ASRXXX10.1177/0003122419893677American Sociological ReviewRomero research-article8936772020

2019 Presidential Address

American Sociological Review 2020, Vol. 85(1) 1­–30 Sociology Engaged in Social © American Sociological Association 2020 https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419893677DOI: 10.1177/0003122419893677 Justice journals.sagepub.com/home/asr

Mary Romeroa

Abstract This article expands on my presidential address to further bolster the case that sociology has, from its inception, been engaged in social justice. I argue that a critical review of our discipline and our Association’s vaunted empiricist tradition of objectivity, in which sociologists are detached from their research, was accomplished by a false history and sociology of sociology that ignored, isolated, and marginalized some of the founders. In the past half-century, scholar- activists, working-class sociologists, sociologists of color, women sociologists, indigenous sociologists, and LGBTQ sociologists have similarly been marginalized and discouraged from pursuing social justice issues and applied research within our discipline. Being ignored by academic sociology departments has led them to create or join homes in interdisciplinary programs and other associations that embrace applied and scholar-activist scholarship. I offer thoughts about practices that the discipline and Association should use to reclaim sociology’s social justice tradition.

Keywords historical sociology, scholar-activist, exclusion, politics, knowledge production, social justice, engaged sociology

We are doing sociology at a time when aArizona State University authoritarian heads of states have been elected around the world; empires are arising, borders Corresponding Author: are hardening; people are torn from their Mary Romero, Arizona State University, School of Social Transformation, Justice Studies and homes to become stateless refugees; and Social Inquiry, PO Box 876403, Tempe, AZ racism and xenophobia are all over social 85287-6403 media. We have a U.S. president who refers to Email: [email protected] 2 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Mexican migrants and refugees as rapists, In the three years he has been in office, criminals, and drug dealers (Machalowski Trump has supported the nomination of and Solop 2019). Trump has referred to Afri- judges and Cabinet Secretaries who oppose can countries as “shithole” nations, advocated gay and transgender rights, dismantled civil for more immigrants from Norway, and rights legislation concerning voting rights and argued that after seeing America, immigrants affirmative action, and curtailed enforcement from Nigeria would never “go back to their programs and consent decrees related to dis- huts.” The president’s racist comments about crimination. Trump has a personal history of Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Muslims, sexist and misogynist behavior and has made and Jews have emboldened public activities disparaging remarks about people with disa- by neo-Nazis and white supremacists (Gra- bilities. His administration has eroded legisla- ham et al. 2019), as well as white women and tion protecting employees by sex, race, men who call the police on Black people ethnicity, and sexual orientation in the work- engaged in everyday activities, placing them force (Green 2019; Greenhouse 2019); in harm’s way. In a rally in Panama City rescinded Title IX guidance clarifying protec- Beach, Florida, Trump joked about shooting tions under the law for transgender students; migrants at the border (Farzan 2019). Three and rescinded 72 guidance documents outlin- months later, a white nationalist Trump sup- ing the rights of students with disabilities porter drove 650 miles to El Paso, Texas, with (Balingit 2017). The divide between the rich the intention of killing as many Mexicans as and the rest of society has increased as a possible: on August 3, 2019, he killed 22 result of tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires, people and injured 24 others (Arango, Bogel- and multinational corporations (Appelbaum Burroughs, and Benner 2019). Trump’s dis- 2017). Our fragile inventory of social safety- dain for people of color is further evident in net programs continues to shrink as this and his administration’s refusal to allocate relief previous administrations ended subsidies for funds and send workers to Puerto Rico after certain health care plans, disability programs, Hurricane Maria or to the Bahamas after Hur- and social security. ricane Dorian (Mansoor 2019). Trump’s denial of climate change will be a Our annual meeting took place in a com- lasting crime against humanity. His adminis- fortable space, while concentration camps tration has rolled back crucial federal efforts spread along our southern border, where chil- established by the Obama administration to dren fleeing global warming, gangs, and cut greenhouse-gas emissions: it has limited repressive states in Central America are sleep- regulations on power plants and vehicles and ing on concrete floors. Trump has returned us made public lands available for fossil-fuel to shameful periods in our country’s history: development (Popovich, Albeck-Ripka, and parents and children are separated, children Pierre-Louis 2019). Just eight months after are sexually and physically abused in deten- Obama signed the Paris Agreement, Trump tion, women are sexually abused by border announced the U.S. withdrawal, claiming agents, and families sleep on the dirt in fenced unfair environmental standards harmed U.S. cages (Hutzler 2019). ASA met in 2019 in the business and workers (Shear 2017). Not only city of immigrants, near the Statue of Liberty has this administration denied climate change, and Ellis Island, while the administration vili- it has forcefully moved to discredit legitimate fied asylum seekers. Between October and science (Jackson 2019). We have already December 2018, the denial rate of asylum experienced rising sea levels, vicious hurri- cases was 19 percent, and “that figure had canes, storms in the Midwest, and increasing grown to 45 percent by the first quarter of fis- wildland fires around the world. The adminis- cal year 2019” (Schacher 2019:4). Although tration attacks evidence-based science, it has migration rates have dropped, Trump refuses cut research funding to NEH and NSF (Dav- to consider evidence-based data in developing enport and Landler 2019), and it has returned immigration policy (Hesson 2019). food regulation to an era similar to Upton Romero 3

