“Many of us use the idea that ‘I am a professional’ as an excuse to not become humanly concerned or politically concerned with our situation.”
 —Amos Wilson

“In an insidious manipulation of priorities, the disruption caused by the protesters’ efforts is viewed as a greater evil than the injustice that the protesters act against.”
 —Derrick Bell

I submitted the proposal in good faith—grounded in the stated goals of culturally responsive teaching, shaped by the needs of educators, and informed by the tradition I stand in as an educational leader committed to justice. What followed wasn’t disagreement—it was Intellectual policing. Not the overt kind, but the kind that disguises itself in concern for process, tone, or perceived alignment.

This isn’t a story about a single moment. It’s a reflection on how institutions can simultaneously request bold, equity-driven leadership and recoil when it’s delivered with clarity. The experience raised a question I haven’t been able to let go of: What happens when your leadership becomes more dangerous than your silence?

In many institutional spaces, professionalism is less about ethics and more about containment. The language of neutrality and objectivity is often weaponized against those who lead with vision. For many Black educators, professionalism becomes a performance that requires us to be palatable, quiet, and politically absent.

When the work is safe, it’s praised. When the work is real, it’s flagged. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly: curriculum and content aligned with stated goals are questioned not because they’re inaccurate, but because they’re too honest. Too grounded. Too disruptive to narratives that keep institutions comfortable.

As Derrick Bell observed, systems often treat the disruption caused by protest—or, in our case, truth-telling in leadership—as more dangerous than the injustice that prompted the disruption. That’s the game. And the price is authenticity.

In those moments, I’ve leaned on what scholar Jarvis Givens calls fugitive pedagogy—and what I’ve come to understand as fugitive leadership. This isn’t a theoretical stance. It’s a real practice shaped by necessity.

Fugitive leadership is what happens when your work is too human, too politicized, or too clear for institutional approval. It’s not about chaos—it’s about clarity. It’s about leading with a deep sense of historical accountability, even when systems ask for compliance.

I have witnessed educators quietly embed truth into curriculum, create space for student healing, or refuse to flatten culturally rooted content for the sake of institutional branding. This work lives in staff rooms, planning periods, community forums, and late-night lesson revisions. It is not defiant for defiance’s sake. It is grounded in responsibility.

There is a cost to this kind of leadership. It’s called moral injury, which is the internal harm caused when you’re punished for doing what you know is right. It’s the disorientation of being celebrated for innovation, then penalized when that innovation stretches beyond what’s comfortable. It’s being asked to lead, but only within invisible boundaries.

The emotional toll of being watched, questioned, or erased for telling the truth can’t be overstated. But those of us who move in this tradition know that silence was never a safe option. We lead not because we are granted permission, but because our communities demand and deserve better. There is a legacy we inherit as educators. A legacy of refusal. Not to undermine institutions, but to uphold something more sacred: our students’ right to truth, to history, and to possibility.

Fugitive leadership lives in that refusal. Refusal to dilute our curriculum. Refusal to distance ourselves from our own people. Refusal to measure our worth by how well we manage comfort for others.

Every act of refusal is a deep act of fidelity to ancestors, to community, and to our students. That’s the tradition I stand in. That’s the tradition that taught in church basements, freedom schools, and classrooms under Intellectual policing

Professionalism, as it’s been defined, often demands that we become less than who we are. It asks us to separate our ethics from our practice, our culture from our content, our histories from our instruction. But what if professionalism meant something else?

What if professionalism was defined by courage? By clarity? By care?

What if it meant showing up, fully and unapologetically, for the students and communities who trust us with their learning and their stories? That’s the professionalism I believe in the one taught to me by educators who didn’t need permission to teach the truth.

To every educational leader who’s ever been watched more closely for telling the truth than for failing to lead; this is for you. If your vision has been questioned because it came from a place too rooted, too urgent, you are not alone. We are not just leaders of content. We are protectors of memory. We are stewards of possibility. So we keep moving. We keep leading. Not because it’s safe. But because the work demands it. Because we understand—fugitive leadership doesn’t ask for approval. It asks what’s worth protecting. And then it protects it anyway.