irst, that we might consider being pragmatic in our antiracist work, even when we are forwarding a utopian vision; second, that we must consider the ethics of a more pragmatic strategy; and finally, that no one is the object of our work—writing center practitioners must honor the subjectivity of all players by collaborating closely with fellow tutors and with faculty, staff, and other institutional stakeholders. I

we also need to be deeply skeptical of any sanguine insistence that the only way to move past the Disintegration phase is to essentially exploit BIPOC trauma to extract lessons that will aid in the racial enlightenment of white people

should speakers care about what people are willing to hear or just say what needs to be said?

Linguistic Justice level:

Key Claims

In other words, people in power (in this case, writing professors and admissions counselors) need to own the power they have to not be a part of the system of linguistic inequity.

“English teachers who feel they are bound to accommodate the linguistic prejudices of current employers perpetuate a system that is unfair to both students who have job skills and to the employers who need them”

evel 2 applies this logic of political economy to language policy by holding that it is not the inherent value of the linguistic variety that determines that variety’s elevated status; rather, it is the prestige conferred onto certain linguistic varieties that determines status.

Key Claims

all languages are equal

Key Claims

At the same time, as tutor-centered and tutor-led as the Social Justice initiative was, I was responsible for any interfaces with faculty and other people in positions of institutional power.

In this article, I synthesize some of the scholarship on antiracist writing pedagogy into three distinct claims that I see in that scholarship. I have labeled these three claims (1) Linguistic Diversity, (2) Linguistic Equity, and (3) Linguistic Justice.

outreach

Until writing centers assume a more prominent role in our institutions as repositories for knowledge and vocal practitioners around linguistic justice, it is not just writing centers but academia more generally that will remain linguistically racist.