DEI and Five Women Professors: I want to examine the paradoxes inherent in academic women’s insider/interloper status and trace the dynamic interplay between individual agency and institutional constraints and explore how academic women negotiated and understood their own scholarly identities across diverse political and cultural settings, with a focus on key inflection points and moments of transition concerning the life of this man!
1. Dr. Margaite Bougere’, Tulane University, 2. Dr. Caroline Cody, UNO; 3. Dr. Darlene Brooks, Temple University; 4. Dr. Joyce E. King, GA State University; 5. Dr. Robin DeLugan, University of California, Merced.
At the outset, each of the women mentioned was introduced to me in a professional setting. All of them had the remarkable capacity to maintain a lasting friendship that developed through our common interests, which included equal opportunity for students (Equity) over more than five decades. Moreover, ALL of them were passionate about issues related to Inclusion and Diversity. The context of my academic publications began in the deep South during the tragic official end of the American Civil Rights Movement in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. My academic journey with them has continued from 1968 to now, for more than fifty-five years. It continued in the Black Belt of Alabama with the support of Joyce E. King. It is Dr. King’s theoretical model related to “Dysconsious Racism” (her term) that supports my academic endeavors. I live at the Alabama Civil Rights Freedom Farm Museum. It’s shuttered. However, I can access a treasure trove of artifacts in the Western Black Belt of Alabama.
