AUTHORS

Dr. Victor Ray, editor, I am an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. My research interests included race and organizations, critical race theory, and how formal organizational processes reproduce social inequalities. I am mixed race (black and white) but not tragic. And I am just as -- if not more -- objective than your average white scholar. In addition to my scholarly work and blogging, I have written about race for publications including Newsweek, Gawker, and Boston Review, and Seven Scribes. I occasionally tweet at @victorerikray.

Dr. Eric Anthony Grollman, founder, former editor and regular contributor, I speak as a black queer non-binary intellectual activist. I am currently a tenure-track professor in sociology at University of Richmond in Virginia. An “activist gone academic,” I pursued a Ph.D. in sociology at Indiana University to become a better activist. To my surprise, graduate training is designed to “beat the activist” out of grad students. Thus, I was traumatized in the process of earning my Ph.D. Those experiences led me to create Conditionally Accepted after I graduated in 2013 to make visible the scholars, perspectives, experiences, advice and resources that were not available to me. I write regularly, interweaving my personal experiences with my research (i.e., prejudice and discrimination) and current events, to reflect on the practices and policies that keep many scholars on the margins of academe. You can follow me on Twitter at @grollman.

Dr. Jeana Jorgensen, Regular Contributor, I write and teach from the life experiences of a culturally Jewish, agnostic, able-bodied, sex-positive, intersectional feminist and as a bisexual cisgender woman. My Ph.D. is in folklore with a focus on gender studies.  While I initially set out to study traditional folklore topics such as fairy tales, personal narratives, and body art, recently I've gone alt-ac and started to pursue a career in sex education, research, and writing. I am an adjunct instructor at a Midwestern small liberal arts college, and I also teach and perform dance professionally.  I often blog about my experiences adjuncting, in an effort to demonstrate the difficulty of extricating the personal from the political.  I hope to write more on the stories we tell about bodies and sexualities in university settings and beyond.  You can find my writing at MySexProfessor, on my sex educator site, and on my personal blog.  Follow me on Twitter @foxyfolklorist.

Dr. J. Sumerau, Regular Contributor, I write from the life experiences of a most of the time male-appearing bisexual, genderqueer, skeptic Queer Intersectional Feminist. My teaching, research and activism focus on the intersections of sexualities, gender, religion, and health in the interpersonal and her-his-our-storical experiences of sexual, gender, and religious minorities.  I am an assistant professor of sociology at mid-sized southern university, and I regularly write about the personal and emotional aspects of teaching and scholarship at Write Where It Hurts (@writewherehurts), and relationships between music and social life at Symbolic Interaction Music Blog. I often blog about my experiences navigating binary religious, sexual, and gender assumptions and systems of thought and organization, in an effort to demonstrate the ways such patterns erase and marginalize sexual, gender, and religious fluidity and variation in our world.  I hope to foster dialogue and debate that allows us to move beyond “yes or no,” “right or wrong,” and “good or bad” frameworks to embrace the complexity of our shared and disparate experiences in the pursuit of a more equitable world for all.  Feel free to check out my academic work on jsumerau.com or follow my public writing on Twitter @jsumerau.

Dr. Manya Whitaker, Regular Contributor, I blog from the perspective of a southern, Black, middle class, US-born woman. I am an assistant professor of education at an elite private liberal arts college. Upon entering academe, I deviated from my psychological roots and delved into the realm of education because it was then I saw the outcomes of an inequitable K-12 schooling system. The majority of my students are from white upper-income families and enjoy the resultant privileges. Through my courses I offer a counter-narrative to present the perspectives of diverse peoples and experiences by juxtaposing issues of equality with issues of equity. I research about what it takes to be an effective teacher to culturally and linguistically diverse students.

On my person blog, theotherclass, I write about my own experiences as a woman of color in a space that wasn’t built for me. While my blog is indeed for me, I also write to give voice to the silenced who may not be in a position to speak for themselves. I also share knowledge in my educational consultant business and through my participation in an online educational advice platform. Check out my academic work at manyawhitakerphd.com and to follow me on Twitter @IvyLeagueLady.

Dr. Jackson Shultz Wright , Regular Contributor, is an activist, educator and the author of Trans/Portraits: Voices From Transgender Communities. As the education director for the Trans Education, Activism, Community & Health (TEACH) Alliance, he has spoken throughout the country on contemporary issues in transgender communities. When not working with the TEACH Alliance, Shultz teaches composition and creative writing courses at New England College. He is an alumnus of Washington State University and Dartmouth College, and is a current doctoral student at New England College.

Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez is an assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M-San Antonio. Her research examines the intersection of Latinx faith and politics. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University in 2016. While at Duke, she received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Scholarship and Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, two of the nation’s most prestigious fellowships awarded to doctoral students. She has a B.A. in Spanish and Latin American Studies (2005) and a M.A. in Spanish (2007) from Baylor University. She is also a Fellow at the J.G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University. She has published in Politics & Identities and has a forthcoming article in Social Science Quarterly. Dr. Reyes-Barriéntez is a proud child of the U.S.-Mexico borderland colonias. She is a first-generation college graduate from a Mexican working-class immigrant family, and she calls Laredo, Texas home.

Alicia M. Reyes-Barriéntez, Ph.D. 

she/her/hers
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Texas A&M University-San Antonio
One University Way
San Antonio, Texas 78224
CAB 338
(210) 784-2260

[email protected]

Dr. Alvaro Huerta, Regular Contributor, I hold a joint faculty appointment in Urban & Region Planning (URP) and Ethnic & Women’s Studies (EWS) at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. As an interdisciplinary scholar, I teach and conduct research on the intersecting domains of community & economic development, Chicana/o & Latina/o studies, immigration & Mexican diaspora, social movements, social networks and the informal economy. I’m the author of the book Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm and the forthcoming book Latina/o Immigrant Communities in the Xenophobic Era of Trump and Beyond. Prior to becoming a scholar-activist, I was a leading community activist in Los Angeles and beyond. As a son of Mexican immigrants, first generation graduate (with advanced degrees from UCLA & UC Berkeley) and product of violent and impoverished neighborhoods, among the aforementioned fields, my scholarly and public scholarship include issues related to immigration, race and class in higher education. Overall, I’m interested in the plight of the marginalized, excluded and demonized—where I come from.