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#faculty

1 post1 participant0 posts today
Public
DoomsdaysCW

#ColumbiaUniversity Bent Over Backward to Appease #RightWing, #ProIsrael Attacks — And #Trump Still Cut #FederalFunding

Instead of #outrage, the school’s interim president responded to the cuts by vowing to continue its misguided crackdown.

by Natasha Lennard, March 8 2025

"Columbia University could hardly have been more draconian in the last year and a half since students began speaking out against Israel’s assault on #Gaza.
In early November 2023, four months before the Columbia #GazaSolidarity encampment even began, the university banned its chapters of #StudentsForJusticeInPalestine and #JewishVoiceForPeace. A few hundred students from the groups had had the audacity to walk out from classes and hold a “die-in” protest on campus — some of the most widely celebrated nonviolent protest tactics available.

"The crackdown was just getting started.

Since then, the university has ordered police raids on campus three times, leading to the arrests of over 100 students. Last week, the school expelled four students, three from #BarnardCollege one from Columbia. Many dozens of students have faced discipline and suspensions for participating in pro-Palestine protests and speech.

"Professors have been slandered before Congress, censured, removed from positions, and reportedly pushed into retirement over their support for Palestine and criticism of Israel. The campus has been essentially locked down for almost a year.

"Again and again, Columbia has shown a willingness to throw #students, #faculty, #FreeSpeech, and academic freedom under the bus in acquiescence to a #RightWing, #ProIsrael narrative that treats support for Palestinians as an affront to Jewish safety.

"For all Columbia’s #appeasement, President Donald Trump’s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced last week that it would cancel $400 million in #FederalGrants and contracts to the university.

"'Columbia has worked overtime to appease,' wrote Layla, a student at Columbia’s School of Social Work, who asked to withhold her last name having faced doxxing attacks and harassment from Zionist groups. 'Students are miserable. Campus is a #panopticon. And their funding was still cut.'

"The Trump administration can be expected to use its perverted conception of antisemitism to further its explicit plans to decimate, #corporatize, and #ReWhiten #HigherEducation. The shame here lies with university leaderships — at Columbia and schools nationwide — that have failed to stand up for their purported missions of #CriticalThinking and #AcademicFreedom. Instead, they have put some of their most vulnerable community members, particularly international students and students of color, at risk.

"There is no appeasing a political force like the #TrumpianRight, intent on a program of destruction. And there is no appeasing a nationalist #Zionist worldview that, defying reason, sees #antisemitism in every call for #Palestinian freedom. Columbia is proof of the failure of caving in; the administration has offered up a platter of repression for more than a year and is still slated to lose $400 million."

Read more:
theintercept.com/2025/03/08/co

Archived version:
archive.ph/jrNva
#Fascism #Appeasement #FreePalestine #Gaza #RightToProtest #Censorship #Fascism #ICE #ACAB #Authoritarianism #USPol #FreeSpeech

The Intercept · Columbia Bent Over Backward to Appease Right-Wing, Pro-Israel Attacks — And Trump Still Cut Federal FundingBy Natasha Lennard
Public
Columbus - Feeds
‘Buckeyes don’t stand for foolishness’: Roughly 900 students, faculty and staff gather to protest SB 1, criticize university President Ted Carter Jr. and state legislature - Laurence Myers-Bailey
The Lantern · ‘Buckeyes don’t stand for foolishness’: Roughly 900 students, faculty and staff gather to protest SB 1, criticize university President Ted Carter Jr. and state legislatureAround 900 students, faculty and staff gathered in the Oval from 1-4:30 p.m. Tuesday to protest Ohio Senate Bill 1 and Ohio State’s diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks.  From Ohio State community members to administrators, religious leaders and politicians, the crowd grew from a mere few dozen people just before 1 p.m. to approximately 900 […]
#campus#instagrampage#national
Public *
Still Mad About CD Prices

I'm not an "organizer" and I have spent 50 years avoiding "leadership," but I do think about it sometimes. I often think about the pitfalls and hurdles of #organizing for any positive social change. On my mind lately is how personal motivations and incentives can interact with systemic/structural things to make change difficult.

Because I'm in #higherEd, I'm thinking about two things rn:

  1. #University administrators (deans, provosts, presidents, directors, etc.) consistently act like Republican Senators or corporate CEOs when they make policy decisions and interact with "underlings". They can be seen as filling spots that might otherwise have been filled by people who would act in the public interest; they frequently prevent public-interest actions. The #profit-driven US system has installed them there, blocking change from the #faculty and #students from going "higher," and blocking information, resources and also possibly change from coming "down" to the students and faculty. Administrators, I think, have crippling career expectations, often unwritten, that lead them to act almost according to a script, while also clinging to their positions with a deathgrip and often developing a bad case of chip-on-the-shoulder #authoritarianism while doing it.

  2. The #facebook group "the professor is out" (TPIO) is for faculty in toxic situations wanting advice and support in #leavingAcademia. Great. However, within a year or two of the group's formation, it was very popular so the creators (apparently) quit or lost their day jobs and seem to have made TPIO their entire income stream. They started selling #merch, coaching, workshops, etc. And they started blocking messages threatening their income, like offers of help from "competing" entities and posts questioning the wisdom of guiding all fleeing academics into doing #dataScience or #UX for the companies that fund the politicians defunding higher ed. The mods gotta pay rent, and now the only way they do this (not to mention staying alive if they get sick) is to generate income from this group.

