I went into journalism to fight for justice and encountered this eye opener at my first newspaper job in Rochester, New York, quite a while back: Women couldn’t be police reporters because the editors – white, male – insisted the beat was too dangerous for them to be in the streets; Italian Americans were not allowed to write metro news and were consigned to the sports section; blacks were not allowed in sports and Spanish Speaking people were not allowed in the building, let alone the newsroom.
And so I wanted to teach college where I thought I could continue a good fight. And, of course, that led to another eye opener.