Radical Leadership and Creativity: Race, Gender, and Academic Freedom

Abstract

This chapter connects Black women’s histories of educational leadership after emancipation to the need for creative leadership in academia now. This chapter focuses on ways in which nineteenth-century educator and activists Lucy Craft Laney and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, among others, addressed challenges of race and gender and how their stories offer opportunities to consider current needs in higher education. Contrary to the freedom that academia is supposed to promote, topics in gender and ethnic studies may be challenged or restricted as part of liberal political agendas. Additionally, this chapter considers ways in which academia has been used to limit freedom for students and the need for innovative and creative ways to promote academic freedom in educational settings.