Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic washed over the already uneven landscape of legal academia with an unrelenting force, hitting the most vulnerable most harshly while leaving others bobbing or churning in the waves, loosening the tethers to the social and institutional structures that had previously supported them. Some of the most devastating losses were unsurprising and indeed played out as had long been feared or predicted in times of crisis. Other harms played out in entirely new ways, creating new scars and obstacles. As we survey the changes brought across this landscape in the pandemic's wake, several emerging themes deserve further scrutiny and attention from the academy.
First, as the quote above laments, many of the pandemic's impacts on academia were not only asymmetrical and inequitable but also often operated with a particularly twisted or cruel logic. Measures meant to protect became shackles, while those who most needed a safety net or support found themselves becoming the safety nets and support of last resort. The negative health and social impacts of the pandemic and related safety measures put in place by institutional actors fell not only unevenly, but even worse, compounded one another and accumulated along and reinforced the lines of marginalization. Many of the perverse incentives embedded within academia were sharpened, further entrenching the disparate impacts and dynamics of hierarchy and power. Finally, the pandemic that began with a bang ended with a whimper, with its aftereffects continuing to ripple through and multiply throughout all levels of academia, though increasingly met with indifference or inaction as the world moved on.
This article aims to provide a snapshot of the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on caregivers in legal academia, focusing on some of its continuing impacts and implications and lessons we might draw for a more equitable future. It seeks to characterize and explain how the dichotomies, harsh logic and perverse incentives visible in the ways that the pandemic played out impacted academic caregivers and created what we might call a crucible for care work that has led us to a critical point in the social and institutional recognition of care work and caregivers. Applying principles from vulnerability theory, the article argues that we can and must flip this script by re-orienting academic support systems and dynamics around new logics and systems that build and support resilience, innovation, and human potential, rather than require and exploit them. It concludes with a call for dialogue and action, highlighting some of the opportunities and pathways we might pursue to achieve such goals during this pivotal moment of possibility and change.
Recommended Citation
Shruti Rana,
Caring for the Caregivers: Reimagining Institutional Recognition of Caregiving Work after the COVID Care Crisis, 53 Southwestern Law Review 110
(2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/facpubs/1314