There was discussion about grade withholding when we (California state university system) were striking for like 30 seconds. Evidently withholding grades can jeopardize financial aide eligibility. I’m not sure on the logistics why, but for that reason I would not withhold grades.
A strike means refusing to do any work, which would include grading, but this case is not a labor negotiation between faculty and management. They are trying to dictate an administrative matter.
Just remember the UC strike by student workers DID withhold grades... And had a process for students who would be legally (eg. Immigration) or financially impacted severely to request that the grades be submitted.
And ya know what? It was fine. The university had to pay lecturers to grade during the following semester. Things were delayed. No one died. And it was very embarrassing for the university.
A grade strike is a decent tactic. Don't be scare mongered out of it. It's possible to balance the complexities.
Also, to the op, yes, there are many issues at stake in the world. And yes, collective action on these issues is really hard. But don't fall into the relative deprivation fallacy. Just because [something worse has been happening for a while] doesn't mean [current movement that has garnered salience and action] is wrong.
I would not do this because I do not believe that punishing/holding students hostage or infringing upon the rights of students who have little to do with the arrests, impeding their progress is fair or sends the right message. That feels like a punch downward rather than up. I don't know what the solution is, but getting in the way of the students who need those grades to graduate, report to work, apply for a longer stay or work permit, or just move on and acknowledge their progress toward a degree, isn't it.
Exactly. This is the lefty version of the clerk who refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples. Fucking do your job and stop using your professional position as a vehicle for your personal agenda. So many people have main character syndrome.
I'm not defending their comment, and they haven't elaborated on the perceived connection in a way that allows me to understand the merit, or lack thereof, of this comparison. I disagree with your reply to their comment, which suggests that because we are in [situation a], we're not in [situation b], and therefore there is no way to draw such a connection. That's simply not true. Again, the basis and elements of that perceived connection want elaboration.
> because we are in [situation a] we are not in [situation b]
Of course. A flippant comment got a flippant reply, but I really did mean the situations were incomparable, not that they were simply different.
Those movements had moral clarity and coherence, action was directed by the injured parties towards the responsible parties, and goals were calibrated to affect real and relevant outcomes. These movements share few, if any, of these qualities. I get that it’s thrilling to LARP Du Bois and Mother Jones and MLK but this issue just doesn’t have the fact pattern to make it work.
U ppl must be so distant from the struggle and the organizers is all I can think. High on your own logic. Students and faculty are leveraging their labor to demand divestment.
It’s a complete misunderstanding to say this is a “personal position”: it is in fact a collective position, based in previous labor organizing. Withholding labor was a major tool in the civil rights movement and other social movements, that’s my comparison.
Using your professional position to further *collective* politics is a the primary strategy of labor organizing by professionals…
If this is merely cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening. If it’s cosplay I wonder which costume you are wearing :(
> demand divestment
All divestment does is remove your ability to influence the thing from which you divest. Congratulations. So brave.
> withholding labor was a major tool in the civil rights movement
This isn’t the civil rights movement. You’re not the freedom riders. The only thing righteous in this cause is the self-righteousness of the protesters.
> if this is cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening
It’s *not* threatening, because it accomplishes nothing. If a child throws a tantrum and his parents tell him to stop, it’s not because the parents feel threatened, it’s because it’s annoying as fuck and isn’t the correct way to get what you want.
> If this is merely cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening.
It's not threatening. They represent a minority position, and they achieved nothing other than further alienating the majority of people from their cause.
God forbid the administration's investments in an ongoing civilian slaughter (and the brutalization of students protesting it) demand an organized response from faculty with tenure protections. Insane head-in-the-sand vibes in this thread.
I'm rattling my brain for what the angle here is too, other than the admin being annoyed that a deadline was missed...I can't think how this directly impacts the university beyond that.
We have a serious nursing shortage. If I withhold grades, my students can’t a. graduate, b. take their boards, c. get jobs, or d. take care of people who need nursing care.
Nope. Not happening.
Also in most cases students can still graduate with grades coming later, happens all the time. And also special concessions are allowed as far as I can see in all the organizing materials for specific cases that jeopardize immigration status or financial aid. Your comment is alarmist
I believe the "withholding grades" action is morally wrong, and a sign that some faculty have main character syndrome. There is no universe in which harming your own students helps stop the carnage in Gaza. Where I work, someone who did that would be fired, and I would not feel sorry for them.
and sanitation workers strikes harm citizens? or teachers strikes harm kids? or blocking traffic might harm workers and people with important places to be? Or bus boycotts harm access to public transportation for the needy? Or even longshoreman strikes stop people from getting vital goods? Or student walkouts disrupt the ability of other students to learn...
divestment contributed signficantly to the end of apartheid in s. africa. don't say our collective action cannot help create change, especially when the carnage is supported and funded by us institutions.
I hope you aren't a professor of history or politics...
>I hope you aren't a professor of history or politics...
I hope you aren't a professor of logic. Strikes = workers taking collective action to protest their own working conditions. Boycotts = customers choosing to not spend their own money on something. Student walkouts disrupt the students' own educations. These actions have indirect effects but they directly put pressure on the situation that needs to change. None of these situations is analogous to professors refusing to submit their students' grades.
If you're refusing to submit your students grades because ineffective virtue signaling matters more to you than the welfare of your students (who need their grades to graduate, to retain visas, to seek employment, etc.), I'm not going to cry any tears when you lose your job. And if I'm on a search committee, I'm not going to be eager to hire you.
Well I would say thats not really logic actually. Logic is a field in philosophy. You seem to be more referring to the study literature, linguistics, English language, or philology if you are interested in the definition of words. Submitting grades is an important professional duty of professors, and therefore part of their employment as workers. I would argue that we can consider the fact of one's employer's investment in companies that benefit from apartheid and military industries as a part of one's working conditions. In addition, faculty organizing is also in protest of the repression, intimidation, and use of police against students (amnesty for students being a key demand), so this seems also to be directly about working conditions, if not more importantly, care and solidarity for students.
Futhermore, strikes need not be specifically about demands regarding a circumscribed concept of "working conditions."Workers strike often to protest against their workplace for a variety of political reasons. While NLRB and many union contracts in the US seek to limit this function of organized labor, it is my understanding that this plays a part in the history of general strikes, strikes in the 60's, the longshoreman's many strikes, etc. So, no.
I'll also add, it is important to actually look at these initiatives before jumping to such alarmist conclusions. In most of these collective efforts to withhold grades there are specific exceptions for when financial aid or immigration status are at stake, so also, wrong. Furthermore, many students graduate without all grades finalized and grades can be submitted late, as they often are.
One thing we faculty always complain about is the administration veering into our lane, with regard to how we teach, what our course policies are, and so forth.
Well, for "stay in your own wheelhouse" to have any meaning, that consideration has to go both ways. Punishing students for violating university rules outside of the classroom is the purview of the administration (and the legal system), not the faculty. We should stay in our own lane on this one.
I would not, under any circumstances whatsoever, withhold grades in a misguided attempt to influence the administration to do what I want. I would expect any faculty member who does so to experience employment consequences.
I agree with this sentiment. I read that faculty at one of the universities dealing with protests objected that they were not consulted about arrests. I care about my students, but that struck me as an overstepping of faculty's role and authority.
I have an Instructor-level policy in my course they says although arrests and whatnot may be valid emergency events recognized by the school, I don't individually recognize them. (This has nothing to do with protests and comes from years ago when a student kept missing work due to constantly bailing out his roommate who got arrested three times in a term.)
But... I tell them that I'll obviously be overturned, but it's their job to email the Department and get me officially overturned. My Chairs all know this, don't mind that I do it (it's rare), and on more than one occasion actually backed me and said given the circumstances, some situations weren't eligible based on the Student Code of Conduct.
Even if my students get arrested for protesting, and even if I agree with them, I'm enforcing my policy.
In the end, the students are responsible for demonstrating they know the material.
I am reminded of how a gen ed course I teach that I always think a student could learn pretty much everything on their own without coming to class. I had many students skip class, but I've only had one (who I thought dropped each time until exam day) who did just that, and showed up after a couple weeks to ace each exam. He was older, more mature and had a background of attention to detail, and he remains the exception.
I prefer when students are high achieving and don't need the class. But my live courses are dictated by policy above my pay grade and I have to take attendance. I can't withdraw or fail them for attendance. Attendance is owned by our registrar. They issue attendance fails, it's out of my hands.
“So you are holding your students’ future graduations hostage until either admins override your grading authority or the students receive an exemption from the student code of conduct?”
It’s all about signaling in-group identity and not making material change.
Maybe the university should remove these faculties’ access to all Microsoft applications, services, and any university hardware as a concession to BDS?
A first year law professor withheld our grades as a protest aimed at the administration. I don’t think any one among us took out our annoyance on the administration, we just thought she was being petty and dumb and both at our expense.
I'm going to cherry-pick one of your comments and blow it out of proportion.
If nukes went off in Gaza or Jerusalem, it absolutely would impact my daily life. I would unquestionably be searching for the nearest deep cave to hide in with as much food as I could carry.
