By Professor Doom
When I was at a
fake community college, there was one thing I loathed the most: a forced
meeting with a boss (by “boss” I could be referring to any number of people
with the right to fire me at their displeasure, from dean/assistant dean, to
provost/assistant provost, to chancellor/assistant chancellor, to vice president/assistant
vice president, in addition to at least half a dozen others).
These forced
meetings began with a summons, and I’d show up to meet with the boss, and
possibly a handful of other underlings (too many possible titles to list here).
What would
trigger these meetings? An unhappy student. What could make a student unhappy?
Anything at all. I’ve covered micro-aggressions
before, and there are pages of those official “errors” which can
get a professor in trouble.
“You didn’t
say “good evening” in a timely manner.”
--I’m
serious, an official, documented, complaint which required formal response from
me. The student loan money pays for professional administrators to create this
bureaucracy.
What’s fascinating
about these meetings is the moral inversion: the more ridiculous the complaint,
the less you’ll be able to defend yourself from it. I’ve had secret complaints
filed against me…months before I even knew there was a problem. And, of course,
these secret complaints are filed by secret students. I assure the gentle
reader, it is not a fun work environment when you can be punished by unknown complaints
from unknown persons based on alleged events that may or may not have happened
months earlier.
I’ve made such
allegations before regarding the campus discipline system, but I fully
understand why the gentle reader might regard such ridiculous claims with
suspicion. Thus I seek out when documentation is provided elsewhere that I’m
not alone in reporting the things I’ve seen with my own eyes. Here goes:
The new “gender pronouns” are being
slammed down the throats of faculty like so many other strange things…the poor
grad student thought it was something open to discussion. Hers isn’t the only campus where this stuff is coming up. She’s called in to a meeting for daring to
question an administrative decree, and decides to record the meeting.
Recordings do a fine job of revealing
what was actually said. Did the gentle reader listen to the sad and pathetic
Weinstein tape? It truly was sad and pathetic, as the lecher
sexually harasses a helpless young model. Weinstein, caught dead to rights, had no choice but to apologize and
enter into rehab.. He’s all better now, by the way.
Because he’s fine now, the media sees no need to drag the affair through
the mud for months on end, because the media is pretty decent like that…sorry,
I was delusional for a moment there, though thinking readers should consider
why some people get such a free pass from the media on such things, while
others see their reputations destroyed by excessive coverage of obviously
fabricated stories. But I digress.
Anyhow, this tape of administrators
harassing this grad student for educating her students is every bit as pathetic
as the Weinstein recording, as it eventually brings the grad student to tears.
To her credit, she tries to argue using reason:
“I don’t
see how someone could rationally think it was threatening.”
Arguing rationally
with admin is classic newbie-faculty behavior (here’s some
good advice for new faculty). I hold much sympathy for the grad student here, as
the first time you realize that the people who have control over you have no
sense of reason is pretty soul-crushing. Arguing rationally with them is such a
frustrating activity for new faculty (or grad students), because these people
don’t care about reason, don’t care about right and wrong. All they know is
they are right, period. Much as the admin at Penn State knew they were in the
right when they condoned pedophilia in the showers (and to judge by the cash
bonuses they received for their efforts, I begrudge their point of view), the
Diversity admin the grade student is forced to deal with here are absolutely
certain they’re in the right, as well.
So of course the
poor kid is brought to tears.
I feel the need to
point out the hypocrisy here. If I were caught on tape bringing a student to
tears in this manner, I’d be fired. Due process, decency, anything like that?
Heck no. I’d be gone. You can’t do that to a student—I again point out how
scary it is to work in higher ed, as some students totally have the ability to
cry at will.
Much like with
Weinstein, the Poo Bah here, despite her underlings being caught acting in a
completely reprehensible manner, will simply apologize. She’ll
probably end up getting an extra $250,000 bonus for her “deft handling” of the
fiasco. No admin will lose his or her job for this despicable behavior.
The Poo Bah
doesn’t care about education any more than her underlings, what she cares about
is happy students.
Back to the
meeting, the teacher continues to argue her case. It’s no surprise that admin
ignores her attempts at rational discussion and gets to the heart of the
matter:
“The
reality is it’s created a toxic climate for some of the students.”
The poor grad
student helplessly fires back with reasonable questions regarding students
complaining her classroom is toxic:
“How many?
Who?”
Hey, remember when
having to face your accuser was a key part of a justice system? Now you don’t
even get to know how many accusers you have. The admin refuses to answer the
question. He’s right, you see, so there’s no point in questioning him.
Despite having all
the power, admin don’t have the courage to face faculty one on one, and so
there’s more than one boss in the room to terrorize this graduate student. They
take turns grinding her down. Poor kid…she didn’t understand that as soon as
she set foot in the palace holding the Diversity and Equity Office (I’m
serious, that’s where the grilling was held) that no sense of fairness would
exist.
Truth also, is a
stranger to the Diversity and Equity Office (and I don’t just mean this
campus), as the pack of feral admin bury the poor student in lies, telling her
she’s breaking the law by questioning administrative fiat—her discussion in
class could be perceived as violence targeting one of our new victim classes.
The poor kid
keeps trying to reason that she’s not attacking anyone here:
“Who did I
target?”
Poor kid, again,
her reasonable question goes up against a brick wall. I remember trying to
convince admin 12/5 was 2.4, for over a year, to no avail (they asserted in
writing multiple times it was 2.35). It’s so hopeless trying to reason with
these people.
The recording ends
with admin telling her that’s she’s basically acting like Hitler…these
Diversity types really need to get some new material.
People with more
grounding in reality naturally take the grad student’s side:
“…any suggestion that Shepherd violated the law
couldn't be true”
Having been caught
on tape in an outright lie, there may be some repercussions here, but I assure
the gentle reader no admin will be fired for this grotesque abuse. I maintain,
with absolutely sincerity, that this taped conversation is representative of
many conversations held on campuses throughout North America, as, one by one,
faculty have been brought in to private meetings, to be dogpiled by packs of
rabid administrators.
Only one comment
merits a response:
Yeah, but even if 99% of them haven't lost
their minds it only takes one offended (triggered, what have you) student to
set off a silly PR/admin shit storm like this. At least actual *thinking*
prevailed to rescue this poor TA.
It’s a decent enough comment, but it merits a simple response:
NO.
Rational thinking did not prevail here…a
recording prevailed. If this grad
student had not brought a recorder, it would have been game over. Without the
recording, there would have been no apology. There would have been no admission
of wrongdoing. Heck, even with the recorder, I doubt there will be an admission
of wrongdoing.
But, because
she’s got them in a recording, she’ll be allowed to help her students get an
education, at least until the end of the semester. I rather suspect, however,
that her position will be closed fairly soon. No money, you see, too bad. But
there’ll be a new Diversity Commissar, paid 8 times as much as the grad student
was, in charge of making sure meetings aren’t recorded anymore (there’s money
for that, of course).
I repeat:
these conversations go on all the time on our campuses, and professors who try to
do anything about it simply disappear from one semester to the next, much like
we’ll see with this grad student.
Poor kid,
someone should have given her the memo earlier about trying to engage with
these people from a rational point of view.
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