Sinclair’s The Jungle (Khimm 2018). In many discipline (Margolis and Romero 1998; Peters cases, Trump’s policy rejects evidence-based 1991). I believe no one becomes a sociologist social science; his supporters confuse sociol- to hinder or harm people, or to promote injus- ogy with socialism, misunderstanding both. tice, yet “Social Justice Warriors” has become Attacks on science-based and evidence- a term of contempt in many circles—includ- based research are perhaps the central issues ing some of our own. bringing together all the scientists in our dis- Our discipline has a long history of debat- cipline. We stand for data; we stand for evi- ing value-free objective sociology versus an dence; we stand for critical thought; and we engaged sociology aimed at change for a bet- stand for an open and transparent presentation ter world. Most U.S. sociology students are of research findings so they can be replicated introduced to Weber’s idea of value-free soci- or disconfirmed. ology as undergraduates; he argued for a Under these conditions, teaching, research, detached and independent approach to and service in sociology have become crucial research without social and political commit- in equipping students, communities, and the ments. Most textbooks’ interpretations are general public with critical thinking skills to based on Weber’s essay “On Science as a understand the dog whistles and gaslighting Vocation.” However, over his career, Weber used by right-wing populist movements. elaborated further, changing and altering his Trump’s Secretary of Education demanded ideas to distinguish objectivity as the “accu- that a university department advance the rate depiction of the facts” from value- administration’s “ideological priorities,” freedom (Sharlin 1974:338). By the 1890s, claiming the department was unfairly promot- Weber did not entirely separate science and ing “the positive aspects of Islam” but not politics, and his writings appear to support the Christianity or Judaism: view that science was devoted to improving social conditions and “should serve the An Aug. 29 letter from the U.S. Education nation” (Sharlin 1974:341). Later in life, his Department orders the Duke-UNC Consor- theoretical essays on social science research tium for Middle East Studies to revise its actively explored ways for science to serve offerings by Sept. 22 or risk losing future the nation and yet be separated from political funding from a federal grant that’s awarded and social attitudes. to dozens of universities to support foreign Many early U.S. sociologists attended language instruction. (Binkley 2019) German universities, and European sociology has long been critical of the idea of objectiv- Brazil’s far-right president has defunded ity and argued that studying the natural and philosophy, education, and sociology pro- social worlds are completely different. Yet, grams (Redden 2019). Hungarian sociologists American sociology adopted a “rigid empiri- fear losing academic freedom as the national- cist tradition” (Forsythe 1973:215). In this ist government moves the Hungarian Acad- address, I argue that the empiricist tradition of emy of Sciences, including the Social Science “objectivity,” in which sociologists are Research Institute, under the direct control of detached from their research, has isolated and political ministries (Abbott 2019). In these marginalized sociologists from communities times of right-wing populist movements that have long been the subjects (I mean around the world, engaged sociology and objects) of research. I examine the history of activist research is necessary and crucial for the discipline and the ASA to identify the the discipline to preserve democracy. ways sociologists have been discouraged Engaging social justice and sociology is from pursuing social justice issues and applied certainly not a new theme. Most sociologists research. I conclude with practices that the identify social justice, social change, and a discipline and the Association can adopt to desire to make a better world as the motives reclaim sociology’s social justice tradition. behind their pursuit of graduate studies in the Space does not permit a detailed chronology 4 American Sociological Review 85(1) of the tradition of scholar-activists or sociolo- Atlanta School challenges both the discipline gists and their theories and research, but I and the ASA’s origin story of American soci- identify crucial points in our discipline and ology (Morris 2015; Wright 2010, 2016; Association’s history. Suffice to say that Wright and Calhoun 2006). American sociology has a social justice tradi- In 1897, Du Bois accepted a position at tion that has not been fully recognized. Atlanta University and established a scientific school of sociology. Along with starting the sociology department and teaching sociology Social Justice Tradition courses, he created the first sociological of The Discipline research laboratory (Wright 2016). Over the Most sociology textbooks present the men of next 13 years at Atlanta University, Du Bois the Chicago School as establishing the foun- mentored the first generation of Black soci- dation for American sociology (e.g., Hinkle ologists, including Monroe Work, Richard and Hinkle 1954). However, the men of the Wright, and George Edmund Haynes.3 Chicago School ignored the empirical science Although Work attended graduate school at and rigorous research methods being used at the University of Chicago, he began a col- the Atlanta School and Hull House.1 Even laboration with Du Bois. Work published in then, it was common to criticize scholar- top journals of the day and was hired as a activism or social justice sociology research professor at Savannah State. He later estab- for lacking “objectivity,” offering a biased lished the Department of Records and interpretation of data, and using research Research at Tuskegee Institute, which com- methods that were not rigorous (Morris piled detailed data on the lives of Blacks, 2017).2 A brief overview of the Atlanta School including a report on lynching. Wright was and Hull House research demonstrates the the first Black student to earn a PhD in sociol- methodologically rigorous beginnings of soci- ogy at the University of Pennsylvania. He ology and its strong social justice tradition. participated in research and activities with the Settlement Movement and was an avid pro- moter of the Atlanta conferences. Atlanta School Du Bois also mentored Mary White Oving- The origin myth of the Chicago School ignores ton while she researched and published a the contributions that the Atlanta School and study on the economic status of Blacks in other historically Black colleges and universities New York City and the experiences of Black (HBCUs) made in the development of sociol- women in the New York labor market. A dec- ogy, especially W. E. B. Du Bois’s theoretical ade prior to the first American Sociological and empirical work (Morris 2015; Wright 2010; Society conference, sociological research on Wright and Calhoun 2006). I agree with Stephen science, race, and inequality was discussed, Steinberg (2016) that in The Scholar Denied, disseminated, and debated at the annual Aldon Morris challenged “dominant discourses Atlanta Conferences. Over the years, the list in sociology that, ever since the inception of the of key scholars and leaders participating discipline at the University of Chicago in 1892, included the university presidents of HBCUs, have not only elided the groundbreaking and the president of Harvard University, and lead- transformative contributions of Black sociolo- ing Black and white scholars and leaders, gists, but have also provided epistemic justifica- including Walter Wilcox, Frank Sanborn, tion for racial hierarchy.” Franz Boas, Monroe Work, Eugene Harris, The white founding-father narrative glar- Mary Church Terrell, Sophonisba P. Breckin- ingly ignored the contributions the Atlanta ridge, Jane Addams, Florence Kelly, Booker School and other HBCUs made to the devel- T. Washington, and Governors Allen D. Can- opment of sociology, and it disregarded Du dler and Charles William Eliot of Georgia. Bois’s theoretical and empirical work. Recent Even though these scholarly conferences sociological scholarship on Du Bois and the occurred during Jim Crow, participants Romero 5 generated resolutions promoting social and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892– change and social justice (Morris 2015). 1918 (1988), published three decades ago, Du Bois’s “Philadelphia Negro” is one of documented the role Jane Adams and Hull the most important nineteenth-century works House had in developing sociology. This, too, of American sociology; his charts and graphs has been largely ignored in sociological the- made data visible in new and insightful ways. ory and methods. Thus, he was an important father of visual Settlement sociology from 1885 to 1930 is sociology; moreover, his photographic exhibit “when sociology in the United States played a for the 1900 Paris Exposition countered the vital role in improving the lives of individuals racist stereotypes many held of the Black and groups and in shaping government poli- population in the United States (Morris 2018). cies to produce a more just society” (Lenger- In his Niagara speech, Du Bois said: mann and Niebrugge-Brantley 2002:5). The College Settlements Association was organ- We want our children trained as intelligent ized in 1890; two years later, it established human beings should be, and we will fight for “fellowships for women who seek to pursue all time against any proposal to educate black sociological studies in college settlements” boys and girls simply as servants and under- (Woods and Kennedy [1911] 1970:2). Much lings, or simply for the use of other people. of the settlements’ training included studying They have a right to know, to think, to aspire. sociology and conducting field work. Not all (cited in Torricelli and Carroll 1999:19) the settlement workers were sociologists, but many prominent residents conducted socio- Like other HBCUs, Atlanta University was logical research and published in sociology under constant threat of financial collapse, journals: they were members of the disci- which made institutional investment in faculty pline’s national professional association, they research and support for travel to professional self-identified or were recognized by others as meetings almost impossible and “severely sociologists, and some were employed as limited library acquisition of basic research sociologists. The co-founder of Chicago’s data materials” (Jones 1974:128). HBCUs Hull House, Jane Addams, “was a charter were also plagued by heavy teaching loads, no member of the ASS [American Sociological graduate programs, and not having academic Society]” and published in the American Jour- presses to widely disseminate research manu- nal of Sociology, which was “the most prestig- scripts. Du Bois attempted to collaborate with ious and central journal in the new discipline” white universities to access their research (Deegan 1988:10). Opposed to the elitism and centers’ resources; however, white male soci- patriarchy of academic sociology and avoid- ologists were not interested in his talents or ing the constraints on speech and activism in building on his research on Black communi- the university, Adams chose to remain outside ties. Du Bois ([1904] 1978:56) wrote that of the academy. The men of the Chicago white scholars’ lack of interest was beneath School, insisting on “objectivity,” dismissed their position as educated professionals: “such Hull House research as not being sociology an attitude is allowable to be ignorant—it is because of its applied and social justice focus.4 expected among horses and among the uncul- When these women sociologists were tivated masses of men, but it is not expected of hired by universities, their positions were the scientific leaders of a great nation.” rarely in sociology departments but were in domestic science, civics and philanthropy, and home studies (Lengermann and Niebrugge- Settlement Sociology Brantley 1998). Many women sociologists Mainstream sociology similarly ignored the worked for city, state, and federal govern- contributions of settlement sociology. Mary ments, collecting and analyzing data to Jo Deegan’s pathbreaking book, Jane Addams develop social programs to address poverty, 6 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Photo 1. Lewis Hine Photograph Note: “Laura Petty, a 6-year-old berry picker on Jenkins farm, Rock Creek near Baltimore, Md. ‘I’m just beginning.’ Picked two boxes yesterday. (2 cents a box).” (See my report July 10, 1909.) July 8, 1909. Location: Baltimore, Maryland. Source: National Child Labor Committee collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. delinquency, health, housing, and education. his obvious devotion to social justice and Importantly, sociologists have argued that social change. As a visual sociologist, Hine women, including Jane Adams, Florence did more than make photographs, he collected Kelly, Edith and Grace Abbott, Sophonisba ethnographic data for his journals and reports. Breckinridge, Frances Kellor, Julia Lathrop, His lantern slides and “photo-stories” were Annie Marion MacLean, Virginia Robinson, used in presentations to philanthropic organi- Anna Garlin Spencer, Jessie Taft, and Marion zations seeking to end the exploitation of child Talbot, established a school of sociology prior workers. “The American Journal of Sociology to the Chicago School of Sociology (Deegan routinely ran photographs in connection with 1988, 2013; Lengermann and Niebrugge- its muckraking reformist articles for at least Brantley 2002). However, many women who the first fifteen years of its existence” (Ober- remained in the university eventually became schall 1972:215). the founders of the Chicago School of Civics Having a close working relationship with and Philanthropy, which established clear dis- women professionals who were involved in ciplinary boundaries between settlement soci- settlement sociology in Chicago, George Her- ology and value-free sociology (MacLean bert Mead stands as an exception to the other and Williams 2012). white male sociologists at the Chicago Not all the “settlement” sociologists were School. He was an advocate of Mary McDow- women. Lewis Wickes Hine studied sociology ell’s leadership in the University of Chicago at the University of Chicago and Columbia Settlement House, which “was to serve as a University. He also chose life outside aca- ‘window’ for the new department of sociol- demia, teaching at the Ethical Culture School ogy” (Taylor 1954:32). His involvement and working for the Russell Sage Foundation included service (treasurer of the board of and the National Child Labor Committee. His University of Chicago Settlement House from photographs of immigrants at Ellis Island and 1908 to 1921 and then president from 1919 to child workers appear in many introduction to 1920) and research assistance for Abbott and sociology texts. His work also contributed to Breckinridge’s analysis of survey data. Work- the development of visual sociology, but ing closely with women at Hull House, Mead although an important graduate of the Chicago helped establish the Chicago Bureau of Social School, he was not acknowledged because of Research (Deegan 1988), which “trained staff Romero 7

Photo 2. Ida B. Wells-Barnett Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. in research methods to conduct” studies on founded a black settlement house, and called on migrant workers and unemployed men and Jane Addams for support in reaching interracial women (Taylor 1954:34). He shared Lewis alliances (Giddings 2008). Wells-Barnett is best Hine’s, Jane Addams’s, and the Settlement known for her international and national anti- Movement’s quest for pragmatism, progres- lynching campaign. She produced the first sys- sive reform, a social democratic version of tematic study on lynching, published as The socialism, a commitment to nonviolence in Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged the struggles for social justice, and humani- Causes of Lynchings in the United States, tarian objectives. In addressing social prob- 1892–1894 (1895) and Southern Horrors lems, such as the women workers’ labor ([1892] 2017) (Deegan 1991). She wrote: strike, the scientific method was used to reach practical working solutions for social reform The student of American sociology will find (Deegan and Burger 1978). As Shalin the year 1894 marked by a pronounced (1988:927) wrote, “By the end of the 19th awakening of the public conscience to a century, Mead emerged as a ‘radically demo- system of anarchy and outlawry which had cratic intellectual,’ a reformer deeply involved grown during a series of ten years to be so in progressive causes, and a budding aca- common, that scenes of unusual brutality demic searching for a theoretical rationale for failed to have any visible effect upon the a far-reaching yet peaceful reconstruction of humane sentiment of the people of our land. American society.” (Wells-Barnett 1895:9) Ida B. Wells-Barnett, another important scholar-activist engaged in social justice, She explained her choice to use the Chicago worked with the Settlement Movement, Tribune as her main data base as follows: 8 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Photo 3. “Assessed Value of Household and Kitchen Furniture Owned by Georgia Negros” Note: Chart prepared by Du Bois for the Negro Exhibit of the American Section of the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900 to show the economic and social progress of African Americans since emancipation. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

