Woes of a budding Researcher

I often distract myself from the woes of the world by surrounding myself with research and non-fiction reading. Unfortunately, this tactic is failing to help me this week. Why?

Donald. McFucking. Trump.

The last years of grad school

For those who don't know what grad school is like, I finished all my classes and coursework last year. This academic year, my focus is completing my comps and starting my dissertation research. Comps are short for "comprehensive exams." In my department, you choose 3 topics in your field with 3 to 4 research questions per topic and 30 to 40 texts you need to read for each topic. You are given ~3 hours to respond to 1 randomly selected research question for each topic; one takes place, then the next week, the other two take place at the same time. Afterwards, you do an oral defense (a discussion, I'm told) with your dissertation committee where you talk about what you wrote the week after the second exam. Afterwards, you're given the status of ABD (all but dissertation); all you have to do afterwards is a dissertation proposal, the dissertation research and readings, and write the dissertation. It all ends in a final dissertation defense (which I'm told is more like a presentation).

Executive Orders

Okay, back to the issue at hand. I'm planning to take my comps at the end of this month. I have completed reading ~75 of my 90 readings. What's the issue then? My topics were ones I'd love to teach and plan to publish research in: composition research methods, accessibility in the writing classroom, and of course, dis/ability studies (my research passion). Two of these three topics just got a lot harder to share research with, teach, and get published in. Donald Trump instituted executive orders banning certain words and terms in scientific and medical publications including the CDC. First, banned words seemed to target transgender and LGBT+ communities. Later last week, more banned words have been leaked targeting women, certain races and ethnicities, bias, diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. Earlier, NSF funding was frozen with plans to exclude funding for research using such words.

a partial list of banned words (2025).

Publishing

My first thought when seeing this news was twofold: my chances of working at a university as a researcher and tenure-track professor is fucked, and my ability to research for a dissertation project focusing on accessibility is fucked. In short, I'm fucked. I believe this partially because of a common institutional practice called "publish or perish," where researchers are extremely less likely to get and keep tenure-track jobs if they do not publish their research in high-quality (chosen by the field, often) academic journals that require a peer-review process. Currently, I have 2 publications under review for publication this year; both are about accessibility, disability, and intersectionality. Now, I worry if my work will be accepted or rejected solely for words used. I also worry I won't be getting published in high-quality journals if they fall victim to these lousy executive orders. Considering that this is happening when I am about to go on the academic job market and become ABD, I feel especially unfortunate.

Perishing

It feels personal, too. So far, Trump has made executive orders that wage war against everything I am as a mixed-race, asexual, female-at-birth, childless by choice, dis/ability researcher and educator. What I want to do if encourage people in research institutions and high positions to just ignore Trump's orders. There's more of us than there are of him. I added every banned word as a tag as a shining light against Trump's longing to control and demean me and other Americans who deserve protection. Freedom of speech is only over if we let them muzzle us. I can't stop my research passions just because Trump doesn't like it. I also am already struggling as a broke graduate student, and am scared what the future holds for me after my hard work in grad school. Honestly, I don't think I can change who I am for money. I will perish screaming until Trump drowns me.

Anyway, research is an embodied process and I might be stepping away from all my social media for a few weeks to focus on my comps and mentally get in a better headspace. Just be aware that Trump is taking away freedom of speech and freedom of the press. What rights will he come for next? Stay alert, stay safe, stay alive.

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