Presumed Incompetent is a path-breaking account of the intersecting roles of race, gender, and class in the working lives of women faculty of color. http://www.amazon.com/Presumed-Incompetent-Intersections-Class-Academia/dp/0874219221

1. Presumed Incompetent:
The Intersections of Race and
Class for Women in Academia
Edited by:
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs
Yolanda Flores Niemann
Carmen G. González
Angela P. Harris
Utah State University
Press, 2012

2. Presumed Incompetent: Introduction
Angela Harris, Professor of Law, University of California, Davis School of Law and
Carmen G. González, Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
―The women of color who have managed to enter the
rarefied halls of academe as full-time faculty find
themselves in a peculiar situation. Despite their
undeniable privilege, women of color faculty
members are entrenched in byzantine patterns of
race, gender, and class hierarchy that confound
popular narratives about meritocracy."

3. Essay: "No hay mal que por bien no venga": A Journey to
Healing as a Latina, Lesbian Law Professor
Elvia R. Arriola, Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University
"In modern society, witch hunts and burnings do not
take the medieval European form, when thousands of
women who defied male supremacist systems of power
were burned or hanged. However, they still take place.
Anyone who has been involved in or witnessed the
politics of tenure at a university understands well that
metaphoric burnings at the stake are common. Women
of color are frequent outsiders whose identities have
been brightly burned at the stake of academic politics."

4. Essay: Present and Unequal: A Third Wave Approach to Voice
Parallel Experiences in Managing Oppression and Bias in the
Academy
Kimberly Moffitt, Assistant Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland
―Most participants believed the marginal status of women
academics of color meant the academy was not a
conducive environment for encouraging and bolstering
others who shared their phenotype. In fact, they found the
academy oppressive and feared minority women who
wanted to be teachers might choose another career or be
forced to leave the academy.‖

5. Essay: African American Women in the Academy: Quelling the Myth of
Presumed Incompetence
Sherri L. Wallace, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Louisville
Sharon E. Moore, Professor of Social Work, Raymond A. Kent School of Social Work, University of Louisville
Linda L. Wilson, Associate Director for Administration and Programming, Asian Studies, College of Arts and Sciences,
University of Louisville
Brenda G. Hart, Professor of Engineering and Director of Student Affairs, J.B. Speed School of Engineering, University
of Louisville
―Because they are viewed as the product of targeted initiatives,
which generate unworthy, handout attitudes, they fall victim to
societal perceptions that they are incompetent—defined as
lacking ability, unskilled, amateurish, and/or inept—by
students, staff, colleagues, and administrators in the academy.
These women are continually challenged to prove that they do
not have their job—or will be kept in their job—because of
affirmative action, opportunity hiring, and/or tokenism. . . .‖

6. Essay: On Being Special
Serena Easton, Assistant Professor of Sociology
"It turned out that the students at the university actually did
think I was ‗special‘ -- the way that people label learningdisabled children that way. In the eyes of these wealthy,
white eighteen-year-olds, I couldn't possibly be educated,
qualified, or smart enough to be a teaching assistant. I
was this northerner, this girl only a few years older than
them, this large black woman who evoked a mammy image
and reminded them of their nannies and maids who worked
back home in their large houses ensconced in wellmanicured subdivisions."

7. Essay: Igualadas
Francisco de la Riva-Holly, Professor of Ethnic Studies
"What has been most interesting about my experience at
this small private university is that the Latin@s involved
(mostly Latin American upper-middle and upper-class
people, as well as upper class Spaniards) turned the
stereotypes that had been used against them toward
me, validating the voice of mainstream racism and
classism, as well as Hollywood portrayals of Chicanos as
troublemakers."

