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Articles

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2021): Journal for Leadership, Equity, and Research

An Anti-American Ban On Critique: A Critical Policy Commentary

Submitted
February 9, 2021
Published
2021-02-09

Abstract

We are a group of educational leaders who are doctoral candidates and faculty members in the Educational Leadership for Social Justice EdD program at California State University, East Bay. Our work centers around 1) creating shared knowledge about inequities and how they are reproduced by institutional systems, such as education, and 2) finding ways to address these systemic issues to create a more equal, healthy society. This work is informed by multiple critical perspectives, such as critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; hooks, 1994), critical race theory (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), and Black feminisms (Collins, 2002; Crenshaw, 1989). These perspectives, while varying somewhat, offer a common thread guided by the understanding that the world operates via power relations that privilege some groups while subordinating others; but these relationships, and the oppressions that result, are masked by the dominant culture’s insistence on painting reality with a brush of neutrality and a failure to engage with our history in a way that helps us understand and act on its repercussions on humanity.