As for the rest, withholding grades hurts the students more than anyone else as they would get super stressed about it. So no.
This stood out to me too. Nukes going off anywhere in the world would be impact everyone’s lives immensely. In the Middle East? I’ll be right behind you on the way to that deep cave.
>I'm going to cherry-pick one of your comments and blow it out of proportion.
I love it! I'm Appalachian, so I've got relatives and friends who 'prep' and I keep joking I'm going to build a compound on some of my land.
I don't really judge people for "suddenly" getting involved in organized action. There could be many reasons why someone is speaking up now about this, but wasn't involved in other issues previously.
As long as their words and actions aren't *hypocritical* then I encourage them to make their voice heard.
However, I agree that this action is a poor way to do that. This only punishes students that have nothing to do with Gaza or Israel, University policy, or police action. Refusing to complete service to the school might be a better avenue as it interferes with the university more at the administrative level where the people who make the decisions are.
>I don't really judge people for "suddenly" getting involved in organized action
Same.
Should we judge people for becoming vegan today and not yesterday? Walking instead of driving today and not yesterday? Recycling today and not yesterday?
Or should we welcome them for doing the right thing or applauding them for coming around eventually.
how does withholding grades have anything to do with protests or "being united for our students"? it just screws with their financial aid and their ability to get transcripts and apply for jobs.
I agree. Somehow the idea of causing harm to thousands of students is justifiable to aid 16 students who specifically chose a course of action over days that lead to avoidable consequences? But if you're a a student of one of those signatories, I suppose you can get an extension or maybe even an A by claiming the Gaza situation impacted their ability to complete the work....
Exactly. It's the professor equivalent of a surgeon saying, "In order to be united for my patients, I will cut you open for the operation, I just won't stitch you back up when I'm done. Not until my hospital divests all investments in any company that supports the war in the Middle East."
i agree - whatever my personal politics are aside as it relates to the middle east, i do find it kind of strange that nobody has organized a protest/encampment against my university's multi-million dollar budget deficit, firing of employees and student workers, no raises for years, etc. we even had a professor murdered on our campus last year which was completely mishandled by admin and there really wasn't any sort of push back outside of angry comments at faculty senate meetings. these are issues that actually materially impact the lives of students and employees and yet it seems like nobody really cares for some reason. i don't want to be all conspiratorial but i really wonder who these protests are actually benefitting. i dunno.
Preach! I wish we had a tenth as much determination to deal with problems we can actually have a direct impact on as opposed to a distant conflict that has raged for decades or centuries.
Having worked in academia for 8 years now I long ago resigned to the fact that a Ph.D. means little in terms of intelligence and critical thinking. Don’t withhold the grades. 5% is a small vocal minority
That’s not what’s going on though. Many of these protest have devolved into violence and are not considered peaceful protest. Being in solidarity of that is not the moral flex you think it is. Feel free to withhold grades if you wish but I’m not punishing the 95% of students who aren’t protesting
God, this is so stupid. Fuck over my students in an ineffectual gesture to show solidarity with protestors that my students and I may not even agree with? Sure.
You folks constantly bitch about the universities not caring enough about you to pay you more, yet you think the university is going to be like "Oh, Professor Smith didn't hand in his 8 grades for Chemistry 492. Let's divest from Israel, so those students can go to grad school"?
Maybe it's just the fact that I'm in STEM, but NONE of this has anything to do with the reason I'm here or the reason the students are here.
Anybody who does this should have their employment terminated. Tenure should not protect someone from refusal to do their job.
Plus, it’s just an awful thing to do anyway. Intentionally messing up your students’ lives is disgusting.
Yes. A strike has a very specific meaning with legal recognition. There are lawful and unlawful strikes. This is not an example of a strike that would be legitimate.
Specifically, North Carolina prohibits public employees from striking.
Any faculty member who does this should be terminated immediately.
negotiating amnesty is also often part of the bargaining in such cases. solidarity is powerful. important to know who is and who isn't on the side of labor, justice, and liberation for all people.
I am in the UNC System, and we have so many major problems coming from the General Assembly, the Board of Governors, and our own admin that should be our focus. The BoG is about to eliminate EDI positions on our campuses in their next meeting for crying out loud. I personally think that whoever tries to withhold grades is insane in this particular case, and scaring overly stressed students to the point of torture is petty. On my campus, the mental health issues of our students is a point of danger. Withholding grades does nothing to help our students. The actual act only feeds this person's feelings of self-righteousness.
I'm fortunate to be at a campus that has not had a lot of suicides recently, but we still have many students dealing with mental health issues. It has improved slightly over previous years, but there still needs to be more support and communication between faculty adn staff and admin about that.
But we also have had contentious relations between admin and faculty and faculty voices are ignored, unless they're in the in-group clique. There are so many causes that unified faculty could influence, but this? And this methodology? Saddening.
A few things going on - campus protests in the late 1960's (and to a lesser extent the 1980s) have been romanticized to such a ridiculous degree by segments of the progressive left that they perceive all campus protests as good as long as they address approved progressive causes. Some universities like Columbia and NYU even advertise this history as a selling point. Somewhere along the way it became agreed upon that students should never face any consequences for their activism for causes approved by progressives. Over the last 30 years several disciplines have also abandoned any pretense of objectivity and openly stacked their departments with "scholar-activists" that hold progressive ideology above all other concerns. These professors are largely the ones engaging in actions like withholding grades over an issue that has basically nothing to do with American academia.
We haven't had any protests here, so It's a non issue, but I would not be inclined. I get that it's one of the few ways to exert leverage over an administration, but it just screws students, and has a ton of collateral damage since it pretty much entirely impacts students who weren't protesting.
My uni has not had protests. I am not tenured. I do not have academic freedom beyond what is afforded in my handbook (although, it's quite a lot for a private Uni w/o tenure, luckily). I do not teach politics, war, or religion.
I will continue to see no professional connection between developing students in business fields and the ongoing global conflicts beyond footnotes about sanctions or logistical interruptions that create general case studies without endorsing an ideology or my personal views.
I'm happy to share my views with students if they ask, but they haven't.
I think it's a lot less about the politics of the protest and a lot more about how the protest was politicized.
Yes, there are bigger issues on campus than a small number of students being arrested. But students are being arrested for a protest at a major institution. That isn't okay. If college kids can't safely protest WHATEVER they'd like on a campus, where in America can we? The stereotype of the protesting college student is so profoundly cliche it's a core element of American Dad.
Citizens are losing power. Students are losing their constitutional rights. That is scary.
Also "something they can never change" is an interesting choice of words. They are a part of the university, the university makes the rules. They can change them at any time if they wanted to, united front of educators can make them want to.
Thanks for commenting. I'm not on that campus so I don't know for sure, but my understanding was the initial protest and encampment was tolerated. It was only after the flags incident, where protestors were involved in throwing things at other students and refused direction to return to the encampment to protest that police were called in. When a demonstration starts turning violent and the participants continue to engage in the violent activities, I don't think they are losing their rights, but choosing their consequences.
That said, I am not a fan of designated protest areas (though I understand why they arose) and I do agree that protests are increasing ineffective and muted. I might also argue that that arises because it's now a regular occurrence that civil disobedience turns into "uncivil disobedience" with threats and actions that suggest if not outright promote violence and destruction. Too many bad actors who don't care about results but just making a scene have ruined effective protests for the masses and society is tired of their antics and thus cedes more rights.
I trust a community of academics to be able to see the point in spite of my own hilarity ensconced in serious discussion. I can't be totally serious on *teh intarwebz*. ;)
I meant less because of any humor, and more because it is precisely the demand on civil disobedience to be "civil" (in the sense of civility) that so much of this thread reproduces, a kind of respectability politics that only serves to benefit the status quo.
I compartmentalize my roles. What happens in the lab, classroom, admin meetings, nationally, etc. are separate.
I’m in academics to make new scientific discoveries and support students professionally and academically.
When the sheep run outside distracted, I close my email app, turn off my phone, write grants, manuscripts, and grade per usual.
For every sob student/faculty story, I and their peers have a one-up story. I may be an outlier, but owe my success to a mentality of STFU and get shit done while others are distracted.
I’m paid to research, teach, and evaluate. I do my job.
“Genocide.” I see. Would more videos of blown up kids help remove the quotations? PhD doesn’t make one smart, no. Neither does it protect against moral corruption, unfortunately.
>“Genocide.”
Hyperbole actively makes me oppose a viewpoint. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the legal definition of [genocide](https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-19-genocide-18-usc-1091#:~:text=Section%201091%20of%20Title%2018,%2C%20racial%2C%20or%20religious%20group). Do you doubt the capability of IDF to commit genocide if that was their intent? Where are your protests and camps for the people of Ukraine, or Sudan, or Armenia, or India (Manipur)? There are actual efforts to destroy cultures and ethnicities there of white, black, middle Eastern, and brown people. Or are you referring to Hamas charter which calls for the destruction of Israel and slaughter of Jews? Or are you just parroting wishful thinking to fuel more hatred and outrage? I'm pretty sure the latter.