The purpose of the pages which follow shall studies, along with her methodological con- be to give the record which has been made, tributions to sociology. not by colored men, but that which is the As Deegan and others argue, generations result of compilations made by white men, of women sociologists were gradually erased of reports send over the civilized world by from our origin story, particularly the men white men in the South. Out of their own and women sociologists conducting empirical mouths shall the murders be condemned. studies that were critical, reflexive, and activ- (Wells-Barnett 1895:17) ist sociology. Their theoretical and “methodo- logical pioneering” empirical studies have Wells-Barnett meticulously gathered data largely been deleted from our courses on on the “nature of the crime of the victim, the introduction to sociology, research methods, state where the lynching occurred, the sex and urban sociology, immigration, social prob- age of the victim, and the race” (Lengermann lems, social movements, and social change and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998:162). Her thor- (Deegan 1991; Lengermann and Niebrugge- ough analysis debunked the myth that lynch- Brantley 1998). ing resulted from Black men raping white Settlement sociologists taught in various women, but “rather was an excuse to get rid departments in the university, published in of negroes who were acquiring wealth and academic journals, and participated in sociol- property” (Wells-Barnett 1895:64). The ogy conferences, but their major goal was to beginnings of her conceptualization of race, reach the general public, structure govern- class, and gender is found in these lynching ment policies based on principles of social Romero 9

Photo 4. Wage Map Note: No. 1[-4], Polk Street to Twelfth (Chicago). Detached from: Hull-House maps and papers . . . New York: Crowell, 1895. Source: The New York Public Library believes this item is in the public domain under the laws of the United States.

justice, and advocate for social justice. How- she viewed sexual differences among white ever, their goals were sometimes framed in men and women as “a negative vestige of racist beliefs about the superiority of white their primitive past” (Newman 1999:139). civilization, such as in the writings of Char- lotte Perkins Gilman (Deegan 1991; Lenger- Revisiting Sociology’s Origin Myth mann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998) and Beatrice Forbes-Roberston Hale (Newman Both Du Bois and Addams developed quanti- 1999): “Gilman held primitives responsible tative and qualitative research methods that for white women’s relegation to the home . . . influenced the discipline for decades. Du Bois patriarchy was an invention of the primitive, began publishing “a body of empirical studies and sexual differences were a constraining during the first decade of the twentieth cen- legacy that would have to be overthrown if tury” (Morris 2015:113). Under Addams’s the white race were ever to advance beyond editorship, the residents of Hull House co- its primitive heritage” (Newman 1999:133). authored the first sociological book that intro- Hale, another early feminist sociologist, also duced “the methodology mapping demographic advocated racist assimilationist ideologies; information on urban populations according to 10 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Photo 5. Colorado Potato Bug Source: Shutterstock (stock-vector-insect-anatomy-sticker-colorado-potato-beetle-leptinotarsa- decemlineata-sketch-of-colorado-353120732).

Photo 6. “A Man was Lynched” Note: Flag announcing another lynching. ‘A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY,’ is flown from the window of the NAACP headquarters on 69 Fifth Ave., New York City in 1936. – Illustration. Source: Royalty-free stock illustration ID: 242290540. their geographic distribution” (Deegan sociology. Robert E. Park was an avid sup- 1988:55) and “the use of mapping as a statisti- porter of a sociology that “was an objective cal technique to reveal patterns of social science whose mission was to formulate natu- groups” (Deegan 1988:62). The tradition of ral laws determining human behavior” (Mor- scholar-activists understood that “advocacy ris 2015:112). In training graduate students, was informed by scholarship; one role gave Park discouraged them from engaging in direction to the other” (Robbins 1974:77). activism. “Park told them flatly that the world Early in its history, the Chicago School was full of crusaders. Their role instead was adhered to a rigid definition of value-free to be that of the calm, detached scientist who Romero 11 investigates race relations with the same that “(1) persisted in revealing the underside objectivity and detachment with which the of U.S. society in the hope of fomenting zoologist dissects the potato bug” (Smith and structural change, and (2) relentlessly attacked Killian 1974:197). Contrast this to Du Bois’s the mainline and what he regarded as the statement: “One could not be a calm, cool, ‘complacent’ sociology of the 1950s” (Treviño and detached scientist while Negroes were 2012:1). Early in his career, Mills was influ- lynched, murdered and starved” (Morris enced by pragmatism, particularly Mead and 2015:114). The Chicago School’s influence the notion that theory must always be adapted on the discipline is evident in the fact that toward action. Mills’s (1959:188) career was “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson in framed by his concern that the “social struc- 1896 “went unchallenged by the early soci- ture of the United States is not an altogether ologists. . . . Most of these early sociologists democratic one.” Along with democracy, he displayed strong humanitarian sentiments, embraced an egalitarian humanist vision and but their goal was to establish an objective, sought a broader audience than other sociolo- value-free sociology, practiced by scientists gists. Mills used both quantitative and quali- who would study, but not attack or defend, the tative methods in his early work, but he later prevailing social system” (Smith and Killian rejected quantitative methods for its method- 1974:193). Du Bois, in contrast, embraced the ological fetishism, which missed the “big idea that sociology could “be utilized as a questions,” and its impersonal approach and liberating force” (Morris 2015:66); the begin- detachment from the subject. He disdained ning of American sociology was thus scien- Talcott Parsons’s grand theory, which he tifically rigorous and advocated social justice. viewed as legitimating the power structure Du Bois, the activist-scholar, established pub- and forms of domination, as well as incorpo- lic sociology and the public intellectual. rating conservative approaches to understand- The early history of sociology was tar- ing the United States. His analysis confronting nished by gender- and race-segregation that Parsons’s abstract empiricism, and Parsons’s relegated Black women and men sociologists garbled writing, was the subject of an entire to HBCUs and women sociologists to wom- chapter in The Sociological Imagination. en’s colleges or government agencies. Race However, the major attraction of The Socio- and gender segregation also undermined logical Imagination was its demonstration of access to foundation boards and administra- tools to understand the relations between tors who held the purse with research money. “personal troubles and public issues” that Funding agents and white scholars thus could be used to analyze social structure served as professional gatekeepers, limiting (Treviño 2012). Mills sketched a framework or eliminating funding for research projects for “a politically aware, self-reflective and considered to be controversial or socially or publicly accessible intellectual culture” politically sensitive. The next generation of (Kemple and Mawani 2009:228). Black sociologists were more successful in Frequently referred to as “the prophet of obtaining foundation funding—provided that the New Left,” Mills’s publications Listen, they were supervised by white social scien- Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba, The Causes tists like Robert E. Park and did not engage in of World War Three, The Sociological Imagi- critical research (Stanfield 2011). nation, and “Letter to the New Left” called academics away from “civic apathy and [to] take political responsibility for their lives and Critical Sociology become revolutionizing agents” (Treviño Before the 1950s, few white male sociologists 2012:174). Mills’s critique of mainstream supported a sociology for social justice. One sociology’s political complacency, the disci- of the first was C. Wright Mills, most widely pline’s maintenance of the status quo, and its known for his critical and radical perspectives failure to analyze U.S. imperialism was a 12 American Sociological Review 85(1) life-time endeavor. His writings influenced taking place” (Gouldner 1970:49). Rather young intelligentsia in South Korea, Cuba, than considering the revolutionary opportu- Japan, Turkey, and Mexico. nity for social change resulting from marches, Mills served as a rallying point for British demonstrations, protests, and militant organi- and U.S. new leftists, primarily white male zations, conservatives only saw a disruption public intellectuals and graduate students, but to the social order. Gouldner’s (1970:53) cri- he missed the opportunity to acknowledge the tique of value-free sociology challenged political base of women, the poor, and people dominant methodological and theoretical of color. In an unpublished dissertation on assumptions in the field: Mills, R. A. Gillam (1966:76) quoted Mills as claiming, “I have never been interested in [T]he academic social sciences are the what is called the Negro problem. I have a social sciences of an alienated age and feeling that if I did, it would turn out to be ‘a alienated man. From this standpoint the pos- white problem’—and I’ve enough of these on sibility of “objectivity” in, and the call to my hands just now.” Mexican Americans who “objectivity” by, the academic social sci- read his sexist and racist commentary on the ences has a rather different meaning than Zoot Suits riots, “The Sailor, Sex Market, and that conventionally assigned. The “objectiv- Mexicans” (Mills 1943), were unlikely to ity” of the social sciences is not the expres- read more of his work. This is also true for his sion of a dispassionate and detached view of book The Puerto Rican Journey, about which the social world: it is, rather an ambivalent Treviño (2012:111) concludes, “Mills posture effort to accommodate to alienation and to vis-á-vis Puerto Ricans, both islanders and express a muted resentment of it. migrants, was elitist at best and racist at the worst.” Expecting Mills to condemn U.S. Gouldner reasoned that scholars working imperialism in Latin America during an inter- in the mainstream failed to examine their view in Mexico City, Latin American intel- assumptions and presumptions; dissidents, lectuals were surprised when instead of in contrast, developed their argument from holding imperialism responsible as the major the evidence gained from struggle. He advo- source of poverty, Mills rebuked them and cated reflexive sociology as the foundation advised them to examine their own power for “a positive vision of sociology and soci- elite (Treviño 2012). ety” (Calhoun and VanAntwerpen 2007: Another major social justice sociologist 385), which “is a conception of how to live was Alvin W. Gouldner. Unlike Mills, Gould- and a total praxis” (Gouldner 1970:504). ner (1970:399) acknowledged the importance Gouldner was reinforcing Mills’s position of the civil rights movement as “training that the aim of sociological knowledge is to ground, inspiration, and stimulus to the New be relevant to people’s “interests, hopes, Left.” Gouldner also criticized Parsons’s and values”; sociological knowledge should functionalism, which he characterized as assist individuals in understanding their value unfree, and he demonstrated that struc- position in the world and enable them to tural functionalism was loaded with conserv- control it rather than to be controlled. He ative values, including its misrepresentation maintained that sociology needed to close of poverty in urban ghettos. He pointed to the the gap between the discipline and the gen- misrepresentation by sociologists who eral public by working to develop sociology ignored the plight of Blacks by solely focus- that gives people the knowledge required to ing on the middle-class rather than the major- address social problems (Galliher and Gal- ity of individuals living in or close to poverty. liher 1995). The Coming Crisis of Western Conservatives interpreted the decline of race Sociology became “‘a kind of rallying text’ riots5 and lynching as “rapid social progress for a new generation of politically engaged Romero 13 critical sociologists” (Calhoun and VanAnt- policy while doing nothing to address social werpen 2007:384). inequality and political alienation (Rohde Both Mills and Gouldner were critical of 2013). The concern over universities’ involve- government and foundation funding; they ment with military research radicalized many expressed concern over how it set research sociology graduate students at the time and agendas and goals. In the 1950s, Mills’s cri- continues today (Brown 1988; Smart 2016). tique included the relationship between the CIA-funded Committee for Cultural Freedom Changing of the Guard and three mainstream sociologists—Edward A. Shils, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Daniel White radicals in sociology engaged the writ- Bell. Mills punctured their argument that ings of Mills and Gouldner, but there is no “political philosophies as fascism and social- avoiding the reality that white males domi- ism had become irrelevant in the postwar nated professional associations, academic period” (Treviño 2012:22). Concern about the departments, and professional publications, political motives of funded research was tied which resulted in the male European and to Mills’s (1959:101) criticism of abstract white standpoint of sociology. Many of us empiricism and the ongoing development of a would agree with Stephen Steinberg’s (2016) bureaucratic social science, which was summary: “Since its inception, sociologists already evident in the media, armed forces, have unconsciously practiced a white sociol- and universities: ogy.” What this meant for scholars of color was captured in James Moss’s (1971:122) [The] new social science has come to serve essay “In Defense of Black Studies”: whatever ends its bureaucratic clients may have in view. Those who promote and prac- The sociology that I learned, and the con- tice this style of research readily assume the cepts I internalized, were all cast within the political perspective of their bureaucratic framework of white perceptions and white clients and chieftains. . . . In so far as such interpretations. Indeed, while many will research are effective in their declared prac- dispute this, the sociology I brought away tical aims, they serve to increase the effi- with me from Columbia was the sociology ciency and the reputation—and to that of the white experience with its Anglo- extent, the prevalence—of bureaucratic Saxon and Teutonic roots. It certainly did forms of domination in modern society. not, nor does it now touch, except peripher- ally, upon the sociology of the black experi- Mills (1959:80) and many other critical ence either in this country, or in Africa or sociologists were appalled by those who put the Caribbean. Nor do I think that the expe- sociological research in “direct service to rience has been substantially different for army generals and social workers, corpora- most black scholars in America. tion managers and prison wardens.” In the 1960s, renowned sociologists participated in As the chair of Black Studies at San Fran- the counterinsurgency program, “Project cisco State College, Nathan Hare (1970:5) Camelot,” which collected data for the U.S. described one dilemma as “uniting the Black military in planning, influencing, and predict- academy with the street.” In 1968 to 1969, the ing social developments in numerous coun- Black Student Union, the Third World Libera- tries in Latin and South America, the Middle tion Front, and faculty of color organized a East, Far East, Europe, and Africa. Sociolo- strike at San Francisco State College to pro- gists in opposition to such research programs test systematic discrimination. This year argued that the military-industrial-academic marked the 50th anniversary of the College of complex was fraught with problems and was Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State Univer- an imperialist attempt to control international sity. This is also the 50th anniversary of the 14 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Chicano Moratorium, the indigenous Alcatraz sociology was not “value neutral” but engaged Occupation, and the Stonewall Riots. The social struggles: oppression, exploitation, and establishment of the College of Ethnic Stud- colonialism (Murphy 2013). Both Black soci- ies marked a time when many sociologists of ologists and insurgent white sociologists color created or found an academic home to posed questions about the power structures do community-engaged research and teaching they encountered in academic departments: and to be scholar-activists. Many race, ethnic, “What does it mean to be Black and a sociolo- and gender studies programs incorporated the gist?” and “Is it possible to be a radical and a tradition of Black sociology: activism, social sociologist?” (Smith and Killian 1974:212). justice, empirical-based research, and serving Joyce Ladner’s (1973:xxvii) answers to these as public sociologists. questions also apply to Latina/o, indigenous, Sentiments expressed by Addams, Wells, Asian Pacific American, and LGBTQ Du Bois, Mills, Gouldner, and other scholar- sociologists: activists have been adopted by generations of sociologists of color, women sociologists, and Black sociology must become more politi- others who acknowledge their positionality in cal than mainstream sociology has been. doing sociological research, teaching, and Black sociology must also develop theories service. In his chapter on Charles S. Johnson which assume the basic posture of eliminat- in Black Sociologists: Historical and Con- ing racism and systematic class oppression temporary Perspectives, Richard Robbins from the society. The myth of “value-free” begins by noting Everett Hughes’s essay on sociology becomes relevant to the Black “dilemmas and contradiction of status,” in sociologist, because he must become “pro- which he argued that race or sex may trump value,” by promoting the interests of the professional position in others’ view of a per- Black masses in his research, writings, and son’s primary characteristics. Robbins (1974: teachings. 57) applied this to the situation of Black sociologists: Beginning with Du Bois, critical race scholars have continued to challenge the myth Given the depth and pervasiveness of racism of value-free sociology. “Scientific research in the United States, if a man or woman is a does not exist in a vacuum. Its theory and historian and black, a sociologist and black, practice reflect the structure and values of then he or she is compelled to work out a society. . . . The control, exploitation and distinctive role balance between scholarship privilege that are generic components of and advocacy, between creativity and com- social oppression exist in the relation of mitment. . . . Therefore, the black social sci- researchers to researched, even though their entist owes it to himself and the black manifestations may be subtle and masked by community to fashion his own sense of bal- professional ideologies” (Blauner and Well- ance inside the work itself—objective, schol- man 1973:314–5). arly analysis of the racial situation, its history Other sociologists of color instrumental in and its structure, and passionate advocacy of founding alternative homes in the university freedom, justice, and group identity. were Frank Bonilla and Jaime Sena Rivera. In 1970, these sociologists were appointed by Many sociologists from the generation of James Blackwell, the Chair of the Committee the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power on the Status of Racial and Ethnic Minorities Movement, Chicano Movement, and Third in Sociology, to serve as members of the first World Student Movement agreed with Marx’s governing board of the Opportunities Fellow- 1885 statement that “[t]he philosophers have ship Program, known today as the Minority only interpreted the world, in various points; Fellowship Program. Frank Bonilla received the point, however, is to change it.”6 Marxian his PhD in 1959 at Harvard and Talcott Romero 15

