News from the School of IAS

Category: Diversity

Kari Lerum: Rights, not rescue

IAS faculty member Kari Lerum researches the rights of sex workers and how anti-trafficking campaigns can bring more harm than good. “The general public is so conditioned to think about sex work as right or wrong and sex workers as free or coerced,” she said. “But what’s more useful is to think about how the state regulates and surveils sex workers who are just trying to make ends meet, especially when they are Black and brown, poor or transgender. These policies do nothing to alleviate poverty, racism or transphobia.”

January 27, 2021

Kristina Jorgensen collaborates on legislation and receives capacity-building grant

In 2020, Kristina Jorgensen graduated from IAS with a major in Society, Ethics & Human Behavior, minor in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, and began her graduate education in the M.A. in Policy Studies. She is also an alum of the D.C. Seminar in Human Rights (2019). Since beginning the M.A. in Policy Studies program, Jorgensen has successfully advanced a number of impactful justice projects through her research, networking, advocacy and leadership. ...

January 21, 2021

Karam Dana on reversing the Muslim travel ban (Q13 FOX)

IAS faculty member Karam Dana spoke to Q13 FOX about U.S. President Joe Biden's reversal of a travel ban on foreign nationals from certain Muslim-majority countries. "The Muslim ban was a travel ban that limited access to the United States, even to those who had a green card. Not only those who carry valid visas, but also ...

January 21, 2021

Kristin Gustafson publishes article on white supremacist coup

The Conversation published an article co-authored by IAS faculty member Kristin Gustafson and Kathy Roberts Forde comparing the 1898 Wilmington coup and the 2021 U.S. Capitol siege for its politics/election section. “A white supremacist coup succeeded in 1898 North Carolina, led by lying politicians and racist newspapers that amplified their lies” builds on Journalism & Jim Crow ...

January 19, 2021

Ching-In Chen published in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics

IAS faculty member Ching-In Chen’s hybrid writings “Behind the Ballroom,” “Household Mutations,” “Returning to a Posted Notice Taped to the Door,” “Trying to Feel Human/Tomorrow,” and “Self-Portrait, house with no one present” were published in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam & Kay Gabriel, published by Nightboat Books.

January 13, 2021

David Goldstein co-authors Toni Morrison’s Secret Drive

IAS faculty member David Goldstein published a book co-authored with Dr. Shawnrece D. Campbell (Stetson University), Toni Morrison’s Secret Drive: A Reader-Response Study of the Fiction and Its Rhetoric (McFarland Press). The book argues that late Toni Morrison ...

December 28, 2020

Ching-In Chen receives 2020 BIPOC Seed Grant Award on Intersectional Sustainability

IAS faculty member Ching-In Chen was awarded a BIPOC Seed Grant on Intersectional sustainability: Imagining solutions to racial and environmental injustices from the University of Washington Resilience Lab in partnership with the Campus Sustainability Fund. The seed grants support resilience and compassion building initiatives that foster connection and community, educate the UW community and spark dialogue. The selected projects proposed solutions to environmental and societal problems that have a disproportionately negative impact on ...

December 18, 2020

Supporting International Students course boosted by alumni

International students have unique needs and face different challenges than their counterparts. Prior to the pandemic, IAS staff members Jung Lee and Sakara Buyagawan received a UW Bothell Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement Fellowship to explore support options for international students. Their efforts, however, became urgent when the U.S. Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) placed restrictions on international students’ visitor status, due to the COVID-19 health crisis.

December 10, 2020

Paul Johnson leads diversity, equity, and inclusion at Seattle Waldorf School

IAS alum Paul Johnson has joined Seattle Waldorf School as their first Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). In this capacity, Johnson will develop and implement programs and strategies to help ensure that all students, faculty, and staff feel valued for their individual talents and unique cultural perspectives. He will also seek to broaden the diversity of ...

December 7, 2020

Julie Shayne blogs about Trump refusing to concede the election

IAS faculty member and Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies Faculty Coordinator Julie Shayne wrote a blog piece for Ms. Magazine about the patriarchal entitlement that allows Donald Trump to refuse to concede the election. In it she argues that if he were a woman this highly unprofessional and immature behavior would likely put an end to all future woman presidential candidate’s careers whereas no men’s political careers are going to be even slightly damaged by his behavior. Read: “If Trump Were A Woman.”