Institutional authority refused to even consider the boys’ claims on the merits

Evidence

By now Akram wasn’t yelling anymore. “Bin Laden didn’t do it,” he told the dean quietly when asked what was going on. The dean sensibly replied that they weren’t there to discuss who did and who didn’t do what. The whole room fell silent while the dean thumbed the hatta for a while. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 520

Categorization

• XREF: The dean’s refusal to engage the boys’ factual claim mirrors the dismissals of women’s pain in ‘A Memoir of My Former Self’ and the silencing of marginalized voices described in other chapters.