reflections over a year later

I never participated in this discussion because it seemed like a trap at the time. Everyone who opened their mouth on the topic in the department became subject to harassment about how to think about it and to consider the consequences of speaking out before doing so. The “don’t air departmental laundry” attitude was just the beginning of intimidation toward anyone who was considering voicing an independent opinion.

My greatest shock at the time was the number of people who believed (and maybe still do) that repressing criticism, especially publicly voiced criticism, in the interest of faculty and graduