What ‘The Chair’ gets right about women of color in academia

Starring Sandra Oh of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Killing Eve” fame, Netflix’s “The Chair,” is a witty and satirical campus drama consisting of six episodes that not only trace the challenges Oh’s character, Ji-Yoon Kim, faces as the new chair of a dwindling English department, but also highlights the importance of keeping humanistic areas of study alive.

Notably, Kim is the first woman of color to chair the English department at the fictitious Pembroke College. “The Chair” captures the struggles of being a woman of color in academia, emphasizing the personal obstacles such individuals face as they inhabit positions traditionally dominated by their white male counterparts.

The series begins with Kim settling into her new role as the chair of the English department at Pembroke. She quickly realizes that the department is a “ticking time bomb,” or rather that the department is dangerously near closing due to a lack of student interest. She immediately takes on this responsibility and asks her older and somewhat out-of-touch colleagues to mold their lesson plans to fit modern students’ interests and values, including and addressing topics like activism, equality, and social justice.

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