The dark side of moral outrage: Understanding the risks to long-term, meaningful community development work in higher learning

ABSTRACT

Social justice is a critical and increasingly utilized frame for organizing academic endeavors. As such it is important for academic communities to have meaningful conversations about the implications of social justice activities in their praxis. While recognizing many forms, this article is focused on the juxtaposition of academic activism and community development-based work. These activities can be complimentary and offer rich options for engagement by faculty and students in social change work. Yet there remain tensions between these activities in the absence of institutional or disciplinary guidelines for best practice. This article explores the “dark side” of these tensions and their consequences for faculty and communities. This paper also presents a call to action for faculty and institutions doing this work to center communities first and foremost to mitigate the potential devastation for community partners, who are as engaged in social change work but lack the same institutional protections.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtue signaling
• community-based research
• social justice
• higher education
• community development
• scholar activist

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).