Cultural Taxation

The unpaid or under-recognised additional labour expected of faculty and staff from marginalised groups — including Deaf, disabled, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ individuals — to serve as cultural ambassadors, mentors, committee members, and educational resources for their colleagues and institutions. Coined by Amado Padilla in 1994, cultural taxation is widely documented in higher education and is particularly acute for Deaf faculty teaching sign languages, where they are routinely called upon to explain Deaf culture, review colleagues' accessibility decisions, and participate in research as unpaid cultural consultants on top of their teaching load. Recognising and compensating this labour is an equity issue in accessibility research and AI development.