The Imperious Rule of Julia Keleher: Gender, Race, and Colonialism in the Corruption of Public Education in Puerto Rico

This article considers corruption’s intersections with gender, race, and colonialism in the public education sector in Puerto Rico, emphasizing Julia Keleher’s neoliberal practices, such as defunding public schools, while engaging in corrupt administrative practices that would benefit her as an individual. I contend that Keleher’s individual actions and consequences manifest in policy and in intercultural communication, both of which are exemplary of ongoing structural corruption aided by colonialism. In my analysis, colonial tropes about the white woman’s burden illustrate the specters of corruption and colonialism in education, showing how colonial contempt in communication is a significant aspect of Keleher’s unbridled corruption. It is important that scholars and activists revisit the ways in which education is entangled with colonial-capitalist empire in ways that both push against and engage in corrupt practices. In this essay I provide the groundwork for questioning gender and race as they are implicated with corruption in public education in Puerto Rico.