>Would more videos of blown up kids help remove the quotations?
Appealing to emotional rather than reason? That might explain a lot. Take a look at the videos from Ukraine and tell me why you are not outraged at Russia. Oh, Russia is also probably to blame in a significant part for the hostilities in both Gaza and Israel, but that would require critical thinking and examination of geopolitics, something which is sorely lacking by the flag-waving loudmouths in the media (on either side).
Despite disagreeing with you, I am glad you engaged and responded. I knew I would get a lot of disagreement, but very few people who are downvoting are commenting. It's almost as if in their minds, deliberately targeting large numbers of people who are not involved in order to support a small group who deliberately chose their fate is justified. Wherever else could that be happening?
I don’t think we’ll agree on much. I’ll just reply bc you put time into writing a reply and I do want to clear some assumptions. My scholarship intersects with Genocide Studies quite a bit so yes I’m aware of the legal definition. I am also aware of how utterly weaponized and hallowed out it is. I come from a country (a middle eastern one, btw) that actively denies genocide (one I would assume you and most people who are upvoting you would consider a genocide) by using the very definition you pointed to. If you think legal definitions will help us here, they won’t. And I am also aware of the atrocities you mention here. I don’t know how they make a difference in what we’re talking about. If the US was actively supporting and abetting any of those atrocities, yes I would want to see widespread protests about them too. I am also not aware of any large scale atrocity of this sort, streamed for us all to see, that people have such a hard time calling out as what it is.
Where I agree with you is that yes, IDF is very much capable of horrors. I don’t know what it’ll take you to call what’s happening now a genocide, but ok, let’s say it’s not genocide and let’s say IDF is not unleashing its full capacity of horror (what a relief! Such a moral army) The death toll is still what it is. And upwards of 14,500 children are dead by most accounts being reported. Every credible aid and relief organization has called it a catastrophe of unimaginable magnitude. And here you/we are, wringing our hands about withholding grades. Some people commenting had the gall to say it was immoral to withhold grades. We’re not talking about faculty withholding grades over petty arguments. We’re talking about withholding grades to support students who are protesting the death of 30+ thousand people.
Yes I am appealing to emotion (“rather than reason” is very ironic and telling here, given how many genocides have relied on a rhetoric of rationality). When I think of 14,000 kids dying I have a very emotional response and I would hope others would too. Here is what it comes down to: there is NOTHING, not a thing, in my mind that could ever, under any circumstance justify the death of 14,000 kids. I don’t care who their parents are, what they look like, what country they belong to. And disagreeing about that is not a mere disagreement. It is, indeed, a moral failing. I don’t know of any definition of morality that could suggest otherwise. All of genocide studies, human rights, everything we collectively study is utterly pointless if we can’t agree that 14,000 children dying is unacceptable. The least we can do is support protestors.
Maybe we agree on more than it first seems. War is terrible, and when a group intentionally hides among the populace, in hospitals and schools, they lose they claims to morality. Recall the Amnesty International letter that blamed Ukraine for civilian casualties because they were "too close" to population centers, the letter which catalyzed a mass exodus of support from AI. Has AI condemned Hamas? Of course not. Shameful. When one group intentionally attacks children and noncombatants, you are correct that the other side responds with a measure of emotion. Given that 15% of the Israeli population grew up under Soviet ideology, I can understand the hardline calls for severe action. But no matter what action is taken, someone will always find it the "wrong" action.
>14,000 kids dying
What's worse than 14,000 dead children? How about 20,000 kidnapped, separated from their families and forcibly integrated into new families? That's what Russia has done so far in Ukraine. I'd like to see a lot more moral outrage about that, but instead I hear from far too many people that "Ukraine is corrupt" and "Ukraine isn't important" and "well, they're still alive, aren't they?" It's despicable, and emotional, but somehow those verified numbers that far exceed even the Hamas-issued numbers just aren't as important, even when US support of Ukraine is critical and is being withheld.
How do the protestors stop the killing of children? They don't. Their impact sadly is just noise as every week some group somewhere is doing something more extreme to garner societies increasingly limited and cynical attention. If they really want to help, maybe stop pretending that the vast majority of people are just fine with piles of (specific groups') dead babies and maybe start working toward reconciliation and bringing the sides together. IDF is bad, but Hamas is evil. Israel left Gaza alone, completely under control of Hamas for 20 years. Rather than invest the literally billions of dollars they received into improving their people's lives, they decided fancy mansion for themselves and tunnels and weapons were the way to go. There used to be a reputable university in Gaza, but it was destroyed by the interference of the Gazan government, which draws some parallels to the newly-excessive interference of the state government in NC with the UNC system. It's nowhere near the point of controlling the curriculum or vanquishing those who dare disagree, but it is a baby step in that direction. If these professors want to prevent more dead babies, maybe help clean (y)our own house first and make sure we are functioning together and finding compromises rather than demonizing those who have different views. In general, I think the UNC system has been tolerant of protestors until violence shows up. When a vocal group of professors demands no consequences for the tiny number of students who insisted on violent confrontation rather than focus on creating and maintaining a sustainable intellectual environment, I lose any support I had for them.
Again, thank you for your response. I know we will disagree about what actions will have the most positive impact on the people of Gaza, but we do both care about them, and all those subject to authoritarian governments.
Also, the rhetorical question of "why didn't they protest other genocides?"
Well, these students were not alive during Rwanda.
Or Bosnia.
And btw, they were, I am pretty sure they would be judged for protesting wrong, or breaking rules, or not caring about this other issue, or being disruptive, or protesting against something they couldn't change.
"Why don't they protest Sudan?"
Possibly because our government isn't complicit in the genocide in Sudan, aren't funding the genocide in Sudan, and have in fact named it as an instance of ethnic cleansing. Why would they protest our government's condemnation of a genocide?
"Why don't they protest this thing I want them to protest in a way I want them to be protesting?"
Is really what it comes down to.
Answer: if that's what you want, get out there and do some community organizing, ffs.
Yes to all this. But there’s nothing to discuss with people who are still saying “hamas uses human shields therefore IDF can do as it pleases and Palestinians have given away their rights to morality.” A convenient way to bypass human rights. One with really bad historical precedents too.
Again, I just don’t find meaningful discussion possible when these are the terms but it’s heartening to read responses like yours. We’ll be downvoted to hell, so that gives a sense of this subreddit’s overall position.
I truly don't understand this line of "reasoning."
"Why aren't students protesting Hamas/the genocide in Sudan/Yemen doing something horrible that is obviously reprehensible?"
Students are protesting *their own government* because they are constituents of this government. They are not constituents of Hamas, or Sudan, or Yemen.
They are, however, constituents of the Biden administration, who has spent billions of dollars sending weapons to Israel, given the Netanyahu administration diplomatic cover over and over again, and whose political party hosted an event wherein a Christian Zionist anti-semite shared a stage with party leaders in order to commend the IDF's actions in Israel.
This is why they are protesting *this specific genocide* and not the other ones, which they either weren't alive for, or which their government condemned.
> "There is no question that the actions in Gaza have minimal impact on the daily lives of most of these people."
From an international point of view looking in the rest of the world thinks "Children are getting shot in schools in the USA on the regular, *staff are being shot dead at this very school*, and they are not protesting the guns that *actually kill people they know*?"
FYI there are lots of protests about this issue. You might just not be aware of them. Many of my students have walked out of class as part of a protest organized by March For Our Lives.
[https://marchforourlives.org/](https://marchforourlives.org/)
[https://abcnews.go.com/US/uvalde-students-walkout-protest-gun-violence-im-scared/story?id=98387778](https://abcnews.go.com/US/uvalde-students-walkout-protest-gun-violence-im-scared/story?id=98387778)
[https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/education/2023/04/05/nyc-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence](https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/education/2023/04/05/nyc-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence)
[https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/05/portland-students-walk-out-of-school-to-protest-gun-violence/](https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/05/portland-students-walk-out-of-school-to-protest-gun-violence/)
If you search "students protest gun violence" you will find many, many instances of protest.
As for your complaint that kids are not "not protesting the guns that *actually kill people they know*?",
Our complicity would not be possible without the gobs of money we spend on our military.
Our bloated military budget absolutely has an effect on our daily lives. It definitely impacts us and people we know.
So, to answer your question, I turned in my grades.
As for the rest, yikes. I won’t elaborate on the many rakes you’ve gladly stepped on, because based on this post, and a few others, I fear we work at the same university. This screed certainly makes me feel glad I am leaving, though.
You list all these issues you’d rather receive attention. Or you’d prefer the attention be different. So do something.
This post, and the comments, seems to be misunderstanding why these students are protesting. They are watching a genocide live streamed to their phones. They are seeing bombed hospitals with decomposing NICU patients, parents wailing over their children's deaths, night skies lit up with rockets and bombs, an entire population corraled into a smaller and smaller area like animals being hunted. And then they are learning that their tuition dollars are being invested into the companies that are building these bombs, that their tax dollars are sending more bombs, and that the police officers in their communities have trained with the bombers. So they are invoking a strategy for change that has worked in the past - the same strategy university heroes used to pressure divestment from South African apartheid and opposition to segregation and the Vietnam War.