8. Essay: Black/Out: The White Face of Multiculturalism and the
Violence of the Canadian Imperial Project
Delia D. Douglas, Canadian independent scholar, Vancouver, British Columbia
―After I had completed my PhD, a white male
friend in the U.S. told me that owing to the
implementation of affirmative action policies his
employment opportunities were severely limited…
It has been 14 years since that conversation and
the aforementioned friend is now an associate
professor while I have yet to secure a tenure track
position.‖

9. Essay: La Lucha: Latinas Surviving Political Science
Jessica Lavariega Monforti, Assistant Dean, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences and
Associate Professor of Political Science, The University of Texas - Pan American
―The focus of this research is on the experiences of
Latinas in political science as graduate students and
faculty members. This work provides a serious wake-up
call for those who laud the increasing numbers of Latinos
in political science without recognizing the oftentimes
harsh reality Latinas face in the profession.‖

10. Essay: A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer Service
Representative: A Latina in Academia
Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies
Washington State University
―Ethnic studies does not hide behind the veil of
objectivity, and in fact, to be effective, it has to advocate
and strive for a fundamental transformation of race
relations. Stating that there is inequality is not enough.
And here is where I come in: I am a Latina telling my
mostly white students that racism, discrimination, and
inequality still exist and affect all our lives (theirs
included), both in ways that can be measured and ones
that cannot.‖

11. Essay: Stepping in and Stepping out: Examining the Way Anticipatory
Career Socialization Impacts Identity Negotiation of African American
Women in Academia
Cerise L. Glenn, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies,
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
"In addition to receiving responses from those inside academic
institutions that African American women do not belong in our
respective fields in academia as we obtain undergraduate and
graduate degrees and begin interviewing for positions, these
messages also come from our families, peer groups, and communities.
Instead of challenging our intelligence and potential to achieve, this
feedback focuses on what we may lose by pursuing academic careers.
As we decide to enter the realm of occupations that earn higher
wages, we will be stepping outside of the safe spaces that help us
resist negative notions of our identity."

12. Essay: The Port Hueneme of My Mind: The Geography of WorkingClass Consciousness in One Academic Career
Constance G. Anthony, Associate Professor of Political Science, Seattle University
Class position follows you throughout adult
life, unless your family of origin also moves up to the
middle class or the earning power of your spouse
surpasses that of the average academic. Workingclass adults are not going to inherit income from
their families, and, as a consequence, retirement
savings are much more important. Academic careers
and income are a problem for everyone who is not
independently wealthy, but for the working-class
academic, being a faculty member is a life-long
material challenge.

13. Tenure and Promotion: Introduction
Deena J. González, Associate Provost, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
―Women of color -- guest workers, as so many
conceptualize their positions and work -- offer a
unique and daring perspective. We watch as
Sonia Sotomayor must "regret" her wise,
womanly remark, feeling aghast as well at what it
takes to get the job done. We've all done it
ourselves -- in small, less public forums, or in
loud, recorded moments where the only outcome
is vilification, misunderstanding, and migration
(to another institution).‖

14. Essay: Silence of the Lambs
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Charles M. and Marion J. Kierscht Professor of Law, University of Iowa
"How then can women of color, especially those
from poor or working-class backgrounds, draw
the line between following advice for survival and
resisting their own subjugation--between
balancing the identity-affirming conduct that
maintains their voices and the identity-negating
conduct of remaining silent?"

15. Essay: Lessons from a Portrait: Keep Calm and Carry On
Adrien Katherine Wing, Bessie Dutton Murray Professor of Law, University of Iowa
―My advice to my sisters when the bombs are
dropping—literally or figuratively—is to [follow
the British saying]—keep calm and carry on. I
have unknowingly tried to pursue this motto over
the years in all the areas that affect us as
teachers, scholars and service providers as well
as on the personal level.‖

16. Essay: They Forgot Mammy Had a Brain
Sherree Wilson, Associate Dean, Cultural Affairs & Diversity Initiatives
University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
"While hiring a critical mass of faculty of color to avoid
placing one of them in solo status is recommended to
facilitate their retention, the fact that a campus or
department is ethnically and racially diverse in number
doesn't necessarily translate into an environment that is
positive for faculty of color. "

