Indigenous Scholars versus the Status Quo

This essay, written by activist Indigenous scholars Devon A. Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson, was submitted on 1 July to The Chronicle of Higher Education. It was immediately rejected with no explanation other than, "We appreciate your submitting an article to The Chronicle and regret that we are unable to publish it. Because The Chronicle is a weekly paper, we can use only a few of the hundreds of manuscripts—many of them very good—that are submitted each year. Thank you for thinking of us. The Chronicle Review Editors."

When pressed for a more thorough reason as to why an important commentary about serious problems within academia was rejected, Jeanne Ferris, the senior editor of The Chronicle Review, replied that "I can tell you... that we have published many news stories and opinion pieces about racism, colonialism, sexism, and related topics as they apply to higher education. Although your essay looked through the lens of Native studies, what it looked at would not seem new to our readers."

Considering that the following concerns are rarely expressed by Indigenous scholars through a national, widely-read forum (such as The Chronicle), and that most of The Chronicle's essays about Natives are written by non-Natives, it is astounding to read such a response, and we believe this rejection is an excellent example of academic gatekeeping at a very influential level, effectually keeping a larger audience from considering our work. The contents of the essay are now the major focal points in Devon A. Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson's Indigenizing the Academy: Native Academics Sharpening the Edge that is the sequel to Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing About American Indians(Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1998). The anthology will also address issues and methods of finding and retaining Indigenous knowledge, empowerment, decolonization, ethnic fraud, and problems within the various areas of study as well as solutions to those problems.

Contributing authors are Taiaiake Alfred, David Anthony Tyeeme Clark, Vine Deloria Jr., Joely De La Torre, Joseph P. Gone, Andrea Hunter, Keith James, Daniel Heath Justice, Cornel Pewewardy, and Joshua K. Mihesuah.

WANTED: Indigenous scholars seek intellectual home at liberal-minded institution to support the development of an Indigenous think-tank. Our ongoing goal is to develop and implement practical decolonization and empowerment strategies of Indigenous individuals and communities. Institution must be sincere in its commitment to liberatory education and change as well as to the recruitment and retention of Native faculty, staff, and students. We do not like to unexpectedly find ourselves subject to acts of colonialism designed to subjugate our voices and concerns. We do like to collaborate with non-Indigenous allies committed to freedom and social justice, equal participation by all diverse groups, and social change.

Readers of The Chronicle are aware of the myriad problems in higher education, at least from the perspective of white academics. Most of the issues revolve around hiring, promotion, tenure, and merit. Subscribers rarely read about racism in academe because minorities, including African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, gays, and many women, know they have much to lose by complaining. That is precisely why few articles in any journal focus on the plethora of problems faced by Indigenous scholars.

The authors of this piece are Indigenous women. Both of us are deeply committed to our immediate and extended families, the long-term health and vitality of Indigenous peoples and their cultures, and we see decolonization and empowerment as central to our struggles. Unlike the majority of non-Native scholars who use Indigenous peoples as research and writing topics to further their careers, our writings, lectures, and committee work reflect our concerns. While we work hard to try and find effective ways to empower Indigenous students and to focus our studies on real-life problems that tribes face, most mainstream scholars who write about Natives do not bother to converse with Natives to find out how...