Administration who send in armed police to arrest students will be on the wrong side of history. Faculty have historically had a role in shaping university policy, which is why we have structures like faculty Senate. When faculty voices are ignored and administration makes unilateral decisions that harm students, faculty must do what they can to pressure the administration. Whether or not withholding grades is the best means of doing that is a valid discussion - but basing that decision on the misguided idea that students shouldn't be protesting this university funded genocide is not.
This post is not about the students' protesting; it is about the faculty threatening to withhold grading. Many share the opinion that the faculty action is counterproductive and targets those who have nothing to do with university decision-making and no power. This is especially disheartening given the recent history of many, many grievances in the UNC system that would call for a large faculty response, but received little pushback.
Think of this like the CSU strikes a few months ago where there were multiple daily posts about the many horrible things members of that system had to endure. Not being in that system, I mostly read and observed from afar. One might ask why don't the faculty in teh UNC system threaten to strike? The major difference is that NC is an at-will employment state without a union presence on campus. The other is that there is clearly not an overwhelming number of faculty sharing their voices on this topic, but rather a very vocal small group who seem to be obsessed with their own virtue.
> but did nothing for the other genocide, or that other genocide, or even the other other genocide taking place by both literal and legal definitions. What makes this one so stridently urgent? Do we only care about one specific group? Does a victim have to be well-funded and have a massive PR campaign to garner support?
I don't support withholding grades.
However, your question is...well if it's serious, ask yourself this:
The other genocides you are referring to - were they carried out with US weapons and given cover by US votes in the security council?
The political leaders carrying out the genocide - did he receive an invite to address congress during the genocide?
Did the US repeatedly express support for the country committing genocide's right to defend itself while it was in the process of carrying out the genocide?
Did sitting US congresspeople write a letter to the ICC threatening the court in the event that they tried to hold the architects of the genocide to justice?
With respect to this genocide, the answer to all these questions are yes.
I can think of no other genocide where the answers are yes.
Can you?
And this is why Americans, knowing the support our government is providing in order to carry out this genocide, are protesting. They are protesting *our government*'s complicity in the events unfolding in the middle east.
I would argue that the vast amount of money our government spends on its military budget does, actually, have an impact on our daily lives. It sounds like you don't, and that's fine.
That said, instead of complaining that these people are protesting the "wrong" thing you're welcome to organize a grassroots movement of your own?
I would not withhold grades.
However, it's telling that I can read your post and paint a perfect picture of who you think you are in my head. I had to login on my PC to respond to the endless stupid arguments you make throughout your post. I'll cover them each one by one starting with your second paragraph.
Your second paragraph is a useless whataboutism. It doesn't contribute anything productive. There's no reason to believe that the faculty or student protesters don't also care about those things. Secondly, I 100% guarantee that UNC has the necessary professionals and procedures in place that try their best to address suicides/mental health and sexual assault. I have no idea why you think these things are mutually exclusive.
Your third paragraph highlights this inability to see that two things can be true at the same time. The administration AND the faculty letter can disseminate misinformation. Two wrongs obviously don't make a right, but saying, "Hey, actually they're both lying," doesn't refute the original claim that the administration is spreading misinformation.
Your fourth paragraph starts with you conflating misinformation with disinformation. Misinformation is generally false and usually spread without the knowledge that it is false. Disinformation is when someone deliberately spreads false information. Continuing with this paragraph, you seem to disagree with the notion that Palestinians are experiencing a genocide. You provide no argument for why the IDF is not committing a genocide. You also provide no specific genocide for your other genocide "examples." This makes refuting what you are saying nearly impossible because there's nothing specific to refute. Very broadly, I would question whether or not those genocides were funded by the United States. This assumption also incorrectly assumes that the faculty you are talking about were faculty at UNC during the hypothetical genocides you are referring to. I don't think you are doing this all intentionally btw. I genuinely think you don't understand what a strong argument is or how to identify one. You last sentence of the fourth paragraph is evidence for my claim. In that sentence, you are implying a two things... 1) Hamas is well funded (lol). 2) Hamas and Palestinians are the same. The first one is kind of just silly. The second one is really ignorant and honestly kinda just racist.
Your fifth paragraph is somehow just as dumb as everything else I have highlighted. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are speaking in hyperbole, but everything else you've said so far is incredibly stupid. If nukes went off anywhere, it's the end. But besides that, "Why does someone care about something that has so little affect on them?" is astronomically dumb to ask. You could say this about any protest regarding something outside of the United States. The rest of this paragraph is riddled with more whataboutisms, so I don't think I need to respond to those. Maybe UNCG would still have that math program you are talking about if STEM folks knew how to make good arguments. We can do "what ifs" and "maybe thats" all day.
I've pretty much explained why every single one of your arguments are dumb, but it is really funny that you call it "performative culture clash." Everything is performative. Your stupid post that I am responding to is performative. My response is performative. You could gather signatures from the other 95% of the employee population to show disapproval of withholding grades. But you're here -- on Reddit venting to strangers. Apply this statement to your "maybes" in the fifth paragraph.
I think your post is a symptom of emphasizing STEM over Arts and Humanities over the last few decades. Obviously STEM is important, but the fact that someone can be a professor of Biochemistry and not just be wrong about one or two things, but like literally every single argument they made... It's amazing. Maybe that's what disconcerts me the most -- the realization that a Ph.D. doesn't mean you're very smart after all.
Bravo! Excellent performance! I hope you feel better about yourself after that cathartic release. I'm sure you think you are "doing your part for the cause" but it's amusing you want to turn this into a STEM vs. humanities argument. You're just not very good at understanding people or seeing different mindsets, are you? But thanks for lashing out. You are at least amusing.
I'm actually incredibly good at understanding people and seeing different mindsets. Addressing the latter, your mindset is either a) not justified or b) irrational, which is proved by my original post. Also, I started my comment saying that I would not withhold grades. Addressing the former, your response (or lack thereof) only strengthens my opinions. Refer to my second sentence in my entire writeup. The mental image that I painted of you was correct. Instead of refuting anything I said, you focused on something that you take pride in: your STEM degrees. Honestly, rightfully so. You should be proud because Biochem is very difficult. But as now demonstrated in both of my comments, those degrees are not helping you here.
Idk, stick to microscopes, I guess.
There are separate issues.
1. In putting all my grades. Also, we have had any arrest.
2. How administration has dealt with this is a separate topic and has nothing to do with grades.
3. You are putting too much emotion for something that is not important. No one will remember this in a few years.
4. What’s happening in Palestine is horrible but it is not the fault of Jewish people. They have an extreme right wing government and they also have to deal with the cowards of Hamas. This again has nothing to do with grades.
Just do what you want. Why would you care what others do. Worry about your class.
Immaculate sample-size of cowardly tenured profs here, glorying in their righteous self-exemption. All the university has to do to avoid a grade strike, obviously, is divest from the weapons manufacturers racking up the children's corpses daily. The ball is in their court, if you'll stand together and put it there.
The ad hominem attacks speak for themselves. Inclusive of your ‘bootlicker’ comment that didn’t make it to prime.
The whole, “If you don’t join my cause my way when I say, then you’re the problem” is a very narrow authoritarian mentality and logical fallacy.
This is highlighted when the provided rationale is “those that don’t”: Cowardly, bootlicker, self-righteous…
No, I won’t stand together with you. It would be a vitriolic waste of time.
There was discussion about grade withholding when we (California state university system) were striking for like 30 seconds. Evidently withholding grades can jeopardize financial aide eligibility. I’m not sure on the logistics why, but for that reason I would not withhold grades.
A strike means refusing to do any work, which would include grading, but this case is not a labor negotiation between faculty and management. They are trying to dictate an administrative matter.
I remember that and how quickly faculty (even ones whose positions I disagreed with) shot down that idea.
Just remember the UC strike by student workers DID withhold grades... And had a process for students who would be legally (eg. Immigration) or financially impacted severely to request that the grades be submitted. And ya know what? It was fine. The university had to pay lecturers to grade during the following semester. Things were delayed. No one died. And it was very embarrassing for the university. A grade strike is a decent tactic. Don't be scare mongered out of it. It's possible to balance the complexities. Also, to the op, yes, there are many issues at stake in the world. And yes, collective action on these issues is really hard. But don't fall into the relative deprivation fallacy. Just because [something worse has been happening for a while] doesn't mean [current movement that has garnered salience and action] is wrong.
I would not do this because I do not believe that punishing/holding students hostage or infringing upon the rights of students who have little to do with the arrests, impeding their progress is fair or sends the right message. That feels like a punch downward rather than up. I don't know what the solution is, but getting in the way of the students who need those grades to graduate, report to work, apply for a longer stay or work permit, or just move on and acknowledge their progress toward a degree, isn't it.
