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At the Rise of JEDI: Lessons Learned from Fall of Jedi Order in Star Wars

1 January 2022 1,215 views One Comment
The JEDI Corner is a regular component of Amstat News in which statisticians write about and educate our community about JEDI-related matters. If you have an idea or article for the column, email JEDI Outreach Group member Cathy Furlong.
Shu-Min LiaoShu-Min Liao is an assistant professor of statistics at Amherst College. She completed her PhD training in statistics at The Pennsylvania State University in 2009, but her professional career was unfortunately interrupted by life-threatening medical complications in 2013–2018. She is currently living with multiple disabilities and minority identities—all of which make her a better educator and researcher. Sparked by those unusual experiences, Shu-Min is passionate about STEM Education research and antiracism work (besides discrete copula modeling). She is a member of the ASA JEDI Outreach Group and a faculty facilitator for the “Being Human in STEM” course at Amherst College.

This summer, I enjoyed the fun of watching all three Star Wars trilogies in chronological order with my nine-year-old boy. He is finally old enough to enjoy those films with me; plus, not being able to travel during the pandemic gave us time (or excuses?) to watch all the movies on nine Friday nights.

Far from being a Star Wars fan, I was delighted to see the new ASA outreach group named JEDI—an abbreviation for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. But when I told my son (shortly after JSM 2021) that his mom wants to be a JEDI, he responded without even blinking his eyes, “Nah, I want to be Darth Vader, or Kylo Ren, but not a Jedi; the Jedi failed anyway.” [Disclosure: We hadn’t watched the last film, The Rise of Skywalker, at that point.]

Was my boy right? If so, why did the Jedi (Order) fail?

A few quick Google searches led me to hundreds, if not thousands, of discussions about this topic. While, unsurprisingly, different people had different views and interpretations of why the Jedi failed, what astonished me the most was the similarities between the problems the Jedi were facing in the Skywalker saga and those we are facing in academia today.

Let me explain.

Hierarchical Power Structure and Privilege: As the CBR.com article, “Blight Side of the Force: The 15 Most Evil Things About the Jedi Order,” stated, “The pyramidal hierarchy of the Jedi Order is topped with the extremely powerful Jedi High Council. … With long-lived members like Yoda and Plo Koon, the Order could potentially be ruled by the same individuals for centuries, greatly limiting the diversity and natural evolution of Jedi leadership with the times.” Only the most powerful Jedi could join the Council, which had the power and privilege to decide the destinies of other Jedi (including who/when to be promoted as a Jedi Master) and the fate of the galaxy.

Such hierarchy is nothing new in academia. As Brian Martin pointed out in Chapter 3 of Tied Knowledge: Power in Higher Education, “Universities are hierarchical. … The academic hierarchy, like other hierarchies, is a system in which people exercise power not by virtue of their personal talents but by virtue of the position they occupy.”

More recently, Emma Benn in the Leadership in Statistics and Data Science chapter Power and Privilege: Reshaping the Opportunity Structure for Equitable Leadership in Statistics and Data Science, provided an incisive description of the relationship between power and privilege: “There are endowed benefits for individuals who are granted control or authority over others and this can leave those under their control at risk for harm.”

Both statements sparked me to ask: Who has the power and privilege in our system? Who is at risk? How can we use power and privilege to “serve and build,” rather than “destroy and take”?

Problematic Dichotomy: The Jedi are light and good, while the Sith are dark and bad. Nothing in between. But aren’t light and dark “two sides of the same coin”? No dark, no light. The Jedi arrogantly claimed they were the sole gatekeeper of the Force, but who decided the Jedi’s perspectives about the Force were more “correct” than those of the Sith’s?

In academia, similar dichotomy is everywhere. For example, here is some advice I’ve gotten from senior colleagues over the years:

  • “You should try to work on more popular topics; otherwise, it would be very hard for you to get grants.”
  • “You should focus on methodological research, rather than pedagogical research, as statistics education research would only count as real research if it’s funded.”
  • “Antiracism and JEDI works are important, but unfortunately you won’t get tenured with them.”

Getting more publications and grants is good; others are subordinate. Research is more important than teaching and service. People with tenure are more successful (and have more voice and power) than those without. How many of us ever questioned whose criteria is good, who defines success, who decides which types of scholarship or research are more significant than others?

Rigid System with Little Room for Humanity or Failure: The Jedi Order throughout the prequel-era was dogmatic and used rigid criteria to decide who was Force-sensitive and who wasn’t. They believed 8- or 9-year-old kids were too old to begin Jedi training. Most Jedi were recruited when they were toddlers or little kids and forbidden to have emotional bonds (like love) or negative feelings (like anger), as those human emotions were viewed as the passageway to the Dark side. How dehumanizing!

If you believe our academic system is better than the Jedi’s, please think again. For most tenure-track positions, you only have five years to establish a new, independent, and successful research agenda, so make sure you choose your research topics carefully, especially if you don’t have a ‘powerful’ academic family to pave the road for you. Moreover, make no mistake, as you probably won’t have enough time to start a new research line from scratch if you fail. Failure is unfortunately forbidden. Long vacations are missions impossible. Remember to bring your research with you on all family trips. Don’t think about self-care, as that is just a waste of time. Oh, also reveal no weakness or tears in front of students and colleagues, as those are signs of losers. [Okay, I’m exaggerating here, but you get the point.]

How about our students? The structural inequity and injustice they face is no less—it might be more—than junior faculty, especially for those from equity-seeking groups. According to Joe Feldman, author of Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms, students are on the bottom of the academic power hierarchy (especially those coming from disadvantaged families) and have little say in what should be taught in class and how, even though it’s for their learning.

Most colleges and universities, at best, provide equal, but not necessarily equitable, resources to students, which penalizes those arriving to college with inequitable preparation along with a grading system designed with the privileged in mind.

Dichotomy is everywhere in student life, too—good vs. bad grades, winners vs. losers, popular vs. nerd, rich vs. poor, white vs. non-white, etc. Further, higher education rarely prepares students for unavoidable failures and challenges in life. We do little to help young adults understand their unique identities and strengths or to learn self-care skills for promoting life-long mental health. Some might argue it’s not the faculty’s job, but shouldn’t we—the educators—educate not only students’ brains, but also their hearts?

Solutions? My favorite novelist, Haruki Murakami, said a decade ago:

We are all human beings, individuals transcending nationality and race and religion, and we are all fragile eggs faced with a solid wall called The System. To all appearances, we have no hope of winning. The wall is too high, too strong, and too cold. If we have any hope of victory at all, it will have to come from our believing in the utter uniqueness and irreplaceability of our own and others’ souls and from our believing in the warmth we gain by joining souls together. … The System did not make us; we made the System.

May the Force be with us!

Additional Resources
Propelled by Possibility: Tarana Burke Speaks at TEDWomen 2018

Murakami, Haruki. 2009. Always on the Side of the Egg. Haaretz.com.

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One Comment »

  • Eric Jay Daza said:

    I loved this piece! Great reflection on how the values of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion weren’t actually embodied by the Star Wars Jedi order—and how we are striving to create real-world changes that reflect these values, far beyond these popular science-fiction tales.