Being a woman in higher education is hard. You have to submit to the man every day, but you also have to conform to the academic system. Higher education is an arena with its own playbook of rules. It doesn’t take into account your background or circumstances, and it doesn’t care.
A great example of what this looks like comes from my own life experiences. I am a Moroccan, Spanish, and Cameroonian woman. I am also an undergraduate student studying Political Science. In the Political Science major, like any other at DU, there are courses you are required to take to graduate.
In one such class, the professor walked in on the first day with only a pencil in hand. This was my first warning. I am a visual learner, and a professor’s inability to use technology to engage with students is significantly damaging to my learning experience.
In the first two minutes of class, the professor ran through the syllabus and told us what book we would use for the course. It was a book he had written, and it loosely outlined American history from the white perspective. It referenced slavery as beneficial to the American economy and responsible for building a great America.
At that moment, I almost burst into tears. I was listening to a professor—a person in power in my space—say he wasn’t sure if people like me should still be enslaved, lynched, and worked to death.
I walked out of the room. I walked all the way out of the building, straight to the Human Resources department of the University. This meeting lasted no more than 10 minutes. The HR lady wrote down a bullet-pointed list of the aforementioned scene, and she picked issue with my statement. I had mentioned that I was disappointed in my liberal arts education because I had been made to listen to a distorted opinion. I had been expected to accept it as truth and fact simply because he wrote a book on the subject. To which she responded: just because DU is a liberal arts college, it does not mean we will not support varying ideas and opinions.
I wanted to ask her, “Even racist opinions that dehumanize students of color?” But I held my tongue, told her that’s not what I meant, and thanked her. I left feeling unheard by everyone.
Days later, I received an email detailing how the University gives its professors freedom to create their courses as they choose to and there was virtually nothing they could do with this issue. They could meet one of my concerns—they would require the professor to upload an official syllabus.
Not only were my needs as a student of color not listened to, but they were disregarded, erased, and forgotten. As someone who is rarely listened to in society, I keep to myself on a regular basis. I hold my breath so it’s not wasted on deaf ears. Yet I never thought that I would encounter deaf ears in an institution that prides itself on its commitment to inclusive excellence.
I do not feel included in an environment that wishes for a return to enslaving the black community and forcing them to work unpaid labor. But I have no choice but to surrender to the academic system. I am a clog in their wheel who must keep turning no matter how much emotional trauma I incur. As a black woman, I must keep going. These obstacles are nothing new to the ones I’ve overcome so far.