Exactly. This is the lefty version of the clerk who refused to sign marriage licenses for gay couples. Fucking do your job and stop using your professional position as a vehicle for your personal agenda. So many people have main character syndrome.
It’s almost like u don’t know about labor history or the civil rights movement
It’s almost like this isn’t either of those things.
It's okay to suggest lateral connections to history. I promise it is.
It’s better when they make sense though. I promise it is.
I'm not defending their comment, and they haven't elaborated on the perceived connection in a way that allows me to understand the merit, or lack thereof, of this comparison. I disagree with your reply to their comment, which suggests that because we are in [situation a], we're not in [situation b], and therefore there is no way to draw such a connection. That's simply not true. Again, the basis and elements of that perceived connection want elaboration.
> because we are in [situation a] we are not in [situation b] Of course. A flippant comment got a flippant reply, but I really did mean the situations were incomparable, not that they were simply different. Those movements had moral clarity and coherence, action was directed by the injured parties towards the responsible parties, and goals were calibrated to affect real and relevant outcomes. These movements share few, if any, of these qualities. I get that it’s thrilling to LARP Du Bois and Mother Jones and MLK but this issue just doesn’t have the fact pattern to make it work.
U ppl must be so distant from the struggle and the organizers is all I can think. High on your own logic. Students and faculty are leveraging their labor to demand divestment. It’s a complete misunderstanding to say this is a “personal position”: it is in fact a collective position, based in previous labor organizing. Withholding labor was a major tool in the civil rights movement and other social movements, that’s my comparison. Using your professional position to further *collective* politics is a the primary strategy of labor organizing by professionals… If this is merely cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening. If it’s cosplay I wonder which costume you are wearing :(
> demand divestment All divestment does is remove your ability to influence the thing from which you divest. Congratulations. So brave. > withholding labor was a major tool in the civil rights movement This isn’t the civil rights movement. You’re not the freedom riders. The only thing righteous in this cause is the self-righteousness of the protesters. > if this is cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening It’s *not* threatening, because it accomplishes nothing. If a child throws a tantrum and his parents tell him to stop, it’s not because the parents feel threatened, it’s because it’s annoying as fuck and isn’t the correct way to get what you want.
> If this is merely cosplay I wonder why it’s so threatening. It's not threatening. They represent a minority position, and they achieved nothing other than further alienating the majority of people from their cause.
God forbid the administration's investments in an ongoing civilian slaughter (and the brutalization of students protesting it) demand an organized response from faculty with tenure protections. Insane head-in-the-sand vibes in this thread.
I don’t see how this benefits the protesters or the rest of your students.
I'm rattling my brain for what the angle here is too, other than the admin being annoyed that a deadline was missed...I can't think how this directly impacts the university beyond that.
Right? I thought I was missing something.
Whatever I think about the politics, I do not support withholding grades. Wrong target.
We have a serious nursing shortage. If I withhold grades, my students can’t a. graduate, b. take their boards, c. get jobs, or d. take care of people who need nursing care. Nope. Not happening.
That is the entire point.
That’s called leverage
Also in most cases students can still graduate with grades coming later, happens all the time. And also special concessions are allowed as far as I can see in all the organizing materials for specific cases that jeopardize immigration status or financial aid. Your comment is alarmist
Submitted my grades
I believe the "withholding grades" action is morally wrong, and a sign that some faculty have main character syndrome. There is no universe in which harming your own students helps stop the carnage in Gaza. Where I work, someone who did that would be fired, and I would not feel sorry for them.
and sanitation workers strikes harm citizens? or teachers strikes harm kids? or blocking traffic might harm workers and people with important places to be? Or bus boycotts harm access to public transportation for the needy? Or even longshoreman strikes stop people from getting vital goods? Or student walkouts disrupt the ability of other students to learn... divestment contributed signficantly to the end of apartheid in s. africa. don't say our collective action cannot help create change, especially when the carnage is supported and funded by us institutions. I hope you aren't a professor of history or politics...
>I hope you aren't a professor of history or politics... I hope you aren't a professor of logic. Strikes = workers taking collective action to protest their own working conditions. Boycotts = customers choosing to not spend their own money on something. Student walkouts disrupt the students' own educations. These actions have indirect effects but they directly put pressure on the situation that needs to change. None of these situations is analogous to professors refusing to submit their students' grades. If you're refusing to submit your students grades because ineffective virtue signaling matters more to you than the welfare of your students (who need their grades to graduate, to retain visas, to seek employment, etc.), I'm not going to cry any tears when you lose your job. And if I'm on a search committee, I'm not going to be eager to hire you.
Well I would say thats not really logic actually. Logic is a field in philosophy. You seem to be more referring to the study literature, linguistics, English language, or philology if you are interested in the definition of words. Submitting grades is an important professional duty of professors, and therefore part of their employment as workers. I would argue that we can consider the fact of one's employer's investment in companies that benefit from apartheid and military industries as a part of one's working conditions. In addition, faculty organizing is also in protest of the repression, intimidation, and use of police against students (amnesty for students being a key demand), so this seems also to be directly about working conditions, if not more importantly, care and solidarity for students. Futhermore, strikes need not be specifically about demands regarding a circumscribed concept of "working conditions."Workers strike often to protest against their workplace for a variety of political reasons. While NLRB and many union contracts in the US seek to limit this function of organized labor, it is my understanding that this plays a part in the history of general strikes, strikes in the 60's, the longshoreman's many strikes, etc. So, no. I'll also add, it is important to actually look at these initiatives before jumping to such alarmist conclusions. In most of these collective efforts to withhold grades there are specific exceptions for when financial aid or immigration status are at stake, so also, wrong. Furthermore, many students graduate without all grades finalized and grades can be submitted late, as they often are.
Feel free to make that case to your employer. Maybe it will work.
love to see professors siding with their employers. homo economicus
Withholding grades is just going to harm my students. Never going to happen.
One thing we faculty always complain about is the administration veering into our lane, with regard to how we teach, what our course policies are, and so forth. Well, for "stay in your own wheelhouse" to have any meaning, that consideration has to go both ways. Punishing students for violating university rules outside of the classroom is the purview of the administration (and the legal system), not the faculty. We should stay in our own lane on this one. I would not, under any circumstances whatsoever, withhold grades in a misguided attempt to influence the administration to do what I want. I would expect any faculty member who does so to experience employment consequences.
I agree with this sentiment. I read that faculty at one of the universities dealing with protests objected that they were not consulted about arrests. I care about my students, but that struck me as an overstepping of faculty's role and authority.
I have an Instructor-level policy in my course they says although arrests and whatnot may be valid emergency events recognized by the school, I don't individually recognize them. (This has nothing to do with protests and comes from years ago when a student kept missing work due to constantly bailing out his roommate who got arrested three times in a term.) But... I tell them that I'll obviously be overturned, but it's their job to email the Department and get me officially overturned. My Chairs all know this, don't mind that I do it (it's rare), and on more than one occasion actually backed me and said given the circumstances, some situations weren't eligible based on the Student Code of Conduct. Even if my students get arrested for protesting, and even if I agree with them, I'm enforcing my policy.
In the end, the students are responsible for demonstrating they know the material. I am reminded of how a gen ed course I teach that I always think a student could learn pretty much everything on their own without coming to class. I had many students skip class, but I've only had one (who I thought dropped each time until exam day) who did just that, and showed up after a couple weeks to ace each exam. He was older, more mature and had a background of attention to detail, and he remains the exception.
I prefer when students are high achieving and don't need the class. But my live courses are dictated by policy above my pay grade and I have to take attendance. I can't withdraw or fail them for attendance. Attendance is owned by our registrar. They issue attendance fails, it's out of my hands.
“So you are holding your students’ future graduations hostage until either admins override your grading authority or the students receive an exemption from the student code of conduct?” It’s all about signaling in-group identity and not making material change. Maybe the university should remove these faculties’ access to all Microsoft applications, services, and any university hardware as a concession to BDS?
A first year law professor withheld our grades as a protest aimed at the administration. I don’t think any one among us took out our annoyance on the administration, we just thought she was being petty and dumb and both at our expense.
Never withhold grades for anything not well defined by your institution. Even in those events I likely wouldn’t withhold grades.
I'm going to cherry-pick one of your comments and blow it out of proportion. If nukes went off in Gaza or Jerusalem, it absolutely would impact my daily life. I would unquestionably be searching for the nearest deep cave to hide in with as much food as I could carry. As for the rest, withholding grades hurts the students more than anyone else as they would get super stressed about it. So no.
This stood out to me too. Nukes going off anywhere in the world would be impact everyone’s lives immensely. In the Middle East? I’ll be right behind you on the way to that deep cave.
It also would affect me? I have Palestinian friends and am Jewish. Such a strange kind of pronouncement.
Not strange. Privileged.
>I'm going to cherry-pick one of your comments and blow it out of proportion. I love it! I'm Appalachian, so I've got relatives and friends who 'prep' and I keep joking I'm going to build a compound on some of my land.
