Dear Higher Education: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain

Arrived at the Mountain, Only Saw Waste

Gemmicka Piper

IU Indianapolis

Abstract

A wasteland is a vast land barren of resources or people—a space where nothing but desolation awaits. Riffing on this, an academic wasteland suggests that regardless of how much time or effort I extended, there are forces that can render the potential and promise of academia a moot point. My letter fits within the category of “Why We Come to the Mountain” by reflecting on what I believed higher education would mean for my life. In my foray into academia, I have always been clear that I was never in love with the idea of education and being educated, but rather chasing what education was supposed to mean. I thought it would open the door to financial freedom from the poverty I was born and raised within. Higher education was framed as a gateway—once you entered, it would provide freedom of movement. I believed that if I tried hard enough, I could experience comfort and stability. After over a decade in academia later, I have achieved little of the full life I thought higher education would afford me. Through this letter, I name how the Mountain becomes a wasteland through structural scarcity, hidden curricula, and the uneven costs women of color are expected to absorb—and I invite higher education to reckon with what it promises, what it withholds, and what repair would require.