A Well attended ‘Gender & Diversity Academy’ webinar: Structural discrimination & Minority Tax: The Danish Academic Context

Rashmi Singla, Associate Professor DPT & Sine Nørholm Just , Professor DAC Board members CKMM (CENTER FOR KØN, MAGT OG MANGFOLDIGHED) RUC On 7.4.2021 Center for gender, power and diversity arranged a webinar in which 55- 60 persons participated actively-- coincidentally, exactly ten months after 7June 2020 “Black lives matter” demonstrations in Denmark with approximately 40,000 participants. These demonstrations are interpreted as protests against domination and imperialism, leading to renewed exploration of colonialist and decoloniality processes, along with co-constructing and sharing knowledge in academia. Also for a need to find a balance between global sciences and local reality where social justice, sustainability, and inclusion find a central place in the play between unity and diversity. Zooming on these dynamics in the local reality, a team of mother- daughter scholars with doctoral research experiences in the field, Mira C. Skadegård and Tess Skadegård Thorsen from Aalborg University and Copenhagen University, were the guest speakers, with this author as discussant. Structural discrimination along with, benevolent discrimination, rather underresearched in the Danish context was the focus. Irrespective of intentions of the person discriminating, discrimination negatively affects target. Though benevolent means well-meaning and kind, and benevolent discrimination resides within positive gestures, yet it belies a charitable relational dynamic that rests on powered assumptions about difference informed by colonial dynamics and residue. There was further focus on the university context through the concept of ‘Minority Taxation’ pertaining to the extra tasks and duties imposed on the faculty members with ethnic minority background. It refers to the unique burdens ‘faculty of colour have to bear in order to fit into and survive in the US (Canton, 2012)*. Even in Denmark, this concept is presented as a useful analytical tool for understanding the everyday experiences of structural inequalities in Danish academia. In the discussion, the resonance in the RUC setting was confirmed, and the undersigned mentioned that 105 persons across all RUC departments had signed “Call for solidarity with anti- racist struggle across the world’ discrimination including racism, as a structural problem. The petition was submitted to the vice chancellor in August 2020 with a request for inclusive dialogue on the theme. The response is still awaited and there is an appeal for solidarity across the department and universities to initiate and develop ways to deal with discrimination constructively. I hope that this GDA is just a start for collaboration across borders in Danish academic context.