Raeal Moore: Raeal Moore is a Ph.D. student at Ohio State University, Educational Policy and Leadership.
“Academic Outlaws” seeks to provide a space for understanding how academic discursive symbols have perpetuated the hierarchical, dichotomy of homosexuality/heterosexuality. He sets out in the introduction and proceeds through chapters four and five to illustrate how heterosexuality has been presented as the norm for which homosexuality the invisible “Other” is constructed. The heteronormativity was captured by Tierney through academic structural terms so as to show how commonsense assumptions are present in the dedication pages that always take its place prior to a book’s introduction, as well as the hiring processes, socialization practices, and what defines acceptable visibility of faculty member’s personal lives.
As one of Tierney’s criticisms of other authors to define culture in terms of objects and artifacts to be studied, and their use of postmodern and queer as merely trendy words with an absence of epistemological and philosophical understanding, this author first justifies his use of queer and culture, for as cultural studies and queer theory assert, language and words matter. By positioning culture as a signifying system incorporated with ideologies and hidden norms, Tierney seeks to call queer theory as a critical culture in order to make visible the ways in which the educational system, an institution that produces knowledge and shapes its production, aid in the construction of identities, and form policy, has perpetuated such norms but has the potential to be a site of resistance.
Tierney effectively sets out his theoretical plan of action by positioning himself aware of the assimilation tactics of current and prior gays and lesbians seeking change. Instead of an adherence to the method of presenting oneself as similar to the norm other than who one sleeps with, the objective is a community that is founded on difference, a difference that is viewed as a virtue rather than a vice. He repositions the often asked question of how can one be invited to the equal rights table, by asking instead how our culture is structured so that certain people are able to pass out invitations, decide who is to attend, and what activities require such an invitation. Such a shift in understanding places his seat at the table for equality as a given rather than as a request.
One of the biggest drawbacks is Tierney’s neglect in viewing identity categories as fluid and intersectional. Although he does comment when addressing duel oppressions that “because identity is fluid and dependent on multiple interpretation …” (73) and contends “one key challenge is to realize that multiple dichotomies intersect” (76), he, in articulating the means by which we should achieve agape actually escapes such analysis. He advocates for community based on solidarity across differences but neglects how he himself has structured difference from a white, male perspective. Differences and similarities between political groups is constructed as if all gays are white and male, all blacks are male and straight, while females are largely left absent in the discussion. As an example, Tierney critiques bell hooks’ (1989) neglectful inclusion of queers when addressing the unavoidable visibility of black oppression. As a means for compensation, he advocates that the invisibility of queer sexuality provides for an additional understanding of oppression. Little attention is given to what extent his analysis of similarities and differences across groups might provide havoc to the differences and similarities found within categories of sexuality, race, gender and ability and what this means for one’s theoretical underpinnings and activism.
Taking from the issue of the categorization of identities, what is absent from Tierney’s utilization of queer theory is the use of gender. Tierney does present a theoretical explanation for the exclusion of gays and lesbians but only creates a separation where the norm views homosexuals based on who one sleeps with. It would have been fruitful for his analysis to incorporate the meanings that we have associated with sex (male/female) with gender (masculinity/femininity) and sexual attraction (homosexuality/heterosexuality). By presenting this as an additional framework, Tierney would have provided himself and the reader an opportunity to assess how one’s linear connection to these constructs are a way that queers deviate from the norm. In addition, because such a deviation is possible, this linear connection is constructed and not essential.
Although Tierney positions himself within the theoretical frameworks that strives to question the “mediating aspects of culture, to interrogate its grammar and decenter its norms” (53), one begins to see the conundrum one is faced with when fighting for one’s rights within a postmodern framework and simultaneously within the modern foundations of such rights. He sets out to “queer the academy” in order to disrupt the academic cultural and discursive symbols that for too long have constructed a perception that everyone is sexually alike. However, when differences based on sexuality are made visible, queers are positioned in a state of silence because of their differences from the heterosexual norm. Change must occur, according to Tierney, through the restructuring of housing contracts, domestic partner agreements, and an equity office for gays and lesbians. His solution however is congruent with the problems of change Tierney himself set out in prior chapters. He writes in the beginning pages of his book that assimilation was not believed to be beneficial because it was centered on universal principals forcing those that are different into the same category as the norm. However, Tierney sets out, in his own quest for change, the universal principles of liberty, equality, and rights. Herein lies the contradiction. He does not advocate for sameness but rather difference as a means to bring homosexuality to the center, but in making visible these differences he adheres to the universal principal that regardless of difference we should all be treated the same as the mainstream and those already recognized for their marginality.
The demands for change that Tierney presents, however, are not without merit. Tierney presents legitimate concerns for those academics both in the closet and out. The need for acceptance, protection, and to feel included is by no means an unrealistic requirement in life. Furthermore, Tierney does not merely undertake to list a set of requirements that undoubtedly would queer the structural makeup of academia; he does so by presenting strategies to make his demands a reality. His advocacy for change requires attention to the structures, formulation of policies and political players already intact, in order to bring to bear all that is required when the objective is structural change.
Avoiding the usual identity naming, Tierney does not merely state he is a white, gay, middle class, man as if there was a consensus understanding of these terms. Cognoscent of the fact that a category is not monolithic he sets out at the beginning of each chapter to encompass what exactly it means to claim all of the tools in his identity bag. This, along with his use of fictional stories to illustrate the complexities associated with the meaning of queer in chapter six, provides an educational tool for the postmodern critique in the complexities of identity construction, the limitation of identity politics, and the blurred distinctions between fact and fiction.
Such a layout makes it helpful for someone, just setting foot into the area of queer theory and cultural studies, to understand more concretely what it means for heterosexuality to be the unconscious norm/standard for which homosexuality is evaluated, the consequences of its visibility, and the thought processes that shape the inconceivability of homosexuality. One begins to realize, especially if one identifies as heterosexual, how their position is both a privileged one and a position often congruent with what, who, and how knowledge is produced in both the larger society in general and academia specifically.
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