<p>Malini Johar Schueller unpacks critical race reading and the role of discomfort in the classroom on episode 625 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.<br /> <div id="" class="one-half first divwrap clearfix" /></p> <h2>Quotes from the episode</h2> <p><!-- PRODUCTION SUPPORT: replace the two lines below with the quote-graphic <img> tag (full size, Center alignment) and any plain-text quotes, each followed by -Malini Johar Schueller on its own line --><br /> <img decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21395" src="https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png" alt="Racism is a permanent structural feature of American society, and law alone, as now we have it, cannot deal with racism because racism is also part of law." width="930" height="620" srcset="https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:930/h:620/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 930w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:300/h:200/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 300w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:768/h:512/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 768w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:600/h:400/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 600w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:360/h:240/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 360w, https://images.coachingforleaders.com/cb:ztCJ~31fd5/w:930/h:620/q:mauto/f:best/ig:avif/dpr:2/https://teachinginhighered.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/TIHE625-1.png 2x" sizes="(max-width: 930px) 100vw, 930px" /></p> <p>Racism is a permanent structural feature of American society, and law alone, as now we have it, cannot deal with racism because racism is also part of law.<br /> -Malini Johar Schueller</p> <p>Critical race reading takes off from that, and it asks, is there a way of reading&#8230; that can awaken us to questions of racial privilege and hierarchy, but without us imagining that we have taken over somebody&#8217;s place?<br /> -Malini Johar Schueller</p> <p>Critical empathy, where you feel for others and you feel the injustice of others, but you also feel differently, you know, differently.<br /> -Malini Johar Schueller</p> <p>Some level of discomfort is fine for learning, because if learning doesn&#8217;t produce any kind of discomfort, you haven&#8217;t moved outside your zone of what you already know.<br /> -Malini Johar Schueller<br /> </div><div id="" class="one-half divwrap clearfix" /></p> <h2>Resources</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/books/teaching-solidarity/"><em>Teaching Solidarity: Critical Race Reading</em>, by Malini Johar Schueller</a></li> <li><a href="https://malinischueller.wordpress.com/">Malini Johar Schueller&#8217;s personal site</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberl%C3%A9_Crenshaw">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_J._Williams">Patricia Williams</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_treatment">Disparate treatment</a> vs. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact">disparate impact</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_1619_Project">The 1619 Project</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshana_Felman">Shoshana Felman</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-9781501314131/"><em>Pedagogy of the Oppressed</em>, by Paulo Freire</a></li> <li><em><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203700280/teaching-transgress-bell-hooks">Teaching to Transgress, by bell hooks</a></em></li> <li><a href="https://www.sunitasah.com/defy"><em>Defy: The Power of Saying No in a World That Demands Yes</em>, by Sunita Sah</a></li> <li><a href="https://jessestommel.com/">Jesse Stommel</a> on <a href="https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/how-to-be-together-in-learning-online/">Episode 320</a></li> <li><a href="https://pudding.cool/2026/03/ivf/">Journey through infertility (Pudding, March 2026)</a></li> </ul> <p></div></p>