When she received tenure at Wellesley College — which, in this memoir, is simply called The College — she was the only tenured African-American woman on a faculty of 200. And so it’s surely unsurprising that her situation was full of conflicts.
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Piper describes her elaborate, ongoing conflicts with her college administration: She wanted to pursue her career as artist, she had serious health difficulties, and she had to take care of her mother, who was extremely ill. And, by her own account, she was singularly unsuccessful at gaining support from her colleagues, or the professional associations of philosophers. After 9/11, following prolonged legal battles, she discovered that she was on the “Suspicious Travelers Watch List”; in response, she refused to return to the United States, and her tenured position was terminated.