Parsons supervised his dissertation. He held concepts are finally being incorporated into positions at MIT, Stanford University, and the sociology. LGBTQ sociologists are changing City University of New York, where he estab- previous constructions of sexuality and gen- lished the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. der. As more scholars of color enter the disci- Jaime Sena Rivera received his PhD in Sociol- pline, we have seen transformations in the ogy at the University of California-Los Ange- areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, and les. He was a member of La Junta de criminology. Teaching and research on race Sociológicos Chicanos, the Chicano caucus in and ethnicity in the discipline is finally the ASA, which became “a precursor National addressing the significance of power and Caucus of Chicano Social Scientists” (Sol- addressing domination, subordination, subju- datenko 2009:198). Along with former politi- gation, and white supremacy after decades of cal science colleagues from graduate school, using the assimilation and acculturation Rivera chaired the first meeting of the National stages that Park proposed (Jung 2009). Association of Chicana/o Scholar Activists in The gaze of white male sociologists has 1973, which set up a coordinating committee been replaced by an increasing number of that eventually became the National Associa- scholars engaging in sociology as a project of tion of Chicana/o Studies. Puerto Rican, social analysis in justice and “from the stand- Chicana/o, and Central American Studies con- point of the oppressed” (Lengermann and tinue to be fields in which many sociologists Niebrugge-Brantley 1998:161). Instead of conduct their scholarship and teaching. ignoring the role of white supremacy in immi- Although ASA has elected three women of gration legislation and law enforcement or color sociologists over the past decade, each forcing graduate students to frame their immi- of us spent most, if not our entire, academic gration research using assimilation models, careers outside of sociology departments. scholars are using intersectionality, critical Evelyn Nakano Glenn (2007:217) compared race theory, and other critical frameworks the similarities of defining and mapping a (Romero 2008). In studying racial groups, discipline with defining and mapping citizen- faculty find it more difficult to defend using ship: “Both involve matters of recognition whites as a comparison group, particularly and membership, that is, who belongs.” She when working with graduate students of continued by interrogating boundary-drawing color. More sociologists are addressing racial and exclusion of what is not included in soci- discrimination, colorism, human rights, and ology. Similar questions and concerns were state violence. Sociological studies on white- voiced by the women of color sociology ness are building on the work of Du Bois graduate students I interviewed in the 1990s (Morris 2015; Twine and Gallaher 2008). (Romero 2000, 2017). However, these transformations still are not Given the discipline’s exclusion of activist reflected in the composition of faculty or cur- and political issues, as well as the refusal to riculum in PhD sociology departments. Soci- structure traditional departments around ology departments are still not racially newly emerging scholarship on race, gender, integrated and remain predominately white and sexuality, many diverse sociologists (Romero 2017). One reason is that although abandoned sociology departments and found the number of faculty of color increases, academic homes in interdisciplinary pro- many are choosing departments other than grams (Glenn 2007). As a result of sociology sociology as their academic home. The being conducted in African and African research in these new programs and depart- American Studies, Latino/a Studies, Asian ments is solid. We are seeing more new theo- Pacific American Studies, Caribbean Studies, ries, analyses, and data returned from the Puerto Rican Studies, Indigenous Studies, interdisciplinary programs to change socio- Women and Gender Studies, and Sexuality logical theory and methods. Graduate stu- Studies, interdisciplinary approaches and dents are deciding between sociology and 16 American Sociological Review 85(1) interdisciplinary programs. We need to ask, have to be so damned nice to the Jews if I do “What is the impact of scholars leaving soci- not enjoy them” (Galliher and Galliher ology (and ASA)?” 1995:28). Former ASA president Talcott Par- I now turn to ASA’s role in contributing to sons (1942) characterized Jews as aggressive the empiricist tradition of “objectivity,” which and oversensitive to criticism in his essay, functioned to isolate and marginalize groups, “The Sociology of Modern Anti-Semitism.” particularly scholar-activists, working-class Gender inclusion has also been difficult sociologists, sociologists of color, women for the Association and has only improved in sociologists, indigenous sociologists, and the first two decades of the twenty-first cen- LGBTQ sociologists. tury. ASA did not elect its first woman presi- dent until 1952, Dorothy Swaine Thomas. It is interesting to note that her presidential American Sociological address was titled “Experiences in Interdisci- Association plinary Research.” She was married to Wil- The ASA, like the Chicago School, ignored liam I. Thomas, who served as ASA president the Atlanta School and the sociology being in 1927, which may have been an advantage conducted in the Settlement Movement. In our that helped gain support for her nomination.8 professional organization, elitism dominated The next woman was not elected until 1973 and embraced sociology as a “scientific pro- (Mirra Komarovsky) and 10 years later, Alice fession” rather than producing useful knowl- S. Rossi was elected ASA president (Roby edge for social change. One consequence has 1992). There does appear to be a shift toward been ASA’s inability to contribute applied accepting women as candidates for president, research to evidence-based social policy. As as eight white women, one African American Michael Schwartz (2017:52) pointed out, woman, one Asian American woman, and one “[t]he founding of the American Sociological Mexican American woman have been elected Society thus became the moment when the in the past two decades. exclusion of Du Boisian sociology—and all Under Alice Rossi’s leadership, the Wom- activist sociology that sought to design and en’s Caucus presented several resolutions to implement ‘schemes of social betterment’— Council that were passed. One resolution was became officially implemented.” Not only to conduct a survey of graduate programs. were Du Bois, Wells-Barnett, and most of the When the Committee on the Status of Women sociologists in the Settlement Movement not was created, the Women’s Caucus met and invited to participate in the founding conven- began organizing itself into the Sociologists tion of the American Sociological Society, but for Women in Society (Bernard 1973; Skipper, bylaws were passed to essentially exclude De Walk, and Dudley 1987). In 1978, ASA scholar-activists (Rhoades 1981).7 passed a referendum to move the 1980 Annual Meeting from Atlanta to New York in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, and they Elitism and Inclusion decided not to meet in states that did not ratify From its foundation, ASA’s tradition of elit- it. In the early 1980s, ASA initiated data col- ism marginalized sociologists who are not lection on the participation of racial minorities straight white males. There are numerous and women in governance. ASA affirmed the examples of anti-Semitic sentiments by ASA civil rights of gays and lesbians in 1979. In presidents. In Edward Ross’s (1914) writings 1991, “ASA passed a resolution opposing the we find claims that Jews had an inclination continued exclusion of gays and lesbians from for cunning criminality. When asked for an the military based on their sexual orientation” assessment of Louis Wirth’s research at (Rosich 2005:113). In 1995, ASA adopted the Tulane, William Ogburn wrote, “He has a policy to only book Annual Meetings in loca- very keen mind. He is a Jew, however,” and tions that provide legal protection against dis- in later correspondence, he asked, “Why do I crimination. In 2004, the membership Romero 17 approved the member resolution to oppose the meet in hotels that practiced racial discrimi- ban on gay marriage. nation to 1946 rather than 1934. However, it The history of Black sociologists in the does not appear that the decision was seri- Association details the longest struggle for ously applied in 1934 or 1946, because the inclusivity. Black sociologists have been issue of racial discrimination at conference members of ASA for decades, but they were hotels emerged again in 1961 at the Chase- not elected officers and many “concluded that Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis. After negotia- membership without a voice or membership tions with the hotel, ASA passed the following without power is indeed empty” (Blackwell tepid resolution: 1974:349). The first Black sociologist to be elected ASA president was E. Franklin Fra- The Association recognizes the difficulties zier in 1948, the 38th ASA president. ASA did of policy changes in the race relations area. not elect its next Black sociologist as presi- Therefore, it especially appreciates the con- dent until 1980. James E. Blackwell structive change instituted by the Hotel’s (1974:344) described the lack of action taken management in regard to the swimming by the ASA to include Black sociologists: pool. And the Association hopes that other luxury hotels in the U.S. will follow the During the early period, when the ASA was leadership and example of the Chase-Park itself a loosely organized body, no signifi- Plaza, thereby avoiding embarrassment and cant steps were taken by the organization conflict in the use of their accommodation. either to increase the number of blacks (Rhoades 1981:56) among its total membership or to incorpo- rate its few black members into its structure At the 1968 ASA annual meeting, the Cau- or to enable them to play leadership roles. cus of Black Sociologists made several reso- However, there is evidence that the most lutions to ensure their inclusion into the persistent objective of black sociologists Association’s governing body.9 They pushed regarding the association is and remains to establish the “position of Executive Spe- assimilation into the mainstream of the cialist for Minorities and Women,” “the organization. . . . In 1934 while the ASA appointment of a Committee on the Status of was holding its annual meeting in Atlantic Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Sociology,” City, Charles S. Johnson, who had already “institution of a Minority Fellowship Pro- distinguished himself as a scholar/teacher gram,” and “establishment of the Du Bois- and who would attend annual meetings of Johnson-Frazier Award Section Committee of the association for more than thirty years ASA” (Conyers 1992:51). In response to the prior to his death, was subjected to categori- lack of inclusion, the caucus founded the cal treatment (discrimination) by the hotel Association of Black Sociologists in 1970.10 management. He was ordered to use the rear Although we adopted a diversity statement elevator when entering the hotel. He refused in 1995, the controversy over racial inclusion and, consistent with external image of in leadership positions remains an ongoing learned organizations in general, the Ameri- issue. Questions concerning ASA’s commit- can Sociological Association established a ment to racial inclusion emerged over the new policy on convention sites. The policy selection of the ASR editor in 1999. In an mandates that the organization would not unprecedented action, Council rejected the hold its annual meetings at any locale which Committee on Publications’ (COP) rank- discriminated against any of its members. ordered recommendation for editor. The edito- rial proposal ranked highest was submitted by Blackwell’s recollection does not corre- Walter Allen, a professor in African American spond to the “official” ASA history listed on Studies and Sociology at UCLA. His editorial their website, which dates the decision not to board comprised a racially diverse group of 18 American Sociological Review 85(1) senior sociologists. COP publicly objected to As president of ASA I have been Council’s decision, and members supporting approached by members and section officers COP and those supporting Council’s decision expressing concerns about Association prac- attended the 1999 Business Meeting to voice tices. In one attempt to address an issue, I was their opinion. In the end, Council prevailed berated for 10 minutes by another elected and selected Charles Camic and Franklin D. officer who told me to ignore the concern Wilson as ASR editors. President Feagin because “I could not respond to every issue.” appointed a subcommittee to review the edito- As I continued to push, I was told by ASA rial process, which recommended that the staff that the person representing the section editorial selection process maintain the princi- affected was “difficult,” which was used as ple of confidentiality. Council created the the explanation to convince me that the issue Task Force on Journal Diversity to examine was unworthy. However, if “being difficult” the degree to which ASA publications met disqualifies one from ASA membership, I members’ interests in focus and methodology, don’t believe we would have any members. and to identify gaps and diversity among Over the years as secretary and president of authors, editorial boards, and editors (Rosich ASA, I have observed the unequal treatment 2005).11 Although many members have of members who get their issues and concerns pointed to the increasing number of sociolo- raised to the governing body and those who gists of color recently elected as ASA presi- fail. I have yet to observe ASA staff respond dent, I think it is much too soon to talk about to a request from a member at an elite univer- a racial shift in the ASA leadership. sity by attacking the person as “difficult.” It is absolutely critical to remember that most ASA members are not in top-ranked depart- Social Class and ASA ments; moreover, we have been footing the In the commentary on the Town Hall meeting bill with our membership dues for decades. It in Seattle that was published in Social Prob- is not unreasonable to demand that the leader- lems, Aldon Morris (2017:207) raised another ship begins to resemble the membership and troubling perspective: to expect the ASA executive office to respond to the concerns of all members. [T]he top ranked departments—20 to 30— The issues of racial, gender, and sexual exercise enormous power relative to the 200 inclusive membership and leadership, and other departments. The majority of ASA’s criticism of “apolitical” sociology, have led to leadership, authors, and editors of its presti- frequent calls for a more critical and accessi- gious journals hail from elite departments. . . . ble sociology that reaches non-academics in Elite departments open doors for certain the larger public and is inclusive of voices scholars to advise powerful actors. erased and