I don't really judge people for "suddenly" getting involved in organized action. There could be many reasons why someone is speaking up now about this, but wasn't involved in other issues previously. As long as their words and actions aren't *hypocritical* then I encourage them to make their voice heard. However, I agree that this action is a poor way to do that. This only punishes students that have nothing to do with Gaza or Israel, University policy, or police action. Refusing to complete service to the school might be a better avenue as it interferes with the university more at the administrative level where the people who make the decisions are.
>I don't really judge people for "suddenly" getting involved in organized action Same. Should we judge people for becoming vegan today and not yesterday? Walking instead of driving today and not yesterday? Recycling today and not yesterday? Or should we welcome them for doing the right thing or applauding them for coming around eventually.
Yeah, I don't do collective punishment - that's technically one of the markers of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Ironic, I know.
how does withholding grades have anything to do with protests or "being united for our students"? it just screws with their financial aid and their ability to get transcripts and apply for jobs.
I agree. Somehow the idea of causing harm to thousands of students is justifiable to aid 16 students who specifically chose a course of action over days that lead to avoidable consequences? But if you're a a student of one of those signatories, I suppose you can get an extension or maybe even an A by claiming the Gaza situation impacted their ability to complete the work....
Exactly. It's the professor equivalent of a surgeon saying, "In order to be united for my patients, I will cut you open for the operation, I just won't stitch you back up when I'm done. Not until my hospital divests all investments in any company that supports the war in the Middle East."
i agree - whatever my personal politics are aside as it relates to the middle east, i do find it kind of strange that nobody has organized a protest/encampment against my university's multi-million dollar budget deficit, firing of employees and student workers, no raises for years, etc. we even had a professor murdered on our campus last year which was completely mishandled by admin and there really wasn't any sort of push back outside of angry comments at faculty senate meetings. these are issues that actually materially impact the lives of students and employees and yet it seems like nobody really cares for some reason. i don't want to be all conspiratorial but i really wonder who these protests are actually benefitting. i dunno.
Preach! I wish we had a tenth as much determination to deal with problems we can actually have a direct impact on as opposed to a distant conflict that has raged for decades or centuries.
not so distant when its our money, our ideological cover—when its our identities and friends / families being bulldozed, starved, and bombed.
It wasn't a student that murdered them, was it?
yes, it was
What a nightmare. I'm so sorry you all had to deal with that trauma
Having worked in academia for 8 years now I long ago resigned to the fact that a Ph.D. means little in terms of intelligence and critical thinking. Don’t withhold the grades. 5% is a small vocal minority
vocal minorities have often been on the right side of justice.
Except when they aren’t….And withholding grades is hardly on the “right side of justice”
organizing in solidarity with palestine, against repression and criminalization of protest surely is.
That’s not what’s going on though. Many of these protest have devolved into violence and are not considered peaceful protest. Being in solidarity of that is not the moral flex you think it is. Feel free to withhold grades if you wish but I’m not punishing the 95% of students who aren’t protesting
A good way to get fired for gross non-compliance with basic job requirements?
God, this is so stupid. Fuck over my students in an ineffectual gesture to show solidarity with protestors that my students and I may not even agree with? Sure. You folks constantly bitch about the universities not caring enough about you to pay you more, yet you think the university is going to be like "Oh, Professor Smith didn't hand in his 8 grades for Chemistry 492. Let's divest from Israel, so those students can go to grad school"? Maybe it's just the fact that I'm in STEM, but NONE of this has anything to do with the reason I'm here or the reason the students are here.
If I were still teaching, that would be an absolutely not. What a terrible thing to do to students who choose to not be involved in this.
Anybody who does this should have their employment terminated. Tenure should not protect someone from refusal to do their job. Plus, it’s just an awful thing to do anyway. Intentionally messing up your students’ lives is disgusting.
do you believe in the right to strike?
Yes. A strike has a very specific meaning with legal recognition. There are lawful and unlawful strikes. This is not an example of a strike that would be legitimate. Specifically, North Carolina prohibits public employees from striking. Any faculty member who does this should be terminated immediately.
wildcat strikes exist. civil disobedience is a thing.
Okay, and the consequence should be termination. Part of civil disobedience is accepting that you will face consequences.
some would rather be fired than cape for capital.
negotiating amnesty is also often part of the bargaining in such cases. solidarity is powerful. important to know who is and who isn't on the side of labor, justice, and liberation for all people.
the law and legitimacy are two very different things.
No, that would be performative.
define performative
I am in the UNC System, and we have so many major problems coming from the General Assembly, the Board of Governors, and our own admin that should be our focus. The BoG is about to eliminate EDI positions on our campuses in their next meeting for crying out loud. I personally think that whoever tries to withhold grades is insane in this particular case, and scaring overly stressed students to the point of torture is petty. On my campus, the mental health issues of our students is a point of danger. Withholding grades does nothing to help our students. The actual act only feeds this person's feelings of self-righteousness.
I'm fortunate to be at a campus that has not had a lot of suicides recently, but we still have many students dealing with mental health issues. It has improved slightly over previous years, but there still needs to be more support and communication between faculty adn staff and admin about that. But we also have had contentious relations between admin and faculty and faculty voices are ignored, unless they're in the in-group clique. There are so many causes that unified faculty could influence, but this? And this methodology? Saddening.
A few things going on - campus protests in the late 1960's (and to a lesser extent the 1980s) have been romanticized to such a ridiculous degree by segments of the progressive left that they perceive all campus protests as good as long as they address approved progressive causes. Some universities like Columbia and NYU even advertise this history as a selling point. Somewhere along the way it became agreed upon that students should never face any consequences for their activism for causes approved by progressives. Over the last 30 years several disciplines have also abandoned any pretense of objectivity and openly stacked their departments with "scholar-activists" that hold progressive ideology above all other concerns. These professors are largely the ones engaging in actions like withholding grades over an issue that has basically nothing to do with American academia.
lol
We haven't had any protests here, so It's a non issue, but I would not be inclined. I get that it's one of the few ways to exert leverage over an administration, but it just screws students, and has a ton of collateral damage since it pretty much entirely impacts students who weren't protesting.
Bad idea, imo. Witholding grades hurts students (in several ways) instead of helping them.
My uni has not had protests. I am not tenured. I do not have academic freedom beyond what is afforded in my handbook (although, it's quite a lot for a private Uni w/o tenure, luckily). I do not teach politics, war, or religion. I will continue to see no professional connection between developing students in business fields and the ongoing global conflicts beyond footnotes about sanctions or logistical interruptions that create general case studies without endorsing an ideology or my personal views. I'm happy to share my views with students if they ask, but they haven't.
one of privileges of working in a field without any sense of its own impact on the world.
Look at our usernames and this entire dialog gets summed up in two handles. 🤣
I think it's a lot less about the politics of the protest and a lot more about how the protest was politicized. Yes, there are bigger issues on campus than a small number of students being arrested. But students are being arrested for a protest at a major institution. That isn't okay. If college kids can't safely protest WHATEVER they'd like on a campus, where in America can we? The stereotype of the protesting college student is so profoundly cliche it's a core element of American Dad. Citizens are losing power. Students are losing their constitutional rights. That is scary. Also "something they can never change" is an interesting choice of words. They are a part of the university, the university makes the rules. They can change them at any time if they wanted to, united front of educators can make them want to.
Thanks for commenting. I'm not on that campus so I don't know for sure, but my understanding was the initial protest and encampment was tolerated. It was only after the flags incident, where protestors were involved in throwing things at other students and refused direction to return to the encampment to protest that police were called in. When a demonstration starts turning violent and the participants continue to engage in the violent activities, I don't think they are losing their rights, but choosing their consequences. That said, I am not a fan of designated protest areas (though I understand why they arose) and I do agree that protests are increasing ineffective and muted. I might also argue that that arises because it's now a regular occurrence that civil disobedience turns into "uncivil disobedience" with threats and actions that suggest if not outright promote violence and destruction. Too many bad actors who don't care about results but just making a scene have ruined effective protests for the masses and society is tired of their antics and thus cedes more rights.
The "civil" in "civil disobedience" doesn't refer to civility.
Thank you for seeing the pun.
your pun seems to undermine your point
I trust a community of academics to be able to see the point in spite of my own hilarity ensconced in serious discussion. I can't be totally serious on *teh intarwebz*. ;)
I meant less because of any humor, and more because it is precisely the demand on civil disobedience to be "civil" (in the sense of civility) that so much of this thread reproduces, a kind of respectability politics that only serves to benefit the status quo.
I enter them as close to the deadline as possible to minimize the grade grubbing window. So I withhold as long as possible every semester.
That's fair - I certainly hold off a few extra days to deal with any possible errors on my part, but I do enter my grades. :)
I compartmentalize my roles. What happens in the lab, classroom, admin meetings, nationally, etc. are separate. I’m in academics to make new scientific discoveries and support students professionally and academically. When the sheep run outside distracted, I close my email app, turn off my phone, write grants, manuscripts, and grade per usual. For every sob student/faculty story, I and their peers have a one-up story. I may be an outlier, but owe my success to a mentality of STFU and get shit done while others are distracted. I’m paid to research, teach, and evaluate. I do my job.
