How does one enter a workplace committed to equity if the gatekeepers treat it like an elite white boys’ club? How do professors justify their double-talk of inequity?
Despite innumerable, and now infamous, initiatives to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academy, elite institutions continue to hire disproportionately from a small number of top institutions, keeping the US professoriate dominated by straight white cisgender men with prestigious degrees. In Aristocratic Inclusion, prabhdeep singh kehal reveals how elites committed to equitable inclusion justify hiring from their own. kehal investigates academic hiring as a process of identifying, verifying, and including fellow scholarly aristocrats. Professors maintain the academic aristocracy by devising and deploying notions of hirability that, though purportedly based on merit, rely on deliberately exclusionary, racist, and sexist standards. These standards privilege candidates who display elite-affiliated academic accomplishments and willingness to maintain elite domination through their academic labor. Through these hirability standards, professors control the pace of change and manicure elite diversity, enabling these aristocrats to justify safeguarding their own status. Turning the conversation from who academia excludes to how academia excludes, kehal shows how professors and prestigious organizations employ cultural norms to create an exclusive social group that perpetuates their own domination.
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About dr. prabhdeep singh kehal
writer
educator
community scholar
prabhdeep singh kehal is a sociologist and an equity educator in public healthcare. They founded the Sikh LGBTQIA+ Oral History Project, and she manages it from Minnesota.
Dr. kehal uses they and she as English pronouns and ਭੈਣ and ਮਾਸੀ as the basis for Panjabi relations.
A few ways to connect with dr. kehal
Channeling her established expertise in racism, colonialism, and cisheterosexism, dr. kehal’s current writing, research, speaking, and mentoring addresses how gender and sexually marginalized people of faith use storytelling practices
to imagine liberatory futures within the US Sikh diaspora.
They are happy to collaborate or partnership with you. Feel free to reach out about any of the following opportunities.
How do cultural organizations contribute to social inequality and social justice?
I look at knowledge institutions, like universities and archives.
Have large quantitative or qualitative data to analyze and inform decision-making?
I offer contract-based research and consulting services at hourly and project-based rates. Feel free to reach out to learn more about potentially partnering. Prior clients included Google.org, the Sikh Coalition and the Poetic Justice Foundation.
equity trainings
How can workplaces and cultural organizations become more inclusive in practice?
I offer trainings on institutional racism and cisheterosexism in the form workshops and lectures. Reach out below Prior clients included the USDA, Peel School District, and SALDEF.
Contact me below!
How does a queer transfemme Sikh move through this world?
I write on my experiences with racism, colonialism, gender, sexuality, and Sikhi from an research-informed perspective.
How do LGBTQIA+ Sikhs come to think there are none of us?
I founded and manage a public, digital, community-based, oral history archive to steward the sakhis of queer and trans Sikhs.
How do LGBTQIA+ Sikhs navigate their Sikhi, gender, and sexuality?
Read the first-ever report on LGBTQIA+ Sikhs.
