Theme
The rule as written, the rule as applied, and the discretion in between.
Journal entries
Reading & influences
Article · Jason Okonofua, Gregory Walton & Jennifer Eberhardt, Perspectives on Psychological Science
This is the piece that keeps me from writing racialized rigor as a story about villains. Two identical infractions, same file, different name at the top — and by the second one the teacher already sees a pattern. It is stereotype plus discretion plus fatigue, looping. My question is whether the same loop runs in the opposite direction with academic demands: the student who is already read as needing toughening gets toughened.
Article · Russell Skiba and colleagues, The Urban Review
The finding I quote most: Black students are not referred for more serious or more objective offenses, they are referred more often for the subjective ones — disrespect, defiance, excessive noise. Categories that require an adult to interpret tone. Twenty-plus years old and my building's referral codes still read like the list in this paper.
Book · Thomas Armstrong
The practical companion to the conceptual work. Armstrong's "positive niche construction" — changing the environment to fit the learner instead of fixing the learner to fit the environment — is exactly the move racialized rigor refuses to make: it demands the student adapt to a standard instead of asking whether the standard is just.
Article · Article on neurodiversity-affirming teaching
Argues that neurodiversity should be taught to everyone in the room, not delivered as a service to a labeled few — the LEANS curriculum idea. If difference is ordinary, then the "extra" demands and "extra" grace in a classroom become visible as choices, and choices can be studied.
Article · Stanford Neurodiversity Project
The advocacy arm of the Stanford work — moving neurodiversity from a research topic into institutional practice: hiring, teaching, and campus culture. A model of what it looks like when a university treats neurodivergent people as a community to include rather than a problem to remediate.