Transformative Justice within Academia: A radical institutional reflection | Graduate Student Conference 2021
When and Where
Description
Academia has long established itself as an exceptional, progressive, critical, and safe environment. However, its policies, bureaucratic processes, research, teaching and mentorship practices are replete with structures that perpetuate inequalities, highlight mental and health implications and continue to disproportionately harm graduate students. As BIPOC students continue to experience structural and interpersonal violence such as hyper policing, carding and police violence on and off-campus, the institution continues to posture around issues of inequality. Politically correct emails sent out by faculty, staff and students do not address inequality, race, racism, police brutality/privatized security/campus police, and colonial violence within academia. This conference promises to begin a conversation about the structures that reproduce inequalities and the punitive state within educational spaces, unevenly impacting BIPOC students. Furthermore, the conference recognizes graduate student researchers as the future of academia and, as such, we aim to collectively imagine critical and radical educational spaces and pedagogies, while collectively contributing to theory-making, as well as drafting practical recommendations and policies targeted at achieving institutional changes that support graduate students.