8: Professors as the Enemy? Academic Repression and the Fight for Justice

Michelle Myers draws on her experience as a professor, activist, and poet to foster a space for listeners where it’s humanly possible to make humanity possible. Each episode, Michelle discusses difficult topics with a focus on practicing mindfulness and self-care as well as on claiming a personal space of acceptance, healing, and compassion. 

In this episode, Michelle confronts the escalating political attacks on higher education—fueled by authoritarian rhetoric, anti-intellectualism, and growing efforts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion in colleges across the US. Are professors the enemy—or the last line of defense for truth and justice? In this episode, we unpack the Trump-era war on higher ed, the legacy of educational erasure, and what it means to teach from the margins in a time of rising repression. Education isn’t neutral—and neither are we. 

Below are links to articles about the topics discussed in the episode. This is not an exhaustive list and our listeners are encouraged to research these topics on their own as well:

"The Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Assimilation with Education after the Indian Wars (Teaching with Historic Places)"

Information about Indian Boarding Schools From the American Indian Resource Center at the University of California-Santa Cruz 

Horace Mann on Education and Poverty (1848)

bell hooks - Teaching to Transgress: Teaching as the Practice of Freedom

Paulo Freire-- The Pedagogy of the Oppressed

"Fact Check: Yes, Vance once said 'professors are the enemy.' He was quoting Nixon" from yahoo!news

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Host: Michelle Myers

Producer: Myong McCloud