This podcast discusses the initial results of a literature review of research published since 2010 on the issues of corporatization of higher education and marginalization of culturally and racially diverse academic laborers. Conducted by S A Hamed Hosseini, the review aimed to explore how the literature reflects the way the corporatization of universities reshapes academic work and reproduces inequality.

Since the rise of the neoliberal state, intensified market pressures in many countries have led to education being treated as a business and knowledge as a commodity, fundamentally altering the academic landscape.

The podcast will reveal how these changes disproportionately impact faculty and staff from ethnically, racially, and culturally minoritized groups, particularly at the intersections of gender, class, nationality, and other identities.

Listeners will learn about the key features of the "neoliberal university," including business-like governance, a focus on performance metrics, and a shift from education as a public good to a private investment.

Core themes to be explored include:

• The rise of a two-tier faculty system, or adjunctification, has created a growing "underclass" of contingent instructors disproportionately populated by women and people of color. These academics often face "double marginalization" due to job precarity and identity-based exclusion.

• Inequitable workloads and expectations, such as "cultural taxation," where minoritized faculty undertake disproportionate service related to diversity, often uncredited in promotions. They also face bias and double standards in performance evaluations, frequently needing to "work harder to prove one’s worth."

• The impact of a "student-as-consumer" culture, where faculty are expected to cater to student satisfaction, and student evaluations are heavily weighted despite reflecting race, gender, and accent biases. This dynamic can penalize minoritized instructors whose identities or teaching styles challenge student stereotypes.

• Tokenistic diversity efforts that reduce inclusion to managerial box-checking without addressing deeper power imbalances or institutional racism. Universities may hire minoritized individuals to "add diversity," but then place them in unwelcoming, isolating environments where their merit is questioned.

The podcast will also examine the far-reaching consequences of this intersectional marginalization, including the following:

• Significant psychosocial toll on minoritized academics, leading to chronic stress, burnout, and "racial battle fatigue".

• Slower career progression and higher attrition rates for minoritised scholars, contributing to a "leaky pipeline" in academia.

• The loss of diverse perspectives and contributions to scholarship, which impoverishes intellectual diversity and limits innovation in research.

Ultimately, the podcast highlights that these trends are not inevitable. It will touch on calls for transformative change, including collective action, a re-centring of compassion and social justice, equitable hiring practices, and meaningful inclusion in governance to challenge the market-driven damage and reclaim the university as a genuine site of knowledge and social progress