(NAME-MCE) Co-editors discuss new book about professors who are gay and from the working class

[Anselmo Villanueva]

'Resilience'

April 30, 2009

Co-editors discuss new book about professors who are gay and from the
working class.

For related stories, go to
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/30/resilience
'Resilience'  April 30, 2009

Kenneth Oldfield and Richard Greggory Johnson met at a meeting of the
American Society for Public Administration, and became friends, in part
because of their shared working class backgrounds. Oldfield, professor
emeritus of public administration at the University of Illinois at
Springfield, is straight. Johnson, assistant professor of educational
leadership and policy studies at the University of Vermont, is gay. They
drew on their shared and different experiences to edit a new book of essays,
*Resilience: Queer Professors From the Working Class,
*<http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=61710>released
by the state University of New York Press. The two co-editors responded to
questions about the book.

*Q: How do you see the categories of being from a working class background
and being gay in academe being similar or different?*

*Johnson*: Queers and WCAs [working class academics], which I’m using here
to connote straight professors of poverty and working class origins, share
the challenge of being “other,” meaning members of each group violate
America’s norms about what *should *be. These individuals are expected to
conceal or downplay their respective sexual orientations and class
backgrounds and not respond to direct or indirect prejudicial actions or
comments directed against them or others like them. Some historians mark The
Stonewall “Riots” as the official start of the gay pride and gay awareness
movements. These events in 1969 enhanced the queer community’s commitment to
“We are not going to take it anymore,” meaning an insistence on resisting
prejudice and violence directed against us because of our sexual
orientation. In 1975, the American Psychiatric Association dropped
“homosexuality” from its official list of emotional and mental disorders.
Three years later the American Psychological Association supported this
action. The LGBT community has built upon these earlier triumphs to become a
growing presence on many campuses. Not only are there Safe Zones and an
increasing number of course offerings relating to sexual orientation and
queer studies, gays have formed campus organizations and have been
successfully advancing their interests. They have taken the previously
derisive term “queers” and reinterpreted it to mean solidarity and strength.
This is not to say the LGBT community is free of obstacles, but at the time
of Stonewall, all these recent reforms would have been rejected outright on
most campuses. Obviously, there is a long way to go, but there is reason to
hope this ongoing movement toward greater self-respect and equality based on
sexual orientation will continue and even accelerate. Anyone who gives the
stories in *Resilience* a fair hearing will understand why this campaign for
queer rights is integral to fostering a diverse learning environment on our
campuses.

*Oldfield*: I share my co-editor’s optimism about the growing acceptance of
queers on campus. I am less sanguine about signs of reducing class bias in
higher education. Class, especially discussions about the importance of
class origins and inherited advantages by birth, is seldom mentioned among
academics. When the topic arises, it is usually only presented in the
abstract. Rarely, if ever, does the discussion or analysis address the
particular ways class status plays out on individual campuses. This
oversight is particularly puzzling because research by Bowen, Kurzweil, and
Tobin, and Carnevale and Rose shows at many major universities the percent
of students of humble origins is disproportionately small and declining.
About 10 years ago, Finkelstein, Seal, and Schuster warned that “academic
careers are increasingly attracting entrants from higher socioeconomic
backgrounds.” A 2004 report from the American Political Science
Association’s Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy showed
America’s decades-long effort at redistributing wealth upward has made it
increasingly difficult for working class parents to send their children
through four year colleges. As long as class remains a taboo subject -- in
the closet, if you will -- in most parts of the academy, it will be
impossible to fully appreciate the unearned advantages that flow to certain
children simply by the circumstance of birth. This is particularly
significant because of how these bequests contradict the ideals of equality
and fairness that purportedly distinguish America from all other nations.

*Q: Academe has a reputation for being among the more progressive parts of
society with regard to sexual orientation – and some references in the book
suggest that academe is less tolerant of people who didn't come from
families of educated professionals. What do you make of the bias against the
working class that comes up in essays?*

*Oldfield*: There are several explanations for this bias. The overriding
problem is the insistence that America offers endless opportunities for
upward social mobility. The prevailing fable is often expressed in anecdotes
like the one about the daughter of a single father with an eighth grade
education who shines shoes in an airport for a living. The myth is that with
enough hard work the daughter can academically outcompete the child of two
medical doctors. While this happens ever so rarely, we thrive on stories
about people who struggled all the way up from the bottom. We seldom
consider the disproportionate percent of “successful” people who “struggled
all the way from the top,” at least not in that light. This latter reference
includes people who won the race because of the colossal head start they
gained just by having college educated and higher income earning parents
and, therefore, access to the social, economic, and cultural capital
commonly associated with academic success. The mobility myth emphasizes
exceptions not averages. Class inequalities mostly get a pass in everyday
academic conversations.

A corollary of this folklore is that it encourages us to assume that those
lacking the resources normally associated with becoming a college professor
chose their working class stations because they didn’t have the grit and
gumption necessary to earn the requisite educational credentials. We are
supposedly a society without classes, but we frown on the working class
because of its place in the hierarchy. Ideology makes for contradictory
bedfellows. For years I sought to devise an efficient and effective way to
help students understand the question of unearned advantages, not an answer
to the question, mind you, but the question itself.

Here’s a paraphrased abridgment of a scenario I developed to portray this
situation: One hundred people are enrolled in an undergraduate college
class. At the first meeting, the instructor explains that each student’s
grade will be determined in part by how the last seven people who sat in his
or her seat performed in the course. The average scores on 12 quizzes and 3
exams will each be worth 50 percent of that term’s overall average. The
final grade for the course will be determined by combining each student’s
class average with those of the last seven students who occupied that seat.
Last semester, one student achieved perfect scores on the quizzes and exams
but got a C in the course because she inherited poor marks. Another student
had a C average in the course but received an A because of the high scores
he inherited.

The cognitive dissonance this simulation provokes helps students better
understand the question of unequal starts and that the belief in significant
upward social mobility likely entails more than just simply Horatio
Algerism. We overlook real life conditions that we would never tolerate if
the matter involved something as simple as assigning a course grade. The
grading scenario and the ensuing discussion helps students appreciate why
various studies have shown that our formal education system often reinforces
the status quo, versus being the Great Leveler our folklore insists it is.
This understanding helps students see why the published research
demonstrates that those of working class origins are significantly
underrepresented at many American universities, both as students and
faculty.

*Q: What are some of the ways you have experienced the biased or
condescending attitudes described by essays in the book?*

*Oldfield*: I will mention three personal examples of class bias and
condescension. The first involves colleagues who dismissively reason that
“working class academics” is oxymoronic. They insist, “But that was then,
this is now.” It’s as though once you become a professor recollections about
large parts of how you grew up go down The Memory Hole, an expectation
applied to no other group I know of. Instead of suffering amnesia, as the *
Resilience* authors exemplify, I learned to navigate different cultures by
maintaining the old and learning the new. This biculturalism is why WCAs
often mention how our class origins still profoundly affect our lives, both
inside and outside the academy.

A second illustration involves the unbefitting feeling I get when I hear
non-WCAs discussing how as youngsters they vacationed at the beach with
their parents, shopped for the right college, or are helping their children
increase their odds of being accepted at the right university (i.e.
preparing them to get high scores on standardized entrance examinations and
building a strong high school resume by participating in formally recognized
and so called important extracurricular activities, including, among others,
plays, the debate team, the tennis team, and doing volunteer work). Why
don’t more university admissions committees extend the same level of
recognition and respect to applicants who worked at fast food restaurants or
gas stations during high school? In the education game, it helps
considerably if your parents know how to “play college.”