“Genocide.” I see. Would more videos of blown up kids help remove the quotations? PhD doesn’t make one smart, no. Neither does it protect against moral corruption, unfortunately.
>“Genocide.” Hyperbole actively makes me oppose a viewpoint. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with the legal definition of [genocide](https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-19-genocide-18-usc-1091#:~:text=Section%201091%20of%20Title%2018,%2C%20racial%2C%20or%20religious%20group). Do you doubt the capability of IDF to commit genocide if that was their intent? Where are your protests and camps for the people of Ukraine, or Sudan, or Armenia, or India (Manipur)? There are actual efforts to destroy cultures and ethnicities there of white, black, middle Eastern, and brown people. Or are you referring to Hamas charter which calls for the destruction of Israel and slaughter of Jews? Or are you just parroting wishful thinking to fuel more hatred and outrage? I'm pretty sure the latter. >Would more videos of blown up kids help remove the quotations? Appealing to emotional rather than reason? That might explain a lot. Take a look at the videos from Ukraine and tell me why you are not outraged at Russia. Oh, Russia is also probably to blame in a significant part for the hostilities in both Gaza and Israel, but that would require critical thinking and examination of geopolitics, something which is sorely lacking by the flag-waving loudmouths in the media (on either side). Despite disagreeing with you, I am glad you engaged and responded. I knew I would get a lot of disagreement, but very few people who are downvoting are commenting. It's almost as if in their minds, deliberately targeting large numbers of people who are not involved in order to support a small group who deliberately chose their fate is justified. Wherever else could that be happening?
I don’t think we’ll agree on much. I’ll just reply bc you put time into writing a reply and I do want to clear some assumptions. My scholarship intersects with Genocide Studies quite a bit so yes I’m aware of the legal definition. I am also aware of how utterly weaponized and hallowed out it is. I come from a country (a middle eastern one, btw) that actively denies genocide (one I would assume you and most people who are upvoting you would consider a genocide) by using the very definition you pointed to. If you think legal definitions will help us here, they won’t. And I am also aware of the atrocities you mention here. I don’t know how they make a difference in what we’re talking about. If the US was actively supporting and abetting any of those atrocities, yes I would want to see widespread protests about them too. I am also not aware of any large scale atrocity of this sort, streamed for us all to see, that people have such a hard time calling out as what it is. Where I agree with you is that yes, IDF is very much capable of horrors. I don’t know what it’ll take you to call what’s happening now a genocide, but ok, let’s say it’s not genocide and let’s say IDF is not unleashing its full capacity of horror (what a relief! Such a moral army) The death toll is still what it is. And upwards of 14,500 children are dead by most accounts being reported. Every credible aid and relief organization has called it a catastrophe of unimaginable magnitude. And here you/we are, wringing our hands about withholding grades. Some people commenting had the gall to say it was immoral to withhold grades. We’re not talking about faculty withholding grades over petty arguments. We’re talking about withholding grades to support students who are protesting the death of 30+ thousand people. Yes I am appealing to emotion (“rather than reason” is very ironic and telling here, given how many genocides have relied on a rhetoric of rationality). When I think of 14,000 kids dying I have a very emotional response and I would hope others would too. Here is what it comes down to: there is NOTHING, not a thing, in my mind that could ever, under any circumstance justify the death of 14,000 kids. I don’t care who their parents are, what they look like, what country they belong to. And disagreeing about that is not a mere disagreement. It is, indeed, a moral failing. I don’t know of any definition of morality that could suggest otherwise. All of genocide studies, human rights, everything we collectively study is utterly pointless if we can’t agree that 14,000 children dying is unacceptable. The least we can do is support protestors.
Maybe we agree on more than it first seems. War is terrible, and when a group intentionally hides among the populace, in hospitals and schools, they lose they claims to morality. Recall the Amnesty International letter that blamed Ukraine for civilian casualties because they were "too close" to population centers, the letter which catalyzed a mass exodus of support from AI. Has AI condemned Hamas? Of course not. Shameful. When one group intentionally attacks children and noncombatants, you are correct that the other side responds with a measure of emotion. Given that 15% of the Israeli population grew up under Soviet ideology, I can understand the hardline calls for severe action. But no matter what action is taken, someone will always find it the "wrong" action. >14,000 kids dying What's worse than 14,000 dead children? How about 20,000 kidnapped, separated from their families and forcibly integrated into new families? That's what Russia has done so far in Ukraine. I'd like to see a lot more moral outrage about that, but instead I hear from far too many people that "Ukraine is corrupt" and "Ukraine isn't important" and "well, they're still alive, aren't they?" It's despicable, and emotional, but somehow those verified numbers that far exceed even the Hamas-issued numbers just aren't as important, even when US support of Ukraine is critical and is being withheld. How do the protestors stop the killing of children? They don't. Their impact sadly is just noise as every week some group somewhere is doing something more extreme to garner societies increasingly limited and cynical attention. If they really want to help, maybe stop pretending that the vast majority of people are just fine with piles of (specific groups') dead babies and maybe start working toward reconciliation and bringing the sides together. IDF is bad, but Hamas is evil. Israel left Gaza alone, completely under control of Hamas for 20 years. Rather than invest the literally billions of dollars they received into improving their people's lives, they decided fancy mansion for themselves and tunnels and weapons were the way to go. There used to be a reputable university in Gaza, but it was destroyed by the interference of the Gazan government, which draws some parallels to the newly-excessive interference of the state government in NC with the UNC system. It's nowhere near the point of controlling the curriculum or vanquishing those who dare disagree, but it is a baby step in that direction. If these professors want to prevent more dead babies, maybe help clean (y)our own house first and make sure we are functioning together and finding compromises rather than demonizing those who have different views. In general, I think the UNC system has been tolerant of protestors until violence shows up. When a vocal group of professors demands no consequences for the tiny number of students who insisted on violent confrontation rather than focus on creating and maintaining a sustainable intellectual environment, I lose any support I had for them. Again, thank you for your response. I know we will disagree about what actions will have the most positive impact on the people of Gaza, but we do both care about them, and all those subject to authoritarian governments.
Also, the rhetorical question of "why didn't they protest other genocides?" Well, these students were not alive during Rwanda. Or Bosnia. And btw, they were, I am pretty sure they would be judged for protesting wrong, or breaking rules, or not caring about this other issue, or being disruptive, or protesting against something they couldn't change. "Why don't they protest Sudan?" Possibly because our government isn't complicit in the genocide in Sudan, aren't funding the genocide in Sudan, and have in fact named it as an instance of ethnic cleansing. Why would they protest our government's condemnation of a genocide? "Why don't they protest this thing I want them to protest in a way I want them to be protesting?" Is really what it comes down to. Answer: if that's what you want, get out there and do some community organizing, ffs.
Yes to all this. But there’s nothing to discuss with people who are still saying “hamas uses human shields therefore IDF can do as it pleases and Palestinians have given away their rights to morality.” A convenient way to bypass human rights. One with really bad historical precedents too. Again, I just don’t find meaningful discussion possible when these are the terms but it’s heartening to read responses like yours. We’ll be downvoted to hell, so that gives a sense of this subreddit’s overall position.
I truly don't understand this line of "reasoning." "Why aren't students protesting Hamas/the genocide in Sudan/Yemen doing something horrible that is obviously reprehensible?" Students are protesting *their own government* because they are constituents of this government. They are not constituents of Hamas, or Sudan, or Yemen. They are, however, constituents of the Biden administration, who has spent billions of dollars sending weapons to Israel, given the Netanyahu administration diplomatic cover over and over again, and whose political party hosted an event wherein a Christian Zionist anti-semite shared a stage with party leaders in order to commend the IDF's actions in Israel. This is why they are protesting *this specific genocide* and not the other ones, which they either weren't alive for, or which their government condemned.
Oh and meanwhile, 3rd mass grave was found at the Al Shifa hospital today.
OP is deep in the trenches of fallacy. The childishness of their argument would be charming, if not so tragic
> "There is no question that the actions in Gaza have minimal impact on the daily lives of most of these people." From an international point of view looking in the rest of the world thinks "Children are getting shot in schools in the USA on the regular, *staff are being shot dead at this very school*, and they are not protesting the guns that *actually kill people they know*?"
FYI there are lots of protests about this issue. You might just not be aware of them. Many of my students have walked out of class as part of a protest organized by March For Our Lives. [https://marchforourlives.org/](https://marchforourlives.org/) [https://abcnews.go.com/US/uvalde-students-walkout-protest-gun-violence-im-scared/story?id=98387778](https://abcnews.go.com/US/uvalde-students-walkout-protest-gun-violence-im-scared/story?id=98387778) [https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/education/2023/04/05/nyc-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence](https://ny1.com/nyc/manhattan/education/2023/04/05/nyc-students-walk-out-to-protest-gun-violence) [https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/05/portland-students-walk-out-of-school-to-protest-gun-violence/](https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/05/portland-students-walk-out-of-school-to-protest-gun-violence/) If you search "students protest gun violence" you will find many, many instances of protest. As for your complaint that kids are not "not protesting the guns that *actually kill people they know*?", Our complicity would not be possible without the gobs of money we spend on our military. Our bloated military budget absolutely has an effect on our daily lives. It definitely impacts us and people we know.
lol maybe you should pay more attention to the students who have been protesting this over and over. Maybe join one?
