Building Caste Equity in the U.S. Academia
Day 1: November 14, 2022 | 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m., Marquee Theater
Session Video
Session Materials
- Presentation: Building Caste Equity in the U.S. Academia (PDF)
- Presentation: Caste in the United States (PDF)
Session Description
The event will include a one-hour discussion on the topic of caste discrimination in the U.S. academia followed by audience interactions and questions. In this discussion, we will hear from an activist working on the ground to mobilize and effect change in university policy, including from successful campaigns at other U.S. universities and a current UW–Madison faculty member about contextualizing these lessons for the UW–Madison experience. The speakers will share strategies for generating awareness, identifying instances of caste abuse, as well as engaging and dealing with instances of caste discrimination in academic institutions.
Speakers
Darshana Mini
Darshana Mini, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Department of Communication Arts at UW–Madison and an affiliate of the Gender and Women’s Studies and the Center for South Asia. Dr. Mini’s teaching and research lie at the intersection of gender, sexuality, transnational media, migrant media and screen cultures of South Asia.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan
Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit rights activist based in the United States. She is a transmedia storyteller, songwriter, hip-hop musician and technologist. She founded Equality Labs, which “is an Ambedkarite South Asian power-building organization that uses community research, political base-building, culture-shifting art, and digital security to end the oppression of caste apartheid, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and religious intolerance.” Her work and writings against caste oppression in the United States have been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
