Rahuldeep Gill, an associate professor of religion, is visibly different as a Sikh at California Lutheran University and has often felt alienated during his nine years there.
Faculty members of color, he says, are “hypervisible when they needed us to be in glossy brochures and invisible when it came to our needs.” A member of a new task force created to help the university understand how to recruit and retain minority professors, he recounts several incidents of harassment and microaggressions. He was asked if his turban could double as an umbrella, and told he didn’t look Lutheran.
“It’s not curiosity, it’s ignorance, which is maliciousness,” he says. “Curiosity involves dignity.”…