17. Essay: Are Student Teaching Evaluations Holding Back Women and
Minorities?: The Perils of “Doing” Gender and Race in the
Classroom
Sylvia Lazos, Justice Myron Leavitt Professor of Law, University of Las Vegas, Nevada
―In sum, minority professors must negotiate many more
burdens than non-minority professors from the first
moment that they walk into the classroom. These
additional burdens and potential risks are difficult to
navigate even for the most experienced professor; but the
risks are higher and the penalties even heavier for newly
minted assistant professor who must also master new
material, learn to teach effectively, and get a productive
research agenda on track. New minority professors start
their careers with a significant handicap.‖

18. Essay: Visibly Invisible: The Burden of Race and Gender for
Female Students of Color Striving for an Academic Career in the
Sciences
Deirdre Bowen, Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law
"Neither gender, nor ethnicity, nor class allows for a
one-size-fits-all approach. But if we are to truly
change the nature of the field, mentors must think
carefully about the way they engage female students of
color so they no longer remain visibly invisible.
Perhaps we should work to develop programs that
better train professors in the art and science of
effective mentorship for all students, not just the ones
they see when they look in the mirror."

19. Essay: Working Across Racial Lines in a Not-So-Post-Racial World
Margalynne J. Armstrong, Associate Professor of Law, and Associate Academic Director of the Center for
Social Justice and Public Service, Santa Clara University
&
Stephanie M. Wildman, Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Social Justice and Public
Service, Santa Clara University
"The existence of presumed incompetence that affects both women of
color and white women should provide a basis for deeper
understanding, sisterhood, and alliance among women and enable
work across racial lines to combat the presumption as well as other
professional issues. But women can only forge that bond by
acknowledging—rather than ignoring—the differences in the
presumption‘s operation. Systems of privilege operate through
multiple identity categories and affect a professor‘s institutional
presence and possibilities."

20. Essay: Waking Up to Privilege: Intersectionality and Opportunity
Stephanie A. Shields, Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University
―A metaphor best expresses the way my understanding of
white privilege has operated and changed over the years.
I think of white privilege as lighting my path of
professional development. Over the course of forty years
of academic life, I have come to see how this light made
travel over the rocky and difficult road possible, how it
lighted up opportunities at many critical junctions, and
how it blinded me to what was just outside my own
experience.‖

21. Essay: Where‟s the Violence? The Promise and Perils of Teaching
Women of Color Studies
Grace Chang, Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
"White, Western feminist discourses constructing
women of color as more oppressed, exploited, and
helpless than white, Western women . . . imply the need
for women of color to be saved, presumably of course
by white, Western men and women, as individuals or
representatives of their governments. This serves to
distract Western women from their struggles against
their oppressors and blinds them to their complicity in
oppressing others."

22. Essay: What‟s Love Got to Do with It?: Life Teachings from
Multiracial Feminism
Kari Lerum, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington
"Scholars such as Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins,
bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, Suzanne Pharr, and Shane
Phelan have long inspired me; they are the ones who
gave me the courage to teach about intersectional
oppression to begin with. They also warned me about
the dangers of sweeping claims about women, feminists,
and lesbians and the need to stay vigilant about
multiple and intersecting forms of oppression. Despite
the fact that I already knew these things, my personal
experiences have made these lessons stick."

23. Essay: Notes toward Racial and Gender Justice Ally Practice in Academia
Dean Spade, Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law
"There are many structural obstacles to working as a
white ally in struggles for racial justice in legal
academia. The pressures of professionalism promote
silence and assent, perhaps especially in untenured
professors. The white cultural norms that shape
academic
institutions
-hierarchy, individualism, competition, scarcity -encourage us not to act as allies, not to endure the risks
of taking unpopular action by naming oppression in our
academic work or professional interactions with
students, faculty, and staff. . . However, a central tenet of
this work is recognizing the opportunities that privilege
provides to disrupt the creation of that privilege and the
obligation to take action."

