Strategic Disruptions Toward a More Liberatory Engineering Education

Abstract Many attributes that are valued in engineering education disconcertingly overlap with those that are valued under fascist regimes. Fascism rewards obedience and regimentation, while it is intolerant of emotion, vulnerability, and free or critical thinking. Engineering education's historical marginalization of "soft skills" in favor of "hard skills" is related to the history of cis-white-male dominated, extractive and exploitative engineering "achievements." Engineering education's rigid methodologies, the inflexible "gauntlet" of engineering curricula, and design processes are highly structured-- but is conformist, highly structured thinking necessarily a gateway to fascist thought? Does engineering education make one more susceptible to complacency under authoritarianism or fascism? This works-in-progress paper will explore the question of whether there is a link between fascism and engineering education. For context, we will consider current events including the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, USA in 2017 and the subsequent doxxing of white supremacists including at least one engineer; and historical events such as the emergence of fascism in WWI and the way in which the National Fascist Party in Italy viewed technological developments as a new era of state power. Whereas technological development has historically accelerated under authoritarian regimes, the academy has long stood to protect free and critical thought. How does engineering education need to shift in response to rising fascism across the globe? This study builds on Erin Cech's work on the effects of decontextualized, depoliticized engineering education and engineering's "culture of disengagement," and how this contributes to marginalization and correlates with students' decreased interest in public welfare considerations of engineering work over the course of their education. We propose to construct a curricular intervention to help students repoliticize and recontextualize their engineering knowledge, and encourage more free, critical, and creative thought within the engineering culture, in order to weaken the link between engineering and authoritarianism - a kind of curricular "antifa" for engineering students.