silenced (Peters 1991). The Soci- ology Liberation Movement used the slogan, “Elite” schools have their own problems with “Knowledge for What?” to highlight the need race, social class, and gender, and the domina- to use sociological knowledge to benefit the tion by the elite schools raises a new issue of poor and powerless (Brown 1988). Alfred “social class” in academia. The prestigious McClung Lee’s 1976 conference theme was private and state colleges and universities have “Sociology for Whom?” which he followed enormous endowments and other resources at up with a book on the topic. Joe R. Feagin’s their disposal. They can host journals, which is 2000 conference theme was “Social Justice an increasingly expensive undertaking. They and Sociology in the 21st Century,” and offer faculty development grants to support Michael Burawoy’s 2004 theme called for research and can “cost share” research propos- establishing “public sociology,” that is, a als. They also have undue influence in most of sociology that transcends the academy. the professional organizations across the sci- Another measure of inclusion is the diver- ences and humanities. sity of award recipients. Although I have Romero 19 observed more awards being given to schol- sociologists could have affected public policy ars outside elite universities, I know we have in a positive direction. Just as tension exists not leveled the playing field. Prior to this between value-free science and scholar- year, only three of the 27 recipients for the activism in the discipline, the struggle is evi- Jessie Bernard career award were women of dent in the Association. Beginning with the color. Only six of the 40 recipients of the Chicago School, which staked a position as distinguished scholarship award have been professional sociology, there has been con- women and only four have been African flict over the Association’s mission to the American. None have been Asian Pacific public, the discipline, and its members. In the American, indigenous, Mexican American, 1930s, ASA committed itself to “emphasizing Central American, or Puerto Rican. Only six scientific sociology rather than applied soci- of the 32 recipients of the Cox-Johnson- ology” (Rhoades 1981:24). A memorandum Frazier Award are women. distributed at the 1931 Annual Meeting stated Not until 1980 did ASA create the annual their position as follows: teaching award for “outstanding contributions to the undergraduate and/or graduate teaching While the ultimate purpose of science is its and learning of sociology.” Our community utility for mankind, it is equally true that college members are engaged in the most science can develop only in accordance with teaching and learning of undergraduate soci- the facts of nature, whatever may be its ology in the country, yet only two of the 38 practical application. Hence the scientist recipients of the teaching award have been qua scientist should not be influenced by the from community colleges. Furthermore, practical significance of his work, whatever many community college faculty provide he may think, say and or do in other capaci- graduate students with teaching experiences ties. (Rhoades 1981:24–25) by hiring them as instructors. Yet, this train- ing is not acknowledged by the discipline or In 1931, in response to elitism, ASA presi- the Association. We all know that the nature dent Luther Bernard pushed to sever control of work in the university business model has from the University of Chicago’s sociology created a tiered workforce. At the top, still, department. This included establishing a sep- are tenured faculty, although our ranks are arate Association journal, the American Soci- thinning rapidly; at the bottom are adjuncts ological Review (ASR). In addition, Bernard who are paid by the course and offered no advocated for (1) open committee meetings, benefits; in between there is a growing (2) a new constitution, (3) unrestricted mem- “middle-class” of casual labor who have bership, (4) more women on the programs renewable three-year contracts and a benefits and on Association committees, and (5) that package. We have never explored options to the Association provide more leadership create partnerships between faculty in gradu- (Galliher and Galliher 1995). ate programs and community colleges (Strong The break from the Chicago School also 2019), much less conducted research on PhD meant the American Journal of Sociology was sociologists working outside the academy. no longer considered the official Association I now examine ASA’s controversial history journal (Bernard 1973). However, ASA mem- over welcoming sociologists who advocate bers at elite universities pushed against social for a sociology engaged in social justice and activism and humanism, which lead Bernard activism. to resign from the Association in 1938. The elitist class within the ASA still advo- cated eliminating all non-scientific activities, Social Justice and Activism limiting membership to individuals interested The ASA was founded in 1905, and I would in science, and focusing solely on programs argue that many times in our history, we and publications devoted to science. Only 20 American Sociological Review 85(1) members with a PhD or equivalent profes- the Association (Brown 1988). The resolution sional degree in sociology or a closely related was reintroduced at the 1968 Business Meet- field were eligible to be fellows. Fellows ing and was defeated again. A general melee were the only members eligible to hold and shouting match ensued between pro- and elected office, become a member of the Coun- anti-war sociologists. The Executive Council cil, or chair a standing committee. In addition responded with the following statement: “The to stratifying members, the ASA expressed ASA should not as a scientific and profes- disdain for sociologists engaged in social jus- sional organization express an official policy tice. In the end, the Association did not gain statement on political issues” (Forsythe enough support to establish a new fellow 1973:223). ASA did “urge President Johnson membership category until 1959. to give all disciplines equal deferment status In the depths of the grueling depression, in the Selective Service System” that same when Americans were fleeing the worst eco- year (Rhoades 1981:76). In 1969, Council nomic disaster in our history and fascism was “censured and condemned those persons— rising in Europe, the ASA statement bemoaned members and non-members—who disrupted consequences for not adhering to “pure” the presidential address and plenary session” science: (Rhoades 1981:60) the previous year. How- ever, “Council transferred the 1969, 1972 and The public is given the impression that the 1976 Annual Meetings out of Chicago Society is a religious, moral and social because of the treatment (that) anti-war dem- reform organization rather than a scientific onstrators received during the 1968 Demo- society. A more serious result is that in the cratic Convention” (Rhoades 1981:60). program of . . . sociology as a science of SLM’s criticism of sociology was fueled society is almost smothered under the dis- by the strong rejection of abstracted empiri- cussion of practical social problems. cism, structural functionalism, and the disci- (Rhoades 1981:25) pline’s claimed “value neutrality.” Meanwhile, sociologists had been hired by corporations, The failure to address major issues of the day the military, and the social control agents of was evident: in “a 1953 recording containing the state (Brown 1988). ASA’s stand against advice from 20 former American Sociological SLM is extremely significant, particularly in Association (ASA) presidents, only Harry light of the Association’s decision to never Pratt Fairchild mentioned a concern for social mention, much less censor, the politics of justice” (Galliher and Galliher 1995:27). To sociologists like James Coleman, Jessie Ber- his everlasting credit, Fairfield was the only nard, Neil Smelser, Lewis Coser, and many former president to address the major issues of other members of ASA who had willingly sold anticommunist hysteria and political oppres- their services to Project Camelot to study and sion of the early 1950s. The communist hyste- provide information on revolutionary move- ria in the United States also kept our discipline ments for counterinsurgency programs from attending to Marx’s contributions to (Horowitz 1974). Project Camelot demon- sociological theory for another two decades. strated the Association’s contradiction in its Probably the most divisive issue to date claim “to scientific objectivity, and to related occurred in 1967 at the Annual Meeting in ideals like value-neutrality and professional San Francisco. The Sociology Liberation autonomy” (Solovey 2001:172). Movement (SLM) proposed a resolution to Another consequence of ASA’s reluctance condemn the Vietnam War, which passed at to engage current social issues was the 1951 the Business Meeting. Having met the creation of the Society for the Study of Social required number of signatures, Council sent Problems (SSSP), which embraced a “sociol- out a mailed ballot, but members voted ogy in the development of social action pro- against the resolution as an official policy of grams that promote social justice” (Galliher Romero 21 and Galliher 1995:9). Jessie Bernard (1973: human evolution. An example of an ASA 774) recalled that members “objected to the presidential initiative is President Gamson’s elitist direction the ASA was following, its lack “initiative on Genocide and Human Rights,” of interest in social problems and issues, its which involved a Spivak workshop to address antiseptic ‘line’ on research, its cronyism, and “the need to ‘mobilize social science associa- its complacent acceptance of the increasing tions and funding organizations to respond to trend of putting sociological research at the situations of genocide and mass deaths’” and service of business and industry.” primarily focused on the Bosnia-Serbia con- The result was the silent migration of soci- flict (Rosich 2005:81). ologists away from ASA to other associa- Perhaps the most significant resolution to tions, because “the ASA is neither as pass in recent history is the 2003 members’ intellectually robust nor as professionally resolution against the War in Iraq. Sociolo- diverse as it might otherwise be” (Hill gists and Political Scientists Without Borders 2007:132). Throughout the second half of / Socilólogos Sin Fronteras is an international ASA’s history, many have argued “that the organization with national chapters advocat- structure and constraints of the ASA, as an ing human rights and working with other organization, are not congruent with the par- social scientists, NGOs, and activists. Similar ticular needs and goals of all sociologists as to the SLM anti-Vietnam War movement, sociologists” (Hill 2007:133). I believe the they presented their resolution against the tension continues to be reflected in members’ War in Iraq that had been signed by 3 percent concerns that the ASA has not been success- of the members. Rather than voting on the ful in disseminating research findings to the resolution, Council published the resolution larger public and that the discipline has not and the members voted. The resolution passed been among the leading social sciences in by 66 percent of our membership. Today, the contributing to the development of policies by-law provision that members’ resolutions and programs for city, state, and federal gov- proceed to a vote as soon as a petition gathers ernment. In addition, ASA appears extremely at least 3 percent of the voting members’ sig- slow, cautious, and conservative about what natures has been crucial in maintaining ASA issues the Association will take a public stand as a members’ organization rather than cen- on, join other associations’ positions on, or tralizing all power in the executive office and which resolutions presented by elected offic- Council (Rosich 2005).12 ers or the members will even be moved for- Council has passed several resolutions ward for a vote. members proposed at the ASA Annual Busi- In the mid-1980s, the ASA began organiz- ness Meeting, including advising the U.S. ing responses to issues with the American government to ban discrimination on the Association for the Advancement of Science basis of sexual orientation, protesting vio- (AAAS) and other national and international lence against LGBTQ individuals, supporting learned societies. Unlike the resolution pro- the rights of nonmarried domestic partners, posed by the Sociology Liberation Move- and opposing the death penalty (Rosich ment, these are requests for support from 2005:12). Member resolutions pertaining to national or international scientists or ASA Association activities that have been approved presidential initiatives. An example of an by Council include “banning the Central international request is ASA’s endorsement of Intelligence Agency from access to ASA the “Seville Statement on Violence” in 1991 employment services at Annual Meetings” (Rosich 2005:113). This statement refuted the and “calling on ASA to only use airlines that claim that war and other forms of organized have collective bargaining arrangements” human violence are biologically determined, (Rosich 2005:12–13). In 2004, the Caucus of inherited from our animal ancestors, geneti- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Sociolo- cally programed in human nature, or part of gists, the ASA Family Section, and the 22 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Sexualities Section obtained the 3 percent of scientific voice heard. This could not be more ASA voting members needed to submit a important at a time when facts have been resolution opposing a U.S. Constitutional decried by politicians as “fake.” amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. ASA’s difficult history with scholar- Seventy-nine percent of ASA membership activism and its elite tendencies are certainly opposed such legislation. important to consider in a time when the Over the past two decades, ASA has been Association continues to experience declining involved in cases of sociologists detained in membership. Although there is some overlap Egypt and China and called on “the U.S. gov- between SSSP, SWS, and ABS with ASA, ernment to strengthen its resolve to protect many members of these groups have no inter- the safety and well-being of scholars engaged est in being a member of ASA. The Associa- in scientific research in countries where basic tion is also less attractive to the many freedoms do not exist, and to speak out asser- sociologists of color who have made their tively in support of academic freedom” academic homes in critical race studies, or (Rosich 2005:81). More recently, ASA has women and LGBTQ sociologists in gender signed with other associations to support Bra- and sexuality studies. zilian and Hungarian sociologists and urged It is time for ASA, as well as the disci- “China to drop charges against the leaders of pline, to reclaim its position as a science of Occupy Central and Umbrella Movement” society and its social justice traditions. What (ASA 2019). Nevertheless, the Association would that project involve? has taken a particularly cautious approach in selecting which human rights and interna- Reclaiming Our Social Justice tional issues to respond to. Most of the issues Traditions in Sociology accepted are narrowly defined as defending scholars from persecution, opposing the To begin such a project, we must reclaim our restriction of freedom of speech, and submit- social justice traditions in sociology, which ting briefs summarizing sociological knowl- means rewriting Black sociologists back into edge related to court cases. our history, acknowledging their theoretical, The ASA has sections on the sociology of methodological, and empirical contributions. religion, and data on relations between church The same must be done to include the men and state. We have another section on “Peace, and women sociologists involved in the Set- War and Social Conflict,” and we have data tlement Movement. As we rewrite these soci- on violent nationalism and resistance to geno- ologists back into history, we need to document cide. We have whole bodies of data on the the influence that a humanist scientific agenda effects of prison and punishment. We have has had on sociological knowledge. We need studied mass shootings and we have data on to recognize that many of our heroes and hero- guns, violence, alienation, racism, and power- ines in sociology have not always advocated lessness. We study human responses to disas- for the dispossessed or have denied agency to ters in a world where both disasters and marginalized groups, and some perpetuated knowledge of disasters are becoming more patriarchy and white supremacy. To claim this common. Without question, sociologists have history is to acknowledge that our origin story data, a lot of it conclusive, on these issues. is also one of a race-, class-, and gender- Yet in the public market of ideas, our data are segregated discipline. It is not enough to seldom heard. In more than a century and a rewrite these sociologists back into the sociol- half, sociology has matured as a science. That ogy of race or sociology of gender. They need does not make us always right, it means we to be recognized in all the subfields they con- present our data and hypotheses in an arena tributed to, including theory and methods. We where other experts can evaluate, refute, or must acknowledge that from the beginning, reinforce our findings. We need to make our American sociology was a scientifically Romero 23 rigorous field that embraced social justice and family values, extended families, or opposi- the activist-scholar, as well as establishing tional culture as the sources of poverty, health public sociology and the public intellectual. problems, or unemployment. These evidence- Honoring W. E. B. Du Bois as a founding based findings are built on the assumption that father of American sociology and acknowl- social conditions only change through assimi- edging the later generation of Black male lation rather than political struggle. Rather sociologists is also not enough. Black women than dividing peoples according to social sociologists Anna Julia Cooper and Ida W. mobility and SES, we need to understand the Wells-Barnett also need to be rewritten back different distribution of rights and privileges, into sociology. To accomplish that, we need of citizenship, and the politics of race, class, to acknowledge the work of later generations and gender in maintaining or diffusing the of Black women sociologists. It is sloppy his- structures of inequality and domination (Glenn tory to identify Patricia Hill Collins as the 2011; Jung 2009). only Black feminist. Feminists have ignored From the Chicago School to the present, entire generations of Black feminist sociolo- sociology has offered up tools to rationalize gists, such as Delores P. Aldridge, Jacquelyne and legitimate social inequality (Lee 1988). Johnson Jackson, La Francis Rodgers-Rose, Another forgotten history is the “sociology Joyce Ladner, Doris Wilkerson, Vivian V. departments” established by companies, or the Gordon, and many others. Thus, the disci- state, to Americanize immigrant workers to pline’s new origin story means anyone who maintain the social hierarchy, and to discour- claims the sociology of family as an area of age labor strikes and rebellion against inequal- expertise must read Ladner’s (1977) Mixed ity. For instance, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Families: Adopting across Racial Bounda- Company (CFI) built dozens of company ries. To understand the sociology of gender, towns and maintained a “sociology depart- one must cite Ladner’s (1971) Tomorrow’s ment” to Americanize the European immi- Tomorrow: The Black Woman and other grant and Mexican American work force. Dr. works written by her generation of pioneer Corwin, the director of the Sociology Depart- sociologists and activists. ment, developed the curriculum “around An ugly part of American sociology’s his- cooking, hygiene, and other domestic skills tory has been erased—its roots in colonialism because he believed that most of the children should not be forgotten. American sociology were destined to become miners or the wives has failed to account for the fact that migration of manual laborers. . . . Corwin believed that from poorer countries to richer countries by developing their domestic skills women occurs in response to empire and colonialism would reduce drunkenness, which he defined (Go 2016, 2017). Too many sociologists as the major social problem in the coal camps” received research grants and built careers by (Romero 2002:111). Corwin defined drinking “othering” and turning their focus away from as a social problem, rather than a coping inequality and injustices of colonized indige- device for men who worked and lived in a pol- nous communities: Native Americans, Mexi- luted company town, were paid in scrip, and cans, Puerto Ricans, Caribbeans, and Pacific were kept in debt peonage. For decades, soci- Islanders. Since the 1970s, sociologists have ologists have contributed to the assimilation employed an assimilation model to explain the project of managing and controlling workers plight of refugees who fled U.S. imperialism and their families (Calhoun 2007). in Vietnam, Central America, and the Middle All knowledge production is socially situ- East. Instead of researching colonialism, or ated, subjective, and historically located. For the structure of race and inequality in the most of the history of American sociology, the United States, way too many sociologists cre- researcher’s and theorist’s standpoint has been ated measures for capturing stages of assimi- implicitly or explicitly white heterosexual lation, naming deviant lifestyles, traditional middle-class males. Reclaiming the tradition 24 American Sociological Review 85(1) of social justice in American sociology situated in critical race, gender, and postcolo- requires acknowledging the discipline’s colo- nial studies, are engaged in changing and nial roots and its service as an instrument of blurring disciplinary boundaries. the state, and recognizing that the tent is large Identifying the ways we organize ourselves enough for many sociologies, including those in hierarchical strata of tenure track and non- engaged in decolonizing the discipline. Decol- tenure track positions, research universities onizing involves excavating the standpoints versus teaching colleges or community col- previously suppressed or rendered invisible leges, teaching versus research or service, while creating an environment for other stand- empirical research versus applied research, points, world views, interests, and concerns to and the standards we use to evaluate our col- engage in knowledge production that pro- leagues for raises, tenure and promotion, motes social justice (Go 2017). funding, and awards—all of these practices The ASA offices are in Washington, DC. frame the context in which we make and teach American sociology thus speaks from the sociology. To nurture a sociology engaged in center of the empire that includes upward of social justice for a better world and replace 800 military bases around the world. The master narratives, our everyday practices need United States has taken a commanding posi- to change. In her article on (re)making sociol- tion on lines of digital communication, and it ogy, Joey Sprague (1998) asked, “How are we assumes the right to use any resources to making sociology?” The question reminds us maintain its position, regardless of social or that we need to attend to the practices used to environmental consequences. This empire has produce and reproduce ourselves. How do we been in constant warfare—some hidden, some reproduce hierarchy in the discipline and the open—since the beginning of WWII. Half of Association? Inherited capital is obtained by the federal budget is spent on the Department receiving one’s PhD from an elite university, of Defense. Sociologists need to also see the which is not common knowledge for first- world from the margins and from multiple generation students who are not mentored. perspectives. Such a project involves chal- Social and cultural capital is later used to gain lenging universal narratives and questioning entrance into high-status departments with ossified ways of thinking, allowing other pos- low teaching loads, access to prestigious uni- sibilities to emerge. Inside the empire, distor- versity presses, graduate research assistants, tions and exclusions are produced in every and increased opportunities for securing grants aspect of knowledge production. We need to (Ray 2018). The sorting and selecting process begin viewing the world from the peripheries also functions as hidden curricula to impose and seeing it from multiple perspectives (Con- and reinforce ideological compliance, which nell 2007; Steinmetz 2013). establishes additional barriers for keeping Inclusive sociology challenges universal interdisciplinary research at the margins of the narratives and questions ways of thinking, so discipline (Steinberg 2007). that other possibilities can emerge. In the dis- The institutional practices of doing sociol- cipline and the ASA, the question “Is another ogy affect the nature of sociological knowl- sociology possible?” can no longer be edge.13 We must recognize the harm that ignored. Recently, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva exclusion and elitism have done to the pro- (2017:185) wrote, “I firmly believe that duction of knowledge—to what is considered another sociology is possible. Another way of “sociology.” As Morris (2017:208) noted, doing sociology is possible because critical, “[s]cholars from resource-poor institutions engaged, and indeed, more ‘political’ sociolo- are unlikely to present at our conferences” gists are the majority. We might not be at and “this lack of contact leaves both elite and Harvard, Princeton, Wisconsin, Columbia, non-elite scholars intellectually impoverished Michigan or Chicago, but we have power in because they cannot mutually enrich each our numbers.” Our colleagues, many of them other’s sociological imagination.” The Romero 25 hierarchy of outsider and insider sociologists student debt out-stripping credit card debt, and is reproduced through everyday practices in the “privatization” of a U.S. public school our universities, departments, conferences, system that John Dewey once proclaimed was publishing, and associations (Treitler 2019). the “engine of democracy.” Detached from the “To decolonize means to reverse this tide of fact that our home is on fire. Most of us make bureaucratization” and “obsessive concern our living in academia and are aware of the with the periodic and quantitative assessment “business models” in higher education that of every facet of university functioning” threaten academic freedom. Sociological data (Mbembe 2016:31). Being reflective of our is wasted if our studies fail to affect public own social stratification and inequality in the understandings of social issues or if research discipline and the Association is a vital begin- is not applied to improving social conditions. ning to nourishing a sociology engaged in Instead of framing the ASA as a profes- social justice for a better world. sional and bureaucratic organization for Doing sociology at this crucial time of our establishing standards that legitimate the sta- history, we need to be social activists and tus quo, our Sociological Association must sociology must be engaged in social justice. I remain and strengthen itself as a democratic agree with Margaret Abraham (2019:6) who members’ collective. We must continue to wrote, serve sociological teaching, service, and research through data creation, analysis, As sociologists we have an ethical and pro- hypothesis production and testing, and pre- fessional responsibility to use our sociologi- sent our findings in a public arena where they cal imagination, the array of professional can be confirmed or disconfirmed. Most tools at our disposal, and to partner in social science should help educate social pol- addressing the many obstacles that chal- icy, if it serves other interests, business or lenge our world. . . . There still exists a gap government, it should make that standpoint between the sociological imagination and clear. The ASA should be welcoming to prac- an actual transformation of society. titioners and researchers engaged in applied projects addressing social issues, and it should If there are future American sociologists, they incorporate interdisciplinary knowledge in will judge us harshly if they read sociologists preparing students and professors to meet arguing for an abstract quantitative social sci- new national and international challenges for ence that tabulates data but is detached from transforming our world. Our ASA dues and social policy. Detached from the climate crisis participation must be used to serve scholars of rising waters, burning forests, and violence and faculty in all educational institutions— toward refugees’ seeking shelter. Detached from the most elite to your local community from an empire bankrupting itself in foreign college offering Sociology 101. Our disci- wars while its homeless citizens die on the pline and association can overcome its tainted streets of glittering cities. Detached from tech- history. nologies of social control that make finger prints and mug shots quaint. Detached from Acknowledgments growing inequalities when the top 5 percent of Without the pathbreaking writings of Mary Jo Duggen, households own 35 percent of the nation’s Patricia Madoo Lengermann, Gillian Niebrugge, A. wealth. Detached from mass shootings facili- Javier Treviño, Aldon Morris, Earl Wright II, and other tated by a culture that venerates guns—mass scholars on the history of the discipline and the ASA, this murders that appeared aimless at first but are project would not have been possible. I appreciate Aldon increasingly fueled by hate against immi- Morris offering critical criticism on my presentation and his assistance in identifying sources. Michael Schwartz grants, Black, brown, or gay people. Detached also pointed me in the direction of helpful sources. I from K–12 schools and state colleges and relied heavily on Eric Margolis for his critical sociologi- universities being systematically defunded, cal perspective and his expertise in visual sociology. 26 American Sociological Review 85(1)

Notes 10. The Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities was started in 1981; the Asia and Asian America Section 1. Albion Small essentially erased applied sociology began in 1986. As mentioned earlier, the Chicano from the discipline (Sica 1989). Caucus also formed in 1970 but did not become the 2 The lack of empirical evidence in articles published Latina/o Section until 1994. I was elected as the by sociologists outside the Settlement Movement or first chair. HBCUs is demonstrated in Mary Taylor Blauvelt’s 11. The journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity was (1901) article, “The Race Problem: As Discussed not initiated by the Committee on Publications by Negro Women,” which is only one among many (COP) and is a section journal. Council recognized publications. the need for such a journal and did not want ASA to 3. Black sociologists traditionally identified as the first repeat the same mistake as they did in rejecting the generation—Charles S. Johnson, E. Franklin Frazier, Sociology of Sex section’s journal, which became and Oliver Cox—were all trained at white universi- Gender & Society—a highly profitable journal. ties and had white mentors in the 1920s and 1930s. COP has not taken much initiative over the decades 4. However, Deegan (1988:12) notes that E. A. Ross to identify gaps in ASA journals. recommended Addams’s writings to graduate stu- 12. “With the rise of the ASA executive office, the ASA dents as “the best sociological books to read” and president has become much less responsible for Charles Cooley cited her seven times in Social ordinary bureaucratic tasks and typically concen- Organization. trates his or her energies on chairing the Program 5. It is important to remember that the term “race riot” Committee and presiding at the Council meetings” abruptly flipped its meaning. Before the 1960s it (Hill 2007:133). referred to outbreaks of racial violence when white 13. Lee (1988:166) reminds us that “[p]eople are often mobs attacked Black neighborhoods, murder- unaware of their sexism, their class-oriented values ing and burning everything and everyone in sight, and ethnocentrism and racism, but those bias are as occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. In the costly to all of us.” 1960s, the term was applied to riots in the Black ghettos when African Americans began to attack white-owned businesses in response to events like References the bombing of black churches and police violence Abbott, Alison. 2019. “Hungarian Government Takes (e.g., Birmingham in 1963 and Harlem in 1964). Control of Research Institutes Despite Outcry.” 6. The 1960s saw an explosion of Marxist studies. Nature. Retrieved September 23, 2019 (https://www In 1967, Easton and Guddat published the first .nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02107-4). English edition of Writings of the Young Marx on Abraham, Margaret. 2019. “Introduction: Sociology and Philosophy and Society (Marx 1818–1883) (from Social Justice.” Pp. 1–19 in Sociology and Social Jus- which this quote was taken). To explore the ripples tice, edited by M. Abraham. Los Angeles: Sage. renewed interest in Marxism made in the sociologi- American Sociological Association (ASA). 2019. “ASA cal pond is far beyond the scope of this address. on the Issues.” Washington, DC: American Socio- Suffice it to say it spurred Marxist sociology, which logical Association. Retrieved July 23, 2019 (https:// is now an active ASA section, and inspired theoreti- www.asanet.org/news-events/asa-issues). cal and methodological work in all branches of the Appelbaum, Binyamin. 2017. “Trump Tax Plan Ben- social sciences and humanities. efits Wealthy, Including Trump.” New York Times. 7. As Michael Schwarz quipped, if women and people Retrieved September 23, 2019 (https://www.nytimes of color had participated, they would not have cho- .com/2017/09/27/us/politics/trump-tax-plan-wealthy- sen a name with such a silly acronym. middle-class-poor.html). 8. The election of Dorothy Swaine Thomas was not a Arango, Tim, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, and Katie Ben- turn away from elitism or racism in the discipline. ner. 2019. “Minutes before El Paso Killing, Hate- One need look no further than the ethical problems Filled Manifesto Appears Online.” New York Times. in her Japanese and Resettlement Study (JERS). Retrieved September 5, 2019 (https://www.nytimes She hired interned Japanese American students .com/2019/08/03/us/patrick-crusius-el-paso-shooter- to serve as participant observers while they were manifesto.html). dependent on “Thomas and other white research- Balingit, Moriah. 2017. “DeVos Rescinds 72 Guidance ers for academic opportunities” (Inouye 2012:324), Documents Outlining Rights for Disabled Students.” thus ensuring their compliance. The Washington Post. Retrieved September 24, 2019 9. To understand the level of racism and elitism appar- (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/ ent among ASA members in the late 1960s, I recom- wp/2017/10/21/devos-rescinds-72-guidance-docu mend reading Ernest Van den Haag’s (1969) letter ments-outlining-rights-for-disabled-students/). in response to the Black Caucus’s recommenda- Bernard, Jessie. 1973. “My Four Revolutions: An Auto- tions, which was published in The American Soci- biographical History of the ASA.” American Journal ologist. of Sociology 78(4):773–91. Romero 27

