As the first openly autistic law professor to publish a law review article, Brandon Stump has broken his fair share of norms.
A professor at Cleveland State University’s College of Law, Stump, who is queer, hopes that being open about his identity will open doors for those like him.
“There is nothing more powerful in this entire world than loving yourself for the things that other people have told you you should be hated for,” Stump said.
The Buckeye Flame sat down with Stump to discuss his norm-busting career, the power of the classroom and what queer and autistic people should know about the law.
What does it mean to you to be the first openly autistic law professor to publish a law review article?
For me, it’s sad. It means that there are either other autistic professors who have published but are unwilling to openly be autistic, or openly disabled. Or it means that there are so many barriers to entry in academia, that there are not a lot of us. But I also think it’s a great feeling in that if my life can show a person anything, it is that you can come from a challenging background and be in the same places in the same space as other people, specifically non-disabled people.
I think a big misconception about autism is that people may hear that and think it holds someone back. Could you talk about how it has propelled you forward and helped you in both your professional and personal life?
I think it’s probably my life’s greatest blessing in that it has made me uniquely unafraid to be myself. Because I never feel like there is another option. You know those things that hold other people back, like norms? I’ve never had those because those never mattered to me. So I’ve always seen myself as a person who had the right to be everywhere that anyone else was. I’m pretty sure that there are times probably that I got some pushback because, you know, for various reasons, people didn’t think I should be in the same place as them. And it’s never crossed my mind that I shouldn’t be.
I read in your profile on the Cleveland State University Law website that you have a lot of experience in acting and creative writing. Could you talk about that experience and how that has impacted your teaching style?
Acting and creative writing are both art forms that celebrate storytelling. I incorporate storytelling into my teaching. I have students perform little skits sometimes and a lot of my assignments are based on novels. Using storytelling is great for a couple of reasons. Number one, it helps people understand issues because it attaches meaning to things. And it also allows me to incorporate the stories of marginalized people. You get a three-dimensional portrait and history that you don’t get in an assignment created by the professor and based only on their perspective.
The profile also referenced how you found the power of the classroom early on in your teaching career. Could you talk more about that power of the classroom?
I teach legal research and writing, and it’s fundamentally a logic and thinking class about analysis. And so the power is, I get to work with young people and people of different backgrounds, and they are learning to think completely differently about the world for the very first time. As a professor, I can’t think of anything else that is as important or powerful. In a society based on laws, you get to help shape the minds of the people who will grow up to make decisions and be the attorneys who help people shape our laws. You get to help inform how they think about the world.
I also think classrooms are transformative. And not just for students; for professors. As a professor who is marginalized and is very open about my identity with most of my students, it’s the first time that anyone like me has ever been their teacher or in charge of them in any capacity. To have someone who is openly all the things you’ve been told are bad or less desirable, and that’s your teacher and is the person you have to work with and depend upon, is so fundamentally different from the things you’ve had before. I think it’s one of the reasons that diversity in higher education is so important. And I think that that really changes how people look at people who they’ve considered to be “other” before.
Do you have any favorite stories that happened in the classroom?
I had a student this year. He had struggled throughout the year and not done as well as he had hoped. Law school is very competitive. Grades matter more than they probably ever mattered in people’s lives. Many students are learning for the first time that the effort you put in does not match the outcome you receive.
The student worked really hard, and he didn’t do as well as he wanted. But he just kept going and going. I took extra time to meet with him weekly, to help him with his writings. And at the end of the year, he made it on to a special competition team of law students. I have never seen a human being as happy as he was. I also had never known a student who had probably worked as hard as he had to get there. And to me, that was just incredibly powerful and gratifying.
I saw that you’re a co-advisor to the Cleveland State student organization OUTlaw. Could you talk about what that organization is and what it does?
OUTlaw is a student-run organization at the law school that is for LGBTQ+ students and their allies. They do different things at the university with regards to bringing in speakers and talking about issues of diversity that are directly relevant to the LGBTQIA+ population. And they make sure it’s also a social group for those students who are marginalized, to feel a sense of community. It’s a safe space where people can talk about queer issues, such as everything from art and representation to things that are going on in the law school, where they might not always feel that comfortable. Because, you know, they’re in a classroom where it’s mostly heterosexual people. It’s a space for them to, I think, feel like they can openly be themselves in a different way.
Your research areas are disability rights and LGBTQ equality. Could you talk about what you think disabled and queer people should know about the law?
Disabled people and queer people should know that our fundamental right to exist openly is entirely dependent upon the state of the law. Yes, you’ve got things like the Americans with Disabilities Act and you’ve got various employment law protections on state and federal level, but those protections are not the same thing as, for example, constitutional rights. Voting is so important to these populations. Because our rights directly depend on what happens at the ballot box. And they can change because not all of the principles that we’re talking about are recognized on a federal level through the federal constitution.
We still live in a time where societally there’s this understanding that it’s okay to treat some groups differently than others. LGBTQIA+ people and disabled people and the people who are both really have to make sure that they vote—and make sure that they talk to the people that they know and love about voting and explain to them how the choices that they make directly impact their ability to be fully equal and fully functioning citizens in a society. If those people really love us, they’ve got to do better. You cannot support people that do not want us to exist.
Sadly, I think right now the level of consciousness requires both of these populations to be very vocal. And it’s not fair. Because you shouldn’t have to do all the work on your own to get people to treat you the way that you would treat anybody else. But I do fundamentally believe that if you do not advocate for yourself, no one else will advocate for you. Because they do not even know that you exist.
Is it a burden? Yeah, it is. But it’s also the burden to exist as yourself. And the payoff is incredible because even if you don’t always get what you desire and what is fair, you did everything you could to take care of yourself. And I do think that is incredibly important.
Absolutely. I’m trans so I definitely understand a lot of what you’re saying.
You should not have to explain yourself 50,000 times to people. But if you don’t do it, I promise you that you do not want the people who are not like you explaining who you are. Because they’re not going to get it. And god only knows how insulting and infantilizing what they do is going to be.
I know that in activist circles we’re talking about how it’s not our job to educate the majority. But the problem is, whose job is it then? I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t trust the majority on these issues. Sometimes we have to accept that being different comes with burdens in society. And until we get to a better place as a people, we have to accept that. That doesn’t mean that allies don’t have to help pick it up after we start speaking about ourselves. All the work cannot fall on us. But I do think that the right to define yourself and explain your worth and your struggle should belong to you. 🔥
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