A third class bias is one that I only fully appreciated after I finished my
doctorate. It involves the information I wasn’t given in all my years of
schooling, or received only in passing, as if it were not *that* important.
Most of my formal education about class involved omissions, which still
seems the case in too much of higher education. I was never encouraged to
appreciate how much America is a class-based society and, therefore, the
profound role class and class origins play in determining favorable life
outcomes, including recognizing the strong relationship between family
income and standardized test scores (ACT and SAT, for example), the number
and condition of teeth you carry into adulthood, longevity, whether you
smoke cigarettes, how much you travel outside your region or country, how
many books your parents made available to you during your youth, whether and
where you attended college, and so on, *ad nausea*. I relish the detailed
instruction I received about other demographic groups and the hardships they
faced because of prejudice and the consequences of structural inequalities.

Unfortunately, in all of my years of schooling, I was never encouraged to
develop a class consciousness, especially one involving the consequences of
unearned advantages and how class inequalities permeate our everyday lives.
I mostly gained this understanding accidentally and on my own by discovering
works such as Knupfer’s “Portrait of the Underdog” and Ryan and
Sackrey’s *Strangers
in Paradise: Academics from the Working Class*. Until I read Ryan and
Sackrey’s book, I thought I was the only professor who had flunked first
grade. My academic life would have probably gone in a radically different
direction had I been hearten to *really* understand class in my early
college days. Incidentally, I don’t necessarily blame any of my college
professors for this omission problem, as they too were a product of our
formal education system. Nevertheless, it is time we break this cycle by
emphasizing the significant role social class plays in distributing
opportunities and responsibilities.

*Q: Depending on the age of the authors in the book, some of them are
describing situations that date back a few years. Do you think the issues
are different for academics who are gay and/or working class who start their
careers today?*

*Johnson:* Academics report that it is easier today being gay and out about
their sexual orientation, at least at more liberal colleges and
universities. A few authors in *Resilience* speak to this point, although as
Angelia Wilson’s chapter shows, America has a long way to go versus British
universities on this issue. Being LGBT at certain U.S. schools can lower
one’s chances of gaining tenure or promotion if your primary research focus
is queer scholarship. Some senior faculty and administrators consider these
publications and conference presentations faddish and unimportant. Moreover,
some Georgia legislators recently proposed eliminating the jobs of
professors who teach about queer issues. Finally, circumstances are probably
least favorable for out LGBT faculty at particular religious-affiliated
colleges and universities. Professors there know to be silent or VERY
discreet about their sexual orientation.

*Oldfield*: Conditions for WCAs starting their academic careers today are as
bad, if not worse, than they were a few years back. As noted, the research
shows that the upward redistribution of wealth and other factors have
contributed to a declining population of WCAs and working class students at
four year colleges. Candler, Johnson, and I have published papers, both
individually and as co-authors, showing how our discipline, public
administration, pays little attention to class inequalities, notwithstanding
its well publicized commitment to diversity and social equity. These
research findings and other studies about the relationship between class and
education, especially the findings of the American Political Science
Association’s Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, prompted me
to survey the top political science and public administration programs
asking them whether they, first, solicit information about the class origins
of their MA students and, second, weigh these facts for diversity purposes.
Despite all the hand wringing by some researchers about growing inequities
in American higher education based on class origins, the evidence showed
that none of the responding programs actively sought this background
information for affirmative action
purposes.<http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/07/09/class>

I doubt my findings are anomalistic. I would probably find similar results
for most other graduate disciplines. The fact the data needed to test this
proposition are not readily available exemplifies more “politics by
omission.” A final illustration involves another failure to notice. If I
want to gauge a certain institution’s faculty composition by ethnicity and
gender, these statistics are usually readily available. This is good because
it allows policy makers and other interested parties to assess whether
individual universities are achieving the diversity ends they proclaim are
integral to quality learning. But what if I want to see the percent of
faculty who are first-generation college at some school? I know of no
university that gathers and publicizes this information, notwithstanding
higher education’s image as a cutting edge enterprise. Certain schools
collect these data from their undergraduates for diversity purposes, but why
not for their professors? How can we have socioeconomic integration among
university faculty if we cannot monitor the results of a school’s personnel
policies?

