Browsing by Author "Wright, Robin"

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    Liberty, Guns, And Pocket Constitutions: Constructing A White Nation Through Legal Discourse In The Pacific Northwest
    (2022-04) Wright, Robin
    This dissertation investigates the mainstreaming of far-right politics by examining the production of a right-wing discourse focused on the radical defense of the U.S. Constitution in the Pacific Northwest. Despite its progressive image, The Pacific Northwest is a compelling site for analysis, as Euro-American settlers have long sought to render the region as a place reserved for white residents. Through a series of case studies exploring campaigns ranging from gun ownership to First Amendment rights, I argue that activists mobilize a conservative constitutional discourse to re-establish white territorial control at the local and regional level. Examining the circulation of this conservative constitutional discourse, I demonstrate the extent to which activists use constitutionally coded-appeals to position white able-bodied men as the legitimate representatives of “the people.” I show that in doing so, activists engage a constitutional discourse that reproduces the legal, political, and cultural conditions of possibility for white supremacist systems while disavowing an explicit logic of racial superiority. My research demonstrates how right-wing movements use a constitutional discourse to channel regional concerns about changing demographics and shifting representation into white nationalist demands. I thus contend that this constitutional discourse enables a paradoxical turn to extra-legal and sometimes violent actions, as right-wing activists disrupt and delegitimize state action while asserting their own popular authority as the sovereign. My dissertation makes an important contribution to geography, critical race studies, and legal studies by showing how a socio-spatial analysis of law must be mobilized in order to understand the shifting ideologies of race shaping contemporary right-wing movements.
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    Transforming the University of Minnesota: Preliminary Recommendations of the Task Force on Undergraduate Reform: Student Support
    (University of Minnesota, 2005-12-12) Maple, Kate; Wright, Robin
    To help achieve an outcomes-driven, student-centered approach to undergraduate education and support, we recommend that the University develop an approach that will provide campus-wide coordination and ensure accountability for student support programs and functions. This approach should also develop outcomes, gather data, and assess effectiveness, for all aspects of undergraduate education, support, and service. Together with data relevant to other facets of the University’s mission, this assessment plan and resulting data should drive the University’s decisions about funding, continuation of current programs, development of new programs, assignment of space, new construction, hiring, and other resources.