Communication Teacher

Who's afraid of [...]

"I can only assure you that little reform of significance can take place until you demand that it does. The obstacles are many, the personal risks are real, and the chances for meaningful victories are not great. But as many blacks have learned (and their obstacles to inclusion in this society make your law school challenges seem almost petty), there is an important form of liberation that comes from attacking the status quo, confronting the obstacles, and taking a stand against injustices." Derrick Bell, "Law Student As Slave"

Speaking to law students, Bell (1982) warns that their legal education will end in mental and intellectual domination comparable to enslavement if they continue to situate themselves as “subjugated people” complicit in the teaching, learning, and practice of law. Specifically detailing reasons as to why the students should revolt, he reminds them that their schooling “need not be degrading and educationally inefficient” or a “confusing, traumatic, and overwhelmingly boring gauntlet” (p. 20) that they are required to suffer through. While Bell’s immediate audience were law students who were emerging lawyers and professors, his clarion call is a sharp reminder that we, as teachers, educators, and instructors have always had the capacity to set the tone to, as the epigraph says, attack the status quo, confront the obstacles, and take a stand against injustice (p. 22). In other words, though we are confronted with executive orders that accuse us of “indoctrinat[ing] their children in radical, anti-American ideologies” and “sow[ing] division, confusion, and distrust” (The White House, 2025), university institutions that fire professors for discussing gender identity and for allegedly perpetrating “transgender and DEI indoctrination” (Nguyen, 2025; Priest, 2025; Schwartz 2025), and those same institutions firing professors for discussing socialism at conferences and being accused of “inciting violence” (Runnels, 2025), our teaching need not be complicit, dehumanizing, and demoralizing reflections of our capitulation to the state laws, university bans, and orders from the current administration. It need not be afraid of the status quo that has transformed us into the bogeyman. Rather, our teaching can use/leverage the concocted discourses of “fear” (e.g., “divisive,” anti-American,” “hateful,” “cultural insanity,” “toxic”) to expose what we should actually be afraid of.   

Invoking Derrick Bell’s 1995 article “Who’s afraid of critical race theory?”, this special issue, “Who’s afraid of [...]”, is concerned with how our curriculum, teaching, intellectual traditions, experiential knowledge, and bodies are habitually framed as something to be afraid of. Consequently, we invite scholar-teachers to 1) develop reflections on the theories, concepts, and frameworks that have prepared us for this moment and have always been framed as something to be afraid of (bell hooks, 1994, 2004; Delpit, 1988; Lynn, 2010); 2) offer activities that engage with critical race pedagogies (Bell, 1980, 1982, 2005; Lynn, 1999; Lynn et al., 2013) and radical pedagogies (bell hooks, 1994; Freire, 1998, 2000), more generally to speak to the post-George Floyd/Breonna Taylor moment; and 3) provide classroom assessments that demonstrate the impact and effectiveness of a critical race/radical pedagogy (bell hooks, 1994; Yosso, 2006) and cultivate an ethic of liberation.

Submissions should consider the following questions:

1. How have radical pedagogies and/or critical race pedagogies been employed to counter the public discourse about critical race theory, etc.?
2. How has critical race counterstory (Bell, 1992; Delgado, 1989) informed discussions/activities that engage with discourses of objectivity or what’s considered legitimate curricula (e.g., saying “race” is a divisive concept)?
3. What kinds of activities creatively/subversively engage with the theories and concepts that underscore/expose/point to the public assaults of the political moment? What kinds of activities invite students to interrogate and/or challenge these attacks and discourses? 
4. How do we engage with students and instructors being 'afraid' and what activities can counter this? What kinds of activities address the 'fear' that is projected towards/on particular communities and intellectual traditions (e.g., African Americans and critical race theory, etc.)?
5. How have you constructed the classroom as a place characterized by 'ecstasy, pleasure, and danger' (bell hooks, 1994, p. 3). Danger being described as “ideas that run counter to values and beliefs learned at home,” ideas that run counter to the status quo, etc. 
6. How has ecstasy (bell hooks, 1994) as a pedagogical paradigm informed your activities in this moment?
7. How has counterstory been used in activities to recenter the experiential knowledge of non-white folks as legitimate and valid pedagogical resources? 
8. What kinds of activities explore the endemic nature of racism/anti-Black racism? How are concepts/tenets of critical race theory (e.g., racial realism, interest convergence, intersectionality, challenging dominant narratives, whiteness as property, etc.) and/or critical race pedagogy used to teach about race, racism, anti-Black racism, and/or the sociopolitical moment in general?
9. Are there assessments of how radical and/or critical race pedagogies have worked? 
10. What kinds of assessments align with radical pedagogies that point to how ethics of liberation/freedom are adopted and cultivated? 
11. Are there assessments that demonstrate how teaching about the current political attacks are/were generative? 
12. What methods, strategies, and discussions should we take up, lean into, and think differently about within the current context–a context ripe with terror, consternation, and uneasiness/angst?
13. Who should be [or is] afraid? Who is made to be afraid? Why are we afraid?
14. How are educational institutions responding to how fear is being weaponized? How are these same educational institutions weaponizing fear? 
15. What can we do pedagogically with our and others' fear? 
16. How can our fear, angst, and/or consternation work as the impetus to think expansively and carefully about our teaching?
17. How do existing intellectual traditions and paradigms (e.g., critical race counterstory; Bell’s chronicles; bell hooks’ teaching to transgress; Lynn’s critical race pedagogy; Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, pedagogy of freedom) give us insight about this pedagogical moment? 

