Fuck the meritocracy.
Joanna
Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, 6 Feb 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> [a friend who wishes to remain anonymous asked me to forward this post]
>>
>> In my experience there is a noxious trickle-down effect too, even for
>> those of us radical academics who don't overtly teach or write about
>> "war on terror" (trademark) issues. I recently lost my job at a major
>> state university. More than one of my colleagues (sic) who voted
>> against retaining me explicitly commented that my publishing
>> "activist" articles in "unorthodox" outlets "uneccessarily" puts the
>> department in a vulnerable spot when the administration is wielding
>> the budget-cutting axe.
>>
>> JLG (anonymous)
>>
>
> Here's an interesting dynamic in higher education: this outrage and
> pressure about left-wing professors seems to be inversely related to
> the number of students who are actually being taught in the classrooms.
> The leftists who seem to be catching most of the flack are tenured
> profs who--let's face it--have relatively light teaching loads at
> respected universities. In contrast, community college teachers
> teach four or five courses every term to larger groups of students
> than most tenured professors at universities see.
>
> Here's the interesting thing: in my varied academic positions,
> I have never seen a faculty member's politics play a role in hiring
> and retention in the community college setting. There is nothing
> like the horror story Doug posted above (nor anything like Justin's
> experiences as a left-wing academic). In short, being a leftist
> prof is not a big fucking deal in the community colleges in my region
> (Pacific NW). Consequently, most students
> in community colleges are exposed to leftist critique and analysis
> (social science is a distribution requirement, and they can't
> meet the requirement by taking 20 credits of econ).
>
> So nobody tell O'lielly, but he's barking up the wrong tree:
> Getting rid of all the tenured leftists "superstars" will not
> stop the dissemination of leftist analysis and theory in our society,
> because this dissemination occurs mostly at community colleges and
> metropolitan universities that do not deny tenure to leftists.
>
> Miles
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
> .
>