To be fair, she and Alejandro had handpicked their friends and faculty of color they trusted to be on the committee; Toni, Mike, and Marie, alongside Dr. Keith Tolentino, one of the few full professors of color in the Art department. They were great. But the problems started as soon as the committee veered away from their handpicked members. Layla had spent most of the meeting looking at Alejandro as if she wanted to eat him and wasn’t at all worried that the other people in the room would notice. The Dean had asked for one of the Associate Deans, Martin Stampp, to sit in as ex-oficio. He was less of a problem than dead weight, since he’d sat down, introduced himself, and then promptly dozed off for the rest of the meeting. And then there was Caroline Enwright, chair of the Women’s Studies department, another of the Dean’s appointments.

Deja knew of her by name and had seen her at events around the College. She’d even probably met her at some point, though she didn’t remember it. As soon as Caroline had introduced herself, Deja knew she wasn’t going to like working with her. It had only gone downhill from there. Caroline was out of touch with student needs, especially the needs of students of color, and she was dismissive of their challenges and downright hostile toward developing programs for their success, which was the entire purpose of this committee. She was also openly condescending to Deja and Marie because they were junior and adjunct faculty. In a nutshell, she was every stereotype of older white women in academia rolled into one thin-lipped, passive-aggressive, elitist form. And in kitten heels to boot.

What should have been a cordial discussion quickly devolved as Caroline talked down to Marie, who just shut down and stopped talking in the first ten minutes. Deja had balled her hands into fists, her body boiling with rage. She wanted to tell Caroline that she should step down from her high horse since Marie, who taught more classes than anyone else in the room, also taught more students of color than them. She was also, as an instructor, overworked and underpaid, and this service assignment was something she’d agreed to because she cared about her students, not because she was looking for yet another line on her CV. But Deja had long since conditioned herself to be deferential to senior faculty as part of her life on the tenure track, so she shut down soon after Marie.

The strain of keeping her mouth shut was too much for Deja to bear. She began to beat herself up internally for not speaking up on her friend’s behalf. Deja thought of herself as a principled person, but she sat in that meeting and had to wonder if that was true anymore. Had it ever been?