By Professor Doom
I want to talk
some more about this tenured philosophy professor who was fired, because it
isn’t just the firing, it’s the overkill that is truly amazing here. While in
the “normal” world a pink slip is usually enough, the rulers in higher
education revel in displays of power over their underlings.
There’s a powerful
culture of fear on campus now, especially when it comes to dealing with admin.
These guys are, all too often, nuts,
mad with power, and with no respect for any rules of decency or common sense.
Seriously, even
tenured faculty find themselves keeping their mouths shut now. This poor fool
spoke up, and the petulant rage flowed:
"Further,
because of your conduct and its impact on the university, you have been
designated persona
non grata," the
letter continued. "As such, you are not welcome to visit the university’s
campus or to attend any university activities or sporting events on the
university’s property. Failure to comply with this directive will result in
legal proceedings."
Persona non
grata? Seriously? For disagreeing with the Poo Bah? Much as ancient Egyptian
pharaohs would obliterate all traces of their enemies, to the point of scraping
faces off of statues, the same fate awaits those who dare resist the Poo Bah’s
authoritah:
Their
profile pages had been scrubbed from the university’s website by Monday
afternoon.
It’s not over, of
course, as the Poo Bah (justifiably) sees enemies everywhere:
"…found
incontrovertible evidence of the existence of an organized, small group of
faculty and recent alums working to undermine and ultimately cause the exit of
President Newman." He added that the university would "hold those
individuals accountable for these actions."
Seriously,
faculty have been working in the culture of fear in higher education for many
years now…if we’re going to change things, we know we need to work
clandestinely. What other possible result could come of severe punishments for
those that speak publicly?
For what it’s
worth, I really doubt the Poo Bah is pushing this new plan out of integrity.
The bottom line is our schools have been focused on growth to an obscene level,
to the point that graduation rates are ridiculously low. Up until now, a school
with a 0.6% graduation rate would be rewarded for having good growth (even if
much of that growth was through fraud), but it’s possible these days are
finally coming to an end, and the new definition of “retention” is just
focusing on future measures of school success besides growth.
But perhaps I’m
being cynical here, and the Poo Bah is honestly a decent person trying to help
students. Are the actions of the Poo Bah so far, namely petty and vicious
retaliation, those of an honest and upright man? No, they are not. Thus I
conclude this plan has nothing to do with integrity, nor a belief in education,
because our leaders in higher education care and know nothing of such
things…the Poo Bah has his marching orders, and he’s just executing anyone who
won’t follow along what is, coincidentally, a more honorable plan than taking
advantage of our kids as they stumble out of high school.
The executions
include getting rid of tenured faculty, “job for life” rubbish be damned.
So, I again
maintain tenure is nowhere near as great as people outside of academia think.
In theory, you can only be fired from tenure after a due process is followed.
Time and again, of course, I’ve seen administration casually disregard due
process…you have to fight, and fight hard, to get admin to follow the rules,
because they’re so
untouchable that they see no need to follow the rules.
The fired tenured
professor lacks my experience (probably because he hasn’t spent time at a
questionable community college), and is stunned at the blatant misbehavior of
the Poo Bah and admin. He at least was spared more gravedancing by the Poo Bah,
who wanted to call him back to campus (despite the persona non grata
designation) for some extra browbeating:
“…the letter, obtained by The Chronicle, also said that as a tenured faculty member, he
had the right to attend "an initial in-person meeting to advise you of the
reasons behind the decision" and to invoke a "notice and appeal"
process. It then asserted that Mr. Naberhaus had declined to participate in
such a meeting on Monday, an accusation that he disputes.
"The due process is supposed to
occur before someone is terminated" if they have tenure, he said.
"You’re going to fire me first and then have talks about whether the
firing was justified or not? That is crazy."
--you can see the referenced letter here;
I have similar documentation of how pinheaded confused admin at a
community college is regarding the concept of due process.
At
first I thought this the old “you missed the secret meeting nobody told you
about, so we’ll hold that against you too” ploy…admin has a large playbook of
dirty moves, but I’ve had the displeasure of seeing most of them firsthand. Actually,
there was a different reason the professor didn’t go to the meeting:
He also challenged the
administration’s claim that he had refused to attend the meeting this week to
discuss his firing. He said he had decided not to attend after he was told that
he could not record the meeting, nor could he have legal counsel present.
So many of our “leaders” in
higher education act like criminals, it’s reasonable to conjecture that they
may well be criminals. It’s a safe bet the Poo Bah had legal counsel available,
and would have had such at the meeting…why wouldn’t he want the (formerly)
tenured professor to have the same? Knowing that administrators lie so readily,
I can understand why the admin didn’t want the meeting recorded, at least…
Luckily, the fired faculty is at a school
with a tradition of honor and integrity. Thus, he’s not alone, and other
faculty are willing to speak up at this inappropriate treatment of one of their
own. I’m glad to see there are still some schools with faculty like this:
Mr. Naberhaus said he was pleased to see such a movement growing among the faculty. The local AAUP chapter, created just last week,…”
--note: “near-unanimous” support from the faculty. The gentle reader should consider the treatment this tenured philosopher received, and weigh it against my claim that there are sycophants in the faculty. When the kangaroo court is set up, wonder who will be on the committee? If the gentle reader cannot guess, allow me to remind the reader that administrators get to pick who is on committees…
I’ve mentioned the AAUP before, a union of faculty. I have some qualms about unions, but considered them all the same (and received much smackdown at my community college for even mentioning them). I still feel they can only make a real difference if accreditation mandates institutions to allow unions, but until then, the fired faculty is getting what should happen at every institution: the faculty standing together for integrity, instead of fracturing into factions representing the standards of integrity, sycophancy, and incompetence…integrity being the smallest faction by far at too many campuses.
I wish him luck. I grant that having tenure does give him some protections: he gets fired first, and then gets to talk about the firing with the Poo Bah who fired him. Even if he gets his job back, other tenured faculty are definitely taking notice here, and dropping their heads even lower. Tenure doesn’t mean much against an overnight declaration of persona non grata and having one’s face scrubbed off, after all…
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