 

References  

Bell, D. (1980). Humanity in legal education. Oregon Law Review 59 (2-3), 243-247.

Bell, D. (1982). One dean’s perspective: The law student as slave. Student Lawyer 11(2), 18-22.

Bell, D. (2005). Pedagogical process: Active classroom and text as resource. In R. Delgado & J. Stefancic (eds)., The Derrick Bell Reader (pp. 284-289). New York University Press.

Bell, D. (1992). Faces At The Bottom of The Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books.

Bell, D. (1995). “Who’s Afraid of Critical Race Theory?” University of Illinois Law Review 1995 (4): 893-910.

Blake, J. (2025, January 24). “Rutgers Center Cancels Conference in Response to Trump DEI Orders.” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quicktakes/2025/01/24/rutgerscancels-hbcu-event-align-trump-dei-orders

Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review 87 (8), 2411-2441. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1289308

Delpit, L. (1988). The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Educational Review 58 (3), 280-298.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.

hooks, b. (2004). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. Routledge.

Lynn, M. (1999). Toward a critical race pedagogy: A research note. Urban Education 33 (5), 606-626.

Lynn, M. (2010). ‘Exorcising critical race theory’ again: Reflections on being an angry Black man in the academy. In S. Jackson & R. Johnson III (eds.), The Black Professoriat: Negotiating a habitable space in the academy (pp.199-214). New York: Peter Lang.

Lynn, M., Jennings, M.E., & Hughes, S. (2013). Critical race pedagogy 2.0: Lessons from Derrick Bell. Race, Ethnicity and Education 16 (4), 603-628. https://doi-org.colorado.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.817776

Nguyen, A. (2025, September 15). Faculty, advocacy groups fear Texas A&M firing threatens academic freedom. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/15/texas-am-professor-firing-melissa-mccoul-academic-freedom/

Pignolet, J. (2025, February 11). “University of Akron President Says He Supports ‘Right to Retool’ Rethinking Race Series.” Akron Beacon Journal. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/education/2025/02/11/university-of-akron-president-rjnemer-statement-rethinking-race-series-discontinued-dei/78414459007/.

Priest, Jessica. (2025, September 8). Video of clash over gender-identity content in Texas A&M children’s lit class leads to firing, removals. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/08/texas-am-video-professor-student-gender-identity-content/

Quinn, R. (2024, May 13). “2 Virginia Universities Won’t Require DEI Classes After Governor’s Review, Board Pushback.” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/diversity/2024/05/13/vcu-gmu-wont-require-dei-classes-after-youngkins-review#:~:text=2%20Virginia%20Universities%20Won't

Runnels, A. (2025, September 10). Texas State fires professor accused of trying to incite political violence in video. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/10/texas-state-university-professor-fired/

Schwartz, N. (2025, September 15). Week in review: Professors fired over videos and comments on social media. Higher Ed Dive. https://www.highereddive.com/news/professors-fires-videos-posts-social-media/760064/

The White House (2025, January 29). Ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling. The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-indoctrination-in-k-12-schooling/

Yosso, T.J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity, and Education 8(1), 69-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006