The subtle lesson for today’s newly minted WCAs is simple: If we don’t count
that part of your life, that part of your life doesn’t count. Can we ever
foster class consciousness if we deny the importance of a variable that so
profoundly shapes our formal education system and, thus, faculty
composition? Meanwhile, the data show we already have a well-established,
class-based affirmative action faculty hiring plan in place. Only now, the
lifelong social sorting system heavily favors those born of higher class
origins. They are called classrooms for good reason.

*Q: Your introduction notes that many colleges explicitly seek diversity in
their student bodies and faculty based on race, ethnicity and gender – but
not on sexuality or class. Do you think they should? What should colleges be
doing to make academics of all class backgrounds and sexualities more
welcome?*

*Johnson*: If higher education is sincere in what it says about how
diversity enhances the learning environment, efforts at achieving a more
representative faculty based on sexual orientation is certainly consistent
with this objective.

*Oldfield*: As previously noted, some campuses are already seeking greater
student diversity based on class origins. The University of Michigan’s Law
School application asks students about their class backgrounds. Various
books and articles offer evidence, a rationale, and the legal context for
these affirmative action efforts. American universities have yet to
demonstrate a similar commitment to faculty diversity based on class
origins. I have published papers explaining why the diversity rationale for
enrolling more working class students applies equally well to professors.
These articles detail how schools can implement class-based faculty
diversity hiring policies. The papers also address the red herring argument
that class is impossible to define. I show that this contention fails on at
least three counts.

First, universities are already using class for student diversity ends, as
efforts by the University of Michigan Law School and other places
demonstrate. Second, America has a long history of defining class for policy
ends. Food Stamps, Medicaid, need based financial aid, school lunch programs
for low income students, Upward Bound, TRIO, and countless other programs
exemplify this point. Although we seldom call them class policies, they are.
Third, researchers have published innumerable refereed articles using class
as a variable. They don’t all define the term identically, but that’s hardly
surprising, any more than how words such as marriage, race, ethnicity, or
disability are operationalized differently depending on time and place. How
is defining class more difficult than establishing thresholds for “free
speech,” “due process,” “equal protection,” and myriad other vague terms we
delimit every day for policy making? Moreover, experience shows that the
definitions of these terms evolve and can vary widely across political
jurisdictions. Administration is about drawing lines, as happens when
professors allocate grades, devise accreditation standards, and make course
assignments.

If we can use these and other theoretical concepts, only a lack of political
will prevents us from achieving greater class diversity among faculty. In
pursuit of these diversity practices, we must, in turn, devote considerable
resources to guaranteeing that WCAs receive the mentoring and support
associated with academic success. These accommodating endeavors should begin
even before these individuals reach campus to start their teaching careers.
Eventually, WCAs should establish their own sections within national
organizations to network with other WCAs, study how class operates in their
respective disciplines, and other worthy goals. The Working Class Academics
annual conferences and their listserv can help in this regard.

Finally, universities should direct more resources toward raising the class
consciousness of faculty. These efforts should be widespread, ranging from
studying how the costs of textbooks and supplies might affect a student’s
choice of academic major, to measuring graduation rates at individual
campuses depending on class background, to ... you name it. “Ignorance”
doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not smart. Instead, it means I’m
unintentionally overlooking something. Implementing class based affirmative
action for recruiting faculty will go a long way toward overcoming our
ignorance about how class plays out in the academy and, for that matter, in
our off-campus lives as well. If successful, this integrative campaign will
guarantee that not only are WCAs more fairly represented in higher
education, but that class consciousness will be accepted as a “*should *be,”
versus its current status as “other.”
 — Scott Jaschik <scott.jaschik at insidehighered.com>