities across the country to prioritize freedom of expression, social justice, care and support, and thereby social transformation. 

  • You can add your voice and your signature to the student-initiated Instagram account that has been started in support of the protestors and the petition demanding that Marquette University officials repeal all the penalties attached to the student conduct violations. 
  • When Marquette University leadership removed students from their leadership positions, student stipends were forfeited, and threats to housing choices, study abroad opportunities, suspension and expulsion were enacted. In response, a Gofundme page remains active and ongoing to help address the fines, financial losses, and looming threats of further retaliation toward the students. 

Love without Bounds: An IntersectionAllies Book about Families, New Children’s book Co-Authored by LaToya Council

(Photo provided by LaToya Council) 

Love without Bounds:
An IntersectionAllies Book about Families

New Children’s book Co-Authored by
LaToya Council, SWS Member

Book Title: Love without Bounds: An IntersectionAllies Book about Families
Authors: Drs. Chelsea Johnson, LaToya Council, and Carolyn Choi
Book Blurb: From CLC Collective, the sisterhood behind the critically acclaimed IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All, comes a heartwarming celebration of family in all its unique shapes, sizes, and situations, as well as what makes each one so special: LOVE.
Book Page: https://www.dottirpress.com/love-without-bounds

LaTonya J. Trotter awarded Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize

The winner of the 2022 Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness (FSHI) Book Prize is LaTonya J. Trotter for her book More Than Medicine: Nurse Practitioners and the Problems They Solve for Patients, Health Care Organizations, and the State.

LaTonya J. Trotter is a sociologist whose work explores the relationship between changes in the organization of medical work and the reproduction of racial, economic, and gender inequality. Her first book, More Than Medicine: Nurse Practitioners and the Problems They Solve for Patients, Health Care Organizations, and the State (Cornell University Press 2020), questions the common view of the NP as physician stand-in, illustrating how NPs are creating new possibilities for what the medical encounter could be, while showing the depth of the crisis of care that we face. LaTonya J. Trotter is a current SWS Member, and Co-chair of the Academic Justice Committee.

For more information on the award, visit: https://www.britsoc.co.uk/groups/medical-sociology-groups/medical-sociology-medsoc-study-group/prizes/foundation-for-the-sociology-of-health-and-illness-book-prize/

For more information on the book, visit: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501748158/more-than-medicine/#bookTabs=0

Sustaining Activism Gatherings, Presented by SWS Social Action Committee

Join the Social Action Committee for Generative Conversation about Activism & Supporting each other.

Zoom Link: https://BIT.LY?3AHZSN6
Meeting ID: 944 2424 7178
Passcode: 560413

Questions? Contact SAC Co-Chairs: Kris De Welde: deweldek@cofc.edu and Heather Hlavka: heather.hlavka@marquette.edu.

For more information on the Social Action Committee, visit: https://socwomen.org/about/social-action-committee/.

Call for Applications for Campus Visit by 2021 SWS Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Dr. Mary Romero

Call for Applications for Campus Visit by

2021 SWS Distinguished Feminist Lecturer

Dr. Mary Romero

Deadline to Apply: November 15, 2022

 

Committee Chair: Dr. Maria Cecilia Hwang (maria.hwang@mcgill.ca)

Selection Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Shobha Hamal Gurung (gurung@suu.edu)


Photo of Mary Romero

The 2021 SWS Feminist Lecturer Awardee, Dr. Mary Romero, Professor Emerita, Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University will make one campus visit during the 2023-2024 academic year. Dr. Romero served as the 110th President of the American Sociological Association. She is the 2022 recipient of the W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, 2017 recipient of the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award, 2015 Latina/o Sociology Section Founders Award, 2012 Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award, the Section on Race and Ethnic Minorities 2009 Founder’s Award, and the 2004 Study of Social Problems Lee Founders Award. She is the author of Introducing Intersectionality (Polity Press, 2018), The Maid’s Daughter: Inside and Outside the American Dream (NYU, 2011), Maid in the U.S.A. (NYU, 1992), co-editor of eight books, and numerous social science journals and law review articles. 

The campus visit is intended to celebrate and enhance feminist scholarship and social activism on college campuses. A key goal of the program is to provide a feminist voice on campuses where such a perspective is unusual and/or unwelcome. Applications from all types of institutions are welcome. Priority will be given to campuses that are isolated, rural, located away from major metropolitan areas, underfunded and without the resources needed to invite guest speakers, and/or are characterized by hostility to feminist scholarship.

The selection subcommittee will look especially favorably on campuses that are committed to gaining the widest possible audience for these visits. This may be demonstrated by evidence of

  • collaboration with other departments and programs on campus
  • multiple-campus cooperation
  • community partnerships

SWS will fund a portion of the expenses for the campus visit, thus institutions should not let resource scarcity prevent them from applying. SWS will fund up to $750 toward domestic travel and a maximum of $1500 for international travel. The host campus is responsible for the costs associated with meals and lodging for the duration of the campus visit.

If you are interested in hosting a campus visit submit your application by November 15, 2022 to:

SWS Awards Committee Chair: Maria Cecilia Hwang: maria.hwang@mcgill.ca

Please put “SWS Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Campus Visit” in the email subject line.

The application should include the following information:

  1. An explanation of your interest in hosting Dr. Romero and the merits of awarding a campus visit to your institution.
  2. A description of the type of presentation you are interested in hosting.
  3. The number of days you will ask the awardee to stay.
  4. The target audience or audiences for Dr. Romero’s presentation.
  5. A description of how local costs (lodging and meals) will be met.
  6. Tentative dates for Dr. Romero’s visit.

