Mehra and Braquet’s (2007) article, discusses the top ten barriers that the LGBTQ community faces at universities and the top ten ways that academic LIS professionals can do something about it. The author’s methodology was a series of interviews and “participant observation.” Meanings, that the authors are a part of the community in which they are studying, as both authors are openly gay. Despite some of the drawbacks, such as objectivity, the benefits, such as increased context and rapport, justified this position. The author’s list both their findings and their recommendations as a “top ten list” so that the information being presented is more accessible. Some of the barriers that the authors list are, isolation from a community, invisibility, and lack of representation in the curriculum. The article then recommends things such as Academic LIS actively participating in classes by either teacher or working with other professors, along with using other skills to help create digital and physical resources and safe spaces. The authors conclude with a discussion on the improvements within their own university using some of these steps.
One the things I found interesting in this reading was Mehra and Braquet’s focus on actively working to include LGBTQ students and staff in nondiscrimination policies and law. I found this particularly interesting after reading chapters from Dean Spade’s (2015) book, Normal Life. Spade argued against such reliance on policies and laws because it doesn’t fix systemic oppression, which he argues happens on an administrative level. He argued that reliance on laws and policies actually reinforces systems of oppression, by allowing administrative regulations to shift, rather than change, and possibly even widen the scope of other systems of oppression, such as the prison system. I know there is a bit of a gap between Mehra and Braquet’s (2007) article and Spade’s (2015), and I’m curious if their position has changed? Particularly since Mehra and Braquet were concerned about non-discrimination because of safety. They wanted universities to be safe for all students and staff in the community and believed that safety should start with school policies. I can where both arguments are coming from. One side wants a guarantee of safety as they try to make changes, and the other wants to throw the whole system out in order to start again without systemic oppression. But I think that Dean Spade’s argument certainly more compelling. It makes me consider the comic that I’m sure we’ve all seen comparing Equality to Equity, but a more recent version (Wells, 2016) knocks the fence down completely, and I think that’s what Spade’s argument is really about. It’s about getting rid of the barriers entirely rather than amending them. (or if you want a different idiom, treating the disease rather than just a symptom).
So libraries in general are funded by many of the systems and administrations that are oppressive to minority groups. How do we begin to make changes without just treating the symptom?
Mehra, B., & Braquet, D. (2007). Library and information science professionals as community action researchers in an academic setting: Top ten directions to further institutional change for people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. Library Trends, 56, 542-565.
Spade, D. (2015). Normal Life: Administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Durham: Duke University Press.
Wells, Kristopher. [KristopherWells]. (2016, APril 15). Equality. Equity. Liberation. KNOW the difference! #abed. [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/kristopherwells/status/721158763881730048