24. Essay: On Community in the Midst of Hierarchy (and Hierarchy in
the Midst of Community
Ruth Gordon, Professor of Law, Villanova University School of Law
"Many of us spend our professional lives contesting hierarchy and
exclusion -- whether on the basis of race, gender, or class -- but
when it comes to academia -- and I would suggest especially legal
academia -- we appear to have finally found a hierarchy we can
believe in. It not only goes unquestioned but is often at the core of
our complaint. Thus, Professors Merritt and Reskin's excellent study
focuses on access by white women and people of color of both
genders to the sixteen most prestigious law schools. But most of us,
regardless of gender, race, or class, do not teach at those schools,
nor do most of the law students in this country attend them."

25. Essay: Free at Last! No More Performance Anxieties in the
Academy „cause Stepin Fetchit Has Left the Building
Mary-Antoinette Smith, Associate Professor of English, and Director of Women’s Studies,
Seattle University
―In spite of the occasional difficulties that have
surfaced throughout my journey to professional
success in the ivory tower—I maintain a positive and
hopeful outlook for myself and other faculty of color in
our pursuits of achievements within the academy. . . . I
am realistic and sensitive [however] to the reality that
my positive perspective is juxtaposed against troubling
and pervasive statistics on the possibility that faculty
of color, particularly women, can integrate
affirmatively, substantially, and successfully into a
congenial, scholarly, working environment in the
academy.‖

26. Essay: Reflections of an Academic "Misfit"
Kelly Ervin, Senior Research Psychologist, U.S. Army Research Institute
"As I think about the comparison between my
experience in the academy as a full-time assistant
professor and my current situation as a civilian in
a military environment, I've come to the
conclusion that there is no comparison . . . .
because those of us who work for the army benefit
from advances that the government has made in
workforce diversity and establishing an
environment
where
rank,
command
experience, and the ability to complete a mission
are what is respected and valued, regardless of
your ethnicity."

27. Essay: Dis/Jointed Appointments: Solidarity amidst
Inequity, Tokenism, and Marginalization
May C. Fu, Assistant Professor, Departments of Ethnic Studies and History,
Colorado State University
"It is ironic that as scholars invested in equity issues for
disenfranchised groups, we are so poorly valued for our
work. We are neither supported nor rewarded for our
engaged-activist scholarship, yet the university benefits from
our engagement, activism, and scholarship. When we ask
that our labor be honored in ways that are reflected in
annual evaluations or tenure and promotion, it is telling to
observe the strategies the administration uses not only to
deny our requests but also to frame their justifications in
ways that divide faculty interests and potential solidarities."

28. Essay: Dis/Jointed Appointments: Solidarity amidst Inequity,
Tokenism, and Marginalization
Roe Bubar, Associate Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies and School of Social Work,
Colorado State University
"It is also ironic that many of us as womyn of color have
strategic, organizing, mediation, and research skills
related to equity, allocation of resources, power, and
structural racism/sexism; yet seldom do we put those
skills into practice in collective ways to address gender
inequity and retention of womyn of color within the
academy. We create circles of support for students and
others, yet our isolation within the academy keeps us from
creating that same support for ourselves as a collective."

29. Essay: Dis/Jointed Appointments: Solidarity amidst Inequity,
Tokenism, and Marginalization
Michelle A. Holling, Associate Professor, Department of Communications,
California State University, San Marcos
― Structural disempowerment is an integral part of the
process . . . . We accepted joint appointments for
utilitarian reasons, to achieve synergy in our
intellectual interests, and/or to transcend the limitations
of disciplinary boundaries. As we recognized their
reality, particularly our structural disempowerment as
womyn of color, we experienced resentment,
discouragement, and resignation.‖

30. Essay: Navigating the Academic Terrain: The Racial and Gender
Politics of Elusive Belonging
Linda Trinh Võ, Associate Professor, Department of Asian American Studies
University of California, Irvine
"As a democratic society, we are grappling
with how to ensure that access, allocation,
and distribution of limited resources are
equitable, and these struggles over scarce
resources are mirrored in the universities
where we work."