Note: Due to public health concerns and travel challenges relating to COVID-19, we are committed to working with Dr. Romero and the campus visit host institution to identify suitable dates. SWS can extend the timeframe beyond the 2021-2022 academic year for this visit to occur if travel and programming are not possible within this timeframe.

 

 

Call for Applications for Campus Visit by 2021 Distinguished Feminist Activism Award Winner: Dr. Brittany Pearl Battle

Call for Applications for Campus Visit by
2021 Distinguished Feminist Activism Award Winner
Dr. Brittany Pearl Battle

Deadline to Apply: December 29, 2022
Deadline Extended

Committee Chair: Dr. Maria Cecilia Hwang (maria.hwang@mcgill.ca)
Selection Subcommittee Chair: Dr. Ghassan Moussawi (moussawi@illinois.edu)

Photo of Dr. Brittany Pearl Battle

The 2021 SWS Feminist Activism Award Winner, Dr. Brittany Pearl Battle, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department and the African American Studies Program at Wake Forest University and Co-Founder of Triad Abolition Project, will make one campus visit during the 2023 academic year. Brittany’s research agenda includes social and family policy, courts, social justice, and carceral logics. At Wake Forest University, she teaches courses on social justice, courts & criminal procedure, and abolition and (re)imagining justice. Her community work regularly includes political education, direct action, healing and transformative justice work, and civic engagement. She is currently working on a book manuscript (under contract with NYU Press),“They’re Stealing My Opportunity to Be a Father:” The Child Support System and State Intervention in the Family, which examines the carceral logics of the state’s intervention in the family in this system. She is also working on a project examining the perspectives of abolitionist activists and organizers who were involved in the 2020 uprising, a project examining evictions in Forsyth County, North Carolina during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a project exploring the experiences of criminal legal system defendants and asylum seekers under various forms of state surveillance and community confinement. 

Read more about Dr. Battle’s research and activism here on her website: https://www.brittanypbattle.com/ and about Triad Abolition Project: https://www.triadabolitionproject.org.

Dr. Battle’s praxis of scholarship and activism has also been recognized with the 2022 Eastern Sociological Society’s Public Sociology Award and the 2020 Praxis Award from the American Society of Criminology’s Division on Critical Criminology and Social Justice. She is also a Fellow with the Institute for Research on Poverty’s Emerging Poverty Scholars Program and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow.

Applications from all types of institutions are welcome. Priority will be given to campuses with departments with a focus on feminist activism, social movements, sociological practice, and/or activist research, or those who are working towards building and centering these subfields. The selection subcommittee will look especially favorably on campuses that are committed to gaining the widest possible audience for these visits. This may be demonstrated by evidence of:

  •     Collaboration with other departments and programs on campus
  •     Multiple-campus cooperation
  •     Community partnerships 

SWS will fund a portion of the expenses for the campus visit, thus institutions should not let resource scarcity prevent them from applying. SWS will fund up to $750 toward domestic travel and a maximum of $1500 toward international travel. The host campus is responsible for the costs associated with meals and lodging for the duration of the campus visit.

If you are interested in hosting a campus visit, please send your application by December 29, 2022 to: SWS Awards Committee Chair: Dr. Maria Cecilia Hwang maria.hwang@mcgill.ca

Please put “SWS Feminist Activist Campus Visit” in the email subject line.

The application should include the following information:

  1. An explanation of your interest in hosting Dr. Battle and the merits of awarding a campus visit at your institution.
  2. A description of the type of presentation you are interested in hosting
  3. The number of days you will ask the awardee to stay.
  4. The target audience or audiences for Dr. Battle’s presentation.
  5. A description of how local costs (lodging and meals) will be met.
  6. Tentative dates for Dr. Battle’s visit. Dr. Battle has a preference for April 2023.

Note: Due to public health concerns and travel challenges relating to COVID-19, we are committed to working with Dr. Battle and the campus visit host institution to identify suitable dates. SWS can extend the timeframe beyond the 2023 academic year for this visit to occur if travel and programming are not possible within this timeframe.

 

‘A crisis of care’: We are not ready for the skyrocketing need for caregivers, says sociologist. Featuring Mindy Fried

“We are not ready… We currently have a very fragmented system of care policy. People who need care struggle to navigate that system.”
-MINDY FRIED, HOST OF “THE SHAPE OF CARE”
Mindy Fried is a SWS Member, Career Development Committee Co-Chair, and host of “The Shape of Care.”

Special Thanks to the 2022 Summer Meeting Sponsor: MDPI!

 

A pioneer in scholarly, open access publishing, MDPI has supported academic communities since 1996. Based in Basel, Switzerland, MDPI has the mission to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines.

Our 397 diverse, peer-reviewed, open access journals are supported by more than 115,000 academic experts who support our mission, values, and commitment to providing high-quality service for our authors.

Journals published by MDPI are fully open access: research articles, reviews or any other content on this platform is available to everyone free of charge. To be able to provide open access journals, we finance publication through article processing charges (APC); these are usually covered by the authors’ institutes or research funding bodies.

For more information on MDPI, visit: https://www.mdpi.com/. 

Special Thanks to the 2022 Summer Meeting Sponsor: The Pacific Sociological Association!

The Pacific Sociological Association is committed to serving sociologists in our region–faculty, applied professionals, and students—by providing opportunities for networking and professional development designed to advance scholarly research, promote high-quality teaching and mentorship, and encourage applied sociology for the public good.

For more information on PSA, visit: The Pacific Sociological Association