Professor Watchlist

Dr. Sami Schalk is an Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to her university biography, Schalk’s work is centered on “disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture.” Schalk has risen to prominence recently due to her racially inflammatory remarks and sympathy towards rioters tearing down statues.

In a now-deleted exchange and series of tweets, Schalk stated that white people can’t decide what is racist: 

“This is your semi-annual reminder that white people do not get to determine what is & is not racist. If a person of color calls you racist, it’s probably bc [because] you did something racist whether you can recognize it or not. Now back to your regular scheduled programming.” 

She later tweeted that only white people cannot live in the sun, writing, “Out of the sun. You know they got destroyed by the thing that keeps everything else on this planet alive…”

Schalk is also a vocal advocate of the riots that destroyed statues in Madison. In a series of tweets, she vaguely threatened that the “uprising” would continue if the rioters’ demands weren’t met. If there was any ambiguity to her beliefs, she then tweeted that people don’t have anything else to do “but disrupt the f*** out of this city” and that the city of Madison should defund the police. 

Published in 2020