That's all. It's just a tangled, not always helpful #system. It has evolved to protect itself, in interesting (and frustrating) ways.

#perverseincentives#thoughts
Public
Still Mad About CD Prices

A moment to appreciate the Kafkaesque situation of faculty time sheets.

At two schools in different states I've been required* to submit an electronic time sheet every month, detailing days and even hours of sick, vacation, and/or other leave time I've "used". I've also been ordered or pressured to charge/pay sick days** for illness or bereavement. Faculty (at these schools) almost never charge sick days, for the simple reason that nobody will do our job when we're not there. I've tried to push back on this and only succeeded in getting even higher up on some administrators' shit lists.

The administrators want faculty to reduce their accumulated sick time if they miss class, though they are absolutely not going to pay someone else to cover the classes, research, service, and advising while the faculty member is out. They seem to think this concept is unthinkable.

Now I, like everyone else I know, don't inform administrators when I am out sick etc. If I can get a colleague to cover a class (we often trade favors), great, but no way am I losing earned sick days when I still have to do everything as if I hadn't missed class, anyway.

I've also asked about overtime: If we're required (in theory) to document every hour we miss of our job, shouldn't we also be at least documenting extra hours we put in? The response to this question has been vaguely threatening with a strong suggestion that anyone asking that question is not a team player. The verbal answer has been, in essence, "No, because you're not hourly; you're salaried."

... which doesn't explain why we have to track the hours we "miss".

We have no set number of hours to work. Admin sends lots of "expectation" messages about when we should be on campus, etc., but (a) decades-old union agreements specify that there is no set number of hours, and (b) if admin pushes that too hard I assume they are flirting with paying faculty for the actual hours we work, and no administrator wants that.

* "required" = get nagged until I do it every month

** In my current system, accumulated sick days at retirement determine pro-rated discounts to monthly premiums if staying on the state health insurance plan, so faculty are motivated to maximize sick days and administrators are motivated to minimize them.

#highered#faculty#teaching
Public *
Still Mad About CD Prices

I'm not shocked, just disappointed. When I asked my local #faculty union president how the #union would respond if I was fired etc. for speaking up about the Palestinian #genocide, I got a response significantly different from the Union's "we protect academic freedom" line.

I think I'm being told I'm on my own if I say anything publicly about #Gaza.

Edit: Asked if this was different from if I were targeted for protesting on behalf of nonwhite, LGBTQ, etc. students. The president said, "No, each case is unique and depends on the circumstances."

I got back with the third image. I'll post some response when the president responds. I'm cautiously hopeful, but only a little. This union has never missed a chance to say "That's not in line with our current objectives" or similar.

Final edit: Fourth image. I suppose this is better news, though I still don't know what the union would actually do. I will try to talk to the president soon and get stories about what the union did in similar situations. Commitment to specifics would be really nice, but I guess this is something.

Hi, [redacted], What will [redacted]'s action be if faculty are targeted by administration or law enforcement for using their free speech to support Palestine or criticize the actions of Netanyahu and the IDF? Will [redacted] defend faculty who are threatened with job or legal action if their only "offense" is saying politically unpopular things about Palestine, Israel, and/or the US funding (and potentially now military involvement) in the ongoing actions against Palestinians?
Hi [redacted] This is a complicated issue and each case would be unique so | can't provide a standard response. We would represent our members at the university, but the specifics would have to be looked at. We would have no ability or authority to defend in any criminal matter or investigation. Thanks,
OK, thanks for clarification. I'm reading that faculty cannot count on [redacted] to defend them from administrative actions resulting from expression of free speech; any faculty member saying something that the administration might find upsetting will just have to wait to find out whether [redacted] will do anything in support (unless "representing faculty" implies defending their free speech rights). Is this accurate?
No, that is not accurate. Faculty can count on [union] to support their academic freedom. However, since each case is unique | cannot give a blanket statement as to what the actions taken will be. Thanks, [president]
#ethniccleansing#palestine#professor
Public
Julie Faure-Lacroix

Okay, I'm going to pin this one because it's probably the most important aspect of what I work for.

🚨 If you're a #graduate student in #Canada 🚨

You have access to all of the academic supercomputers and cloud computing facilities that are part of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada FOR FREE

Not sure how to use a supercomputer? We also do a lot of training!

There's no catch! I promise, there's no catch. Think of it like you think of your local library. You don't wonder why they let you in and read whatever you want for free, right?

➡️ Students need to make sure that their PI has created an account first, because they'll have to be approved as a member of a lab.

🐎 Run, don't walk to ccdb.alliancecan.ca/security/l and get started!

🚨 If you're a #faculty member in #Canada 🚨

Whatever the role, #lecturer, #researcher #researchAssociate it's the same thing for you! Just get your account before your students and staff. Same link.

🚨 If you're an academic research collaborator outside of #Canada 🚨

You can also use the resources for free if you get sponsored by a Canadian researcher that already has an account. Again, for free. As long as you use it for a project you both collaborate on, you're welcome!

Next week, we'll go through the yearly process of allocating resources to our power users. That process is basically like a grant application and that might also be interesting to some of you. I'll post about it when I'm in the thick of it, I guess!

ccdb.alliancecan.caPlease sign in | CCDB
#Supercomputing#HPC#AI
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