Students, faculty, and staff filled Old Library’s Great Hall on Nov. 18 to hear Loretta J. Ross, a visiting professor of clinical practice at Smith College, give a talk on “Calling in the Call Out Culture.”
Ross, whose honors include being named a 2022 MacArthur Fellow, brings her message of uniting people to make change in the era of cancel culture to audiences across the country. Her latest book, Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel, will be published in February 2025.
She joined the women's movement in 1978 by working at the first rape crisis center in the country and learned about women's human rights, reproductive justice, white supremacy, and women of color organizing. She researched and fought hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1990s; founded a national center for teaching people about their human rights; and co-founded SisterSong, a reproductive justice collective for women of color.
In her talk, Ross stressed that calling in is a conscious decision that helps both the individual who makes it and the cause they wish to advance.
“Calling in is what you do for yourself, not for other people,” Ross told the audience. “We cannot turn into an oppressor just because we are being oppressed…Calling in is the process, human rights are the goal.”
She went on to talk about the need to build coalitions among disparate groups.
“Many different people might have different thoughts on particular issues, but they can move in the same direction,” said Ross. “Everyone moving in the same direction with the same thoughts is a cult. People want to be heard more than they want to be agreed with…Toni Cade Bambara used to say, ‘We’ve got to make the revolution irresistible.’ When I read those words in 1970, when I was 16 years old, I didn’t know what they meant. But now I know, nobody wants to join a movement that makes them feel worse about themselves.”
Ross’ talk is part of the Presidential Series on Dialogue and Community, and President Wendy Cadge opened the event by welcoming Ross to campus. The series brings visiting experts, artists, and thinkers to the Bryn Mawr campus to share their work with.
“Professor Ross’s focus on calling each other into conversation, not simply to maintain harmony, but rather to move society forward towards justice, is a model worth emulating,” said Cadge. “While our efforts to call each other in may at times feel small in the larger scheme of world events, I am confident that small actions are indeed transformative and behind every great movement for change.”
Dean for Equity, Inclusion, and Community Life Ann-Therese Ortíz helped organize the event and gave brief remarks. Students Arisha Dolwani ’26, Kit Briggs ’25, and Veronica Mellado ’26, who all serve as Community Diversity Assistants, also took part in the event. Dolwani introduced Ross and Briggs and Mellado led a Q&A session with Ross after her main presentation. After taking questions from Briggs and Mellado, Ross finished the evening by fielding questions from the audience.
The Presidential Series on Dialogue and Community, formerly known as the Advancing Inclusive Excellence Series, was launched in spring 2023 to deepen the work already happening on campus to realize the vision expressed in Bryn Mawr's mission statement that "equity and inclusion serve as the engine for excellence and innovation."
Spring 2025 events are currently in the planning stages and will be announced next semester.