"Ma'am! You're Being Randomly Checked": A Music Education Terrorized.

Abstract

In this article, I examine a situation in the academic life of minority faculty members who suffer from systemic inequity in their academic lives, and more specifically, in their music education. The article engages with Bhabha’s concept of “enunciation” ([1994] 2004), where difference that has been systemically used against such bodies in the official discourse of higher education can become a source of rupture and change in the gaze. The discussion challenges tenure profiles that are compared to the standard form, weighted against the normative discourse, and the outcomes that represent the only factors considered in academic professional lives. The article draws attention to the need for greater equity and more nuanced consideration in the lives of othered faculty members regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, ability, religion. Further, I argue that music education rhetoric is not innocent from this discourse and can at times perpetuate such inequitable treatment.