Chapter 8: Resisting the Grind: ADHD Faculty and the Neoliberal University

The ideology of neoliberalism serves to obscure the true costs of neoliberal influence on university campuses. In recent decades, for example, university faculty have increasingly come to be viewed as “employees” serving “clients,” a move that serves to centralize power in the workplace, undermine academic independence, and justify increasing faculty workloads. These trends are bad news for faculty with disabilities, including those who live with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), because they have served to perpetuate ableism in the academic workplace. This chapter includes a brief autoethnographic account of academic work life written from the perspective of a faculty member who lives with ADHD. It concludes with a call for a two-pronged response to neoliberal demands for hyper-productivity. Such a response would combine appropriate workplace accommodations with the promotion of modes of self-care that prioritize critical reflection.