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Solovey, Mark. 2001. “Project Camelot and the 1960s Wells-Barnett, Ida B. [1892] 2017. Southern Horrors, Epistemological Revolution: Rethinking the Politics- Lynch Law in All its Phases. Lexington, KY: Satya Patronage-Social Science Nexus.” Social Studies of Books. Science 31(2):171–206. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. 1895. The Red Record: Tabulated Sprague, Joey. 1998. “(Re)Making Sociology: Breaking Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the the Bonds of Our Discipline.” Contemporary Sociol- United States. Chicago: Donohue and Henneberry ogy 27(1):21–28. (Republished in 2015 by Cavalier Classics). Stanfield, John H. II. 2011. Historical Foundations of Woods, Robert A., and Albert J. Kennedy. [1911] 1970. Black Reflective Sociology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Handbook of Settlements. New York: Arno Press (first Coast Press. published by Russell Sage Foundation in 1911). Steinberg, Stephen. 2007. Race Relations: A Critique. Wright, Earl II. 2010. “The Tradition of Sociology at Fisk Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. University.” Journal of African American Studies Steinberg, Stephen. 2016. “Decolonizing Sociol- 14(1):62–76. ogy.” Stanford University Press Blog. Retrieved Wright, Earl II. 2016. The First American School of Soci- May 15, 2019 (https://stanfordpress.typepad.com/ ology: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Atlanta Sociological blog/2016/08/decolonizing-sociology.html). Laboratory. New York: Routledge/Ashgate Publish- Steinmetz, George, ed. 2013. Sociology and Empire: The ing Company. Imperial Entanglements of a Discipline. Durham, Wright, Earl II, and Thomas C. Calhoun. 2006. “Jim NC: Duke University Press. Crow Sociology: Toward an Understanding of the Strong, Myron T. 2019. “The Emperor Has New Clothes: Origin and Principles of Black Sociology via the How Outsider Sociology Can Shift the Discipline.” Atlanta Sociological Laboratory.” Sociological Focus Sociological Forum 34(1):245–52. 39(1):1–18. Taylor, Lea D. 1954. “The Social Settlement and Civic Responsibility: The Life Work of Mary McDowell and Graham Taylor.” Social Service Review 28(1):31–40. Mary Romero is Professor of Justice and Social Inquiry Torricelli, Robert, and Andrew Carroll, eds. 1999. In Our in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American University. She is the 2017 recipient of the Cox-Johnson- Century. New York: Washington Square Press. Frazier Award, 2015 Latina/o Sociology Section Found- Treitler, Vilna Bashi. 2019. “Outsider Scholars and Out- ers Award, 2012 Julian Samora Distinguished Career sider Sociologists,” Sociological Forum 34(1):201–12. Award, the Section on Race and Ethnic Minorities 2009 Treviño, A. Javier. 2012. The Social Thought of C. Wright Founder’s Award, and the 2004 Study of Social Problems Mills. Los Angeles: Sage. Lee Founders Award. She is the author of Introducing Twine, France Winddance, and Charles Gallagher. 2008. Intersectionality (Polity Press 2018), The Maid’s Daugh- “The Future of Whiteness: A Map of the ‘Third ter: Inside and Outside the American Dream (NYU Wave.’” Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(1):4–24. 2011), Maid in the U.S.A. (NYU 1992), numerous social Van den Haag, Ernest. 1969. “Blackness and Compe- science journals and law review articles, and co-editor of tence.” The American Sociologist 4(1):52–53. eight books.