Faculty Meeting Reports

How will they do this election season?

We have our school and college faculty meetings scheduled for the Fall of 2024. How will the leadership do in keeping these focused on the business at hand and keeping personal political opinions out? Here is a description of what a college faculty meeting is about and what it should focus on. The same is true for my school’s meeting (New College has four schools).

“According to our bylaws, it is the "primary governing unit of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences." In the assembly meetings, we exercise faculty governance at the college level by getting reports from administration and faculty committees and discussing and voting on relevant issues such as bylaws changes or establishing ad-hoc committees.”

There is nothing in there about performative rituals surrounding land. In my school, we have an interim director who sits in while our director is on sabbatical. When our director took this position two years ago, the first line of business was to enforce the reading of a Native American Land Acknowledgement. Will our interim director correct this or continue that error?

In case you’ve wondered, I have always taken these issues to the leadership before posting about them. That is true in my school and in my college. In both cases, I was told, “I’m in charge; I can do what I want.” The answer from my college leadership was also, “it is our tradition.” Keep in mind that these are people who hate tradition. I’ve been around faculty who say they enjoy destroying the tradition of faith of Christian students.

Let’s use their language to deconstruct what they do in these meetings.

1. Microaggressions. While radical leftwing politics may not be the official topic, leadership and faculty will routinely make snide comments about Republicans, conservatives, and Christians. The room laughs. But they tell us that such jokes, when aimed at an issue they care about, are not funny and that bias cannot be dismissed by saying, “I was only joking.”

2. Hegemony. Faculty love to study history as the conflict of power. They take the side of the “little guy” against the hegemonic forces of conservatives and Christians. But what happens when they get power? They force their own political opinions on the rest of us. This would still be wrong even if the entire room were 100% radical left.

3. Homogeneity. They complain about homogeneity and say we need more voices. But all that means is they don’t like Christians and conservatives and want to replace those with some other view. That is easily proven by looking at what happens when a minority voices a Christian or conservative view. They are ignored. Faculty in my school used our meeting time to talk about BLM. But I would bet they didn’t watch Eli Steele’s documentary “What Killed Michael Brown.” Eli Steele does not count. Furthermore, if they really wanted different voices, they would look at their meeting and see that they are completely homogenous for the radical left. It is just me otherwise. And they mistreat me and make my professional life into a hostile work environment.

4. Check your privilege. This one is used only against conservatives and Christians. It does not apply to wealthy radicals. For example, last night, Bernie Sanders said, “Billionaires are bad.” And then Gov. Pritzker said, “I’m a real billionaire.” ‘ That’s because Pritzker’s wealth is the right kind of wealth in their eyes. These faculty are immensely privileged minimally in working in a homogenous environment. They use that privilege to then create a chilling effect for conservatives like me so that we must self-censor.

5. Discrimination. A person should be able to go to work without being mistreated due to their political or religious beliefs. The radical left says they are open-minded and just want to love everyone. They tell us we must accept the other person for who they are. Well, I’m a conservative Christian. I haven’t been accepted. My beliefs are made the focus of jokes and cruel remarks at work.

Do what they say, not what they do. “Rules for me, not for thee.” Let’s see how they do this election season. Last time, a faculty member used our school meeting to organize a protest against Republicans. Insults were aimed at the Republican candidates. Will they be able to control themselves? I’ll keep you updated.