31. Essay: Sharing our Gifts
Beth Boyd, Professor of Psychology, University of South Dakota
―We have to learn how to deal with turmoil without
getting changed by it. We have to remember why we
are doing this work, develop a vision for ourselves . .
Success means helping our people, connecting to
others, being real, and making things better for our
families and communities. It is essential to find a
way to integrate that definition into the work that we
do – otherwise we do run the risk of losing ourselves
in the work for reasons we do not fully understand.‖

32. Essay: Present and Unequal: A Third Wave Approach to Voice
Parallel Experiences in Managing Oppression and Bias in the
Academy
Diane Forbes Berthoud, Professor of Organization Communication,
University of California, San Diego
"What we propose is a more expansive and integrated
approach to feminism in this third-wave generation that
acknowledges our diversity and the complexity of
connectedness with other women...What has been shared
here exhibits and broadens the tenets of third-wave
feminism in profound ways. These women‘s stories come
together to create a means of thinking, understanding,
and negotiating their interlocking identities and
...oppression."

33. Essay: Native Women Maintaining Their Culture
in the White Academy
Michelle M. Jacob, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of San Diego
―The academy will be a better, healthier place if we
(1) continue to actively build collectives and openly discuss
challenges involved with being Native scholars in the
academy,
(2) continue to be true to our values of honoring the
collective above individualism,
(3) use our collective strength to communicate and advocate
to the academy for community needs,
(4) focus on the ways that our struggles will benefit future
generations, and, most importantly,
(5) continue to raise all of these issues in official capacities
inside of the academy to foster progressive change.‖

34. Presumed Incompetent: Foreword
Bettina Aptheker, Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz
"We are in the university. We are in the labs. We
are in the law schools and courtrooms, medical
schools, and operating theaters. We prevail, but
sometimes it is at enormous cost to ourselves, to
our sense of well-being, balance, and confidence.
This book should go a long way toward healing
wounds, affirming sanity, and launching renewed
determination."

35. Essay: Facing Down the Spooks
Angela Mae Kupenda, Professor of Law, Mississippi College School of Law
―As a final story, when I was working in an extremely
oppressive environment, my sleep was regularly
disturbed by dreams of being chased by something scary.
When I told my mother about these fitful dreams and
scary characters, she said the next time I had that dream
I should make myself acutely aware of their
presence, stop running, turn around, and face them
down. I did, and these nocturnal creatures went away. I
stood
up
to
them
in
my
dreams
and
also, subsequently, found courage and words to confront
them in my nightmarish work situation. Somehow facing
them minimized their power over me and enlarged my
own power.‖

36. From back cover of Presumed Incompetent
Mari Matsuda, Professor of Law, University of Hawaii, William S. Richardson School of Law
―This book felt so painfully familiar I almost
could not read it. Those of us who started our
careers as firsts and onlys have had to forget
much about the cruelty hidden in academic
enclaves.
Forgetting,
a
means
of
surviving,
buries
pain
and
erases
history, leaving us morally and intellectually
flimsy. Thanks to these women for taking the
harder path of truth-telling.‖

37. Presumed Incompetent:
The Intersections of Race and Class for
Women in Academia
Utah State University Press, 2012
Presumed Incompetent is a pathbreaking account of the intersecting roles of race, gender, and class
in the working lives of women faculty of color. Through personal narratives and qualitative empirical
studies, more than 40 authors expose the daunting challenges faced by academic women of color as they
navigate the often hostile terrain of higher education, including hiring, promotion, tenure, and relations
with students, colleagues, and administrators.