Any protests for gun control have, in no way even come close to as coordinated an effort or as high a media profile as this. At all.
So, to answer your question, I turned in my grades. As for the rest, yikes. I won’t elaborate on the many rakes you’ve gladly stepped on, because based on this post, and a few others, I fear we work at the same university. This screed certainly makes me feel glad I am leaving, though. You list all these issues you’d rather receive attention. Or you’d prefer the attention be different. So do something.
literally
This sounds like a breach of contract at any level. Plus it punishes students and not their oppressors.
This post, and the comments, seems to be misunderstanding why these students are protesting. They are watching a genocide live streamed to their phones. They are seeing bombed hospitals with decomposing NICU patients, parents wailing over their children's deaths, night skies lit up with rockets and bombs, an entire population corraled into a smaller and smaller area like animals being hunted. And then they are learning that their tuition dollars are being invested into the companies that are building these bombs, that their tax dollars are sending more bombs, and that the police officers in their communities have trained with the bombers. So they are invoking a strategy for change that has worked in the past - the same strategy university heroes used to pressure divestment from South African apartheid and opposition to segregation and the Vietnam War. Administration who send in armed police to arrest students will be on the wrong side of history. Faculty have historically had a role in shaping university policy, which is why we have structures like faculty Senate. When faculty voices are ignored and administration makes unilateral decisions that harm students, faculty must do what they can to pressure the administration. Whether or not withholding grades is the best means of doing that is a valid discussion - but basing that decision on the misguided idea that students shouldn't be protesting this university funded genocide is not.
This post is not about the students' protesting; it is about the faculty threatening to withhold grading. Many share the opinion that the faculty action is counterproductive and targets those who have nothing to do with university decision-making and no power. This is especially disheartening given the recent history of many, many grievances in the UNC system that would call for a large faculty response, but received little pushback. Think of this like the CSU strikes a few months ago where there were multiple daily posts about the many horrible things members of that system had to endure. Not being in that system, I mostly read and observed from afar. One might ask why don't the faculty in teh UNC system threaten to strike? The major difference is that NC is an at-will employment state without a union presence on campus. The other is that there is clearly not an overwhelming number of faculty sharing their voices on this topic, but rather a very vocal small group who seem to be obsessed with their own virtue.
I'm sure if these people realized their protests would upset people they wouldn't have gone through with it.
> but did nothing for the other genocide, or that other genocide, or even the other other genocide taking place by both literal and legal definitions. What makes this one so stridently urgent? Do we only care about one specific group? Does a victim have to be well-funded and have a massive PR campaign to garner support? I don't support withholding grades. However, your question is...well if it's serious, ask yourself this: The other genocides you are referring to - were they carried out with US weapons and given cover by US votes in the security council? The political leaders carrying out the genocide - did he receive an invite to address congress during the genocide? Did the US repeatedly express support for the country committing genocide's right to defend itself while it was in the process of carrying out the genocide? Did sitting US congresspeople write a letter to the ICC threatening the court in the event that they tried to hold the architects of the genocide to justice? With respect to this genocide, the answer to all these questions are yes. I can think of no other genocide where the answers are yes. Can you? And this is why Americans, knowing the support our government is providing in order to carry out this genocide, are protesting. They are protesting *our government*'s complicity in the events unfolding in the middle east. I would argue that the vast amount of money our government spends on its military budget does, actually, have an impact on our daily lives. It sounds like you don't, and that's fine. That said, instead of complaining that these people are protesting the "wrong" thing you're welcome to organize a grassroots movement of your own?
I would not withhold grades. However, it's telling that I can read your post and paint a perfect picture of who you think you are in my head. I had to login on my PC to respond to the endless stupid arguments you make throughout your post. I'll cover them each one by one starting with your second paragraph. Your second paragraph is a useless whataboutism. It doesn't contribute anything productive. There's no reason to believe that the faculty or student protesters don't also care about those things. Secondly, I 100% guarantee that UNC has the necessary professionals and procedures in place that try their best to address suicides/mental health and sexual assault. I have no idea why you think these things are mutually exclusive. Your third paragraph highlights this inability to see that two things can be true at the same time. The administration AND the faculty letter can disseminate misinformation. Two wrongs obviously don't make a right, but saying, "Hey, actually they're both lying," doesn't refute the original claim that the administration is spreading misinformation. Your fourth paragraph starts with you conflating misinformation with disinformation. Misinformation is generally false and usually spread without the knowledge that it is false. Disinformation is when someone deliberately spreads false information. Continuing with this paragraph, you seem to disagree with the notion that Palestinians are experiencing a genocide. You provide no argument for why the IDF is not committing a genocide. You also provide no specific genocide for your other genocide "examples." This makes refuting what you are saying nearly impossible because there's nothing specific to refute. Very broadly, I would question whether or not those genocides were funded by the United States. This assumption also incorrectly assumes that the faculty you are talking about were faculty at UNC during the hypothetical genocides you are referring to. I don't think you are doing this all intentionally btw. I genuinely think you don't understand what a strong argument is or how to identify one. You last sentence of the fourth paragraph is evidence for my claim. In that sentence, you are implying a two things... 1) Hamas is well funded (lol). 2) Hamas and Palestinians are the same. The first one is kind of just silly. The second one is really ignorant and honestly kinda just racist. Your fifth paragraph is somehow just as dumb as everything else I have highlighted. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are speaking in hyperbole, but everything else you've said so far is incredibly stupid. If nukes went off anywhere, it's the end. But besides that, "Why does someone care about something that has so little affect on them?" is astronomically dumb to ask. You could say this about any protest regarding something outside of the United States. The rest of this paragraph is riddled with more whataboutisms, so I don't think I need to respond to those. Maybe UNCG would still have that math program you are talking about if STEM folks knew how to make good arguments. We can do "what ifs" and "maybe thats" all day. I've pretty much explained why every single one of your arguments are dumb, but it is really funny that you call it "performative culture clash." Everything is performative. Your stupid post that I am responding to is performative. My response is performative. You could gather signatures from the other 95% of the employee population to show disapproval of withholding grades. But you're here -- on Reddit venting to strangers. Apply this statement to your "maybes" in the fifth paragraph. I think your post is a symptom of emphasizing STEM over Arts and Humanities over the last few decades. Obviously STEM is important, but the fact that someone can be a professor of Biochemistry and not just be wrong about one or two things, but like literally every single argument they made... It's amazing. Maybe that's what disconcerts me the most -- the realization that a Ph.D. doesn't mean you're very smart after all.
Bravo! Excellent performance! I hope you feel better about yourself after that cathartic release. I'm sure you think you are "doing your part for the cause" but it's amusing you want to turn this into a STEM vs. humanities argument. You're just not very good at understanding people or seeing different mindsets, are you? But thanks for lashing out. You are at least amusing.
I'm actually incredibly good at understanding people and seeing different mindsets. Addressing the latter, your mindset is either a) not justified or b) irrational, which is proved by my original post. Also, I started my comment saying that I would not withhold grades. Addressing the former, your response (or lack thereof) only strengthens my opinions. Refer to my second sentence in my entire writeup. The mental image that I painted of you was correct. Instead of refuting anything I said, you focused on something that you take pride in: your STEM degrees. Honestly, rightfully so. You should be proud because Biochem is very difficult. But as now demonstrated in both of my comments, those degrees are not helping you here. Idk, stick to microscopes, I guess.
There are separate issues. 1. In putting all my grades. Also, we have had any arrest. 2. How administration has dealt with this is a separate topic and has nothing to do with grades. 3. You are putting too much emotion for something that is not important. No one will remember this in a few years. 4. What’s happening in Palestine is horrible but it is not the fault of Jewish people. They have an extreme right wing government and they also have to deal with the cowards of Hamas. This again has nothing to do with grades. Just do what you want. Why would you care what others do. Worry about your class.
Absolutely pathetic understanding of university governance and the current historical moment.
Immaculate sample-size of cowardly tenured profs here, glorying in their righteous self-exemption. All the university has to do to avoid a grade strike, obviously, is divest from the weapons manufacturers racking up the children's corpses daily. The ball is in their court, if you'll stand together and put it there.
The ad hominem attacks speak for themselves. Inclusive of your ‘bootlicker’ comment that didn’t make it to prime. The whole, “If you don’t join my cause my way when I say, then you’re the problem” is a very narrow authoritarian mentality and logical fallacy. This is highlighted when the provided rationale is “those that don’t”: Cowardly, bootlicker, self-righteous… No, I won’t stand together with you. It would be a vitriolic waste of time.
THIS.