Scoot Over

In an era where Western societies are on increasingly shaky ground with diverse groups of minorities calling for inclusion, France's definition, and enforcement, of secularism as a solution has drawn international attention.Patrice Brodeur is a Professor at the Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Montreal. His work investigates the dynamics of power and multiple identities within intercultural, interreligious, intercivilizational, and interworldview dialogues. He recently foun...

A recent AARP study stated that ageism could cost the US economy up to 4 trillion dollars by 2050, yet ageism is too often left out of the DE&I conversation.Ashton Applewhite is an internationally recognized expert on ageism and the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism. She speaks widely at venues that have included the TED mainstage and the United Nations, and is a leading spokesperson for a movement to make age discrimination as unacceptable as any other prejudice. She...

Aymann is joined by two leaders in the Diversity Equity & Inclusion space in tech who know firsthand what it takes for corporate America to truly be inclusive, and why it’s worth it for both the employees and the bottom line. Lesley Slaton Brown is the Chief Diversity Officer of HP Inc. She served as the Principal Investigator for the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) Computing Project and is the Co-founder of Curated Pathways to Innovation (CPI), a colle...

Aymann welcomes two incredibly talented and determined female artists to discuss the struggle to be seen, heard, and accepted as outsiders in their respective spaces. Claudia Gold, who for years was known to us as simply CLAW MONEY, is a pioneering graffiti writer, artist, curator, brand director, stylist, costume designer, fashion editor, historian, marketing and branding expert, author, agitator, mentor, and gatekeeper/arbiter of downtown NYC culture. She lives and works in NYC... Sti...

A plus-sized hijabi model and a media professor join Aymann to explore the nuance of the mediated world of body positivity and confidence culture.Leah Vernon is an international Hijabi social media influencer, award-winning author, motivational speaker, educator, and content creator. Her book, UNASHAMED: musings of a Fat, Black Muslim is out now. https://www.instagram.com/lvernon2000/Professor Shani Orgad is based in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics...

History is written by the victors is a famous phrase, but rarely do we dig into what it actually means and its consequences for how we understand who we are. Aymann speaks with two academics who are teaching the rest of us to resist the neat and convenient historical narratives we learned in school .Hussein Rashid, PhD, is a freelance academic based in New York City, on the land of the Lenape people. His work focuses on religion in US popular culture, and Shi’i theologies of justice. He was t...

Aymann is joined by two Jewish scholars to discuss how memory - a personal version of history passed down from generation to generation - shapes identity. Emmanuel Kattan is Director of the Alliance Program, a partnership between Columbia University, Sciences Po, Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and Ecole Polytechnique. A native of Montreal, Emmanuel studied politics at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and earned a PhD from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He currently teach...

What happens when women are excluded, silenced and marginalized within religious communities? In the inaugural episode of Scoot Over, Slate journalist Aymann Ismail explores the trouble with rooting out gender exclusion in a group that faces existential threats from outsiders, and what inclusivity in religious institutions and communities looks like.Melissa Weisz is an actor, producer, writer and consultant with a focus of giving underrepresented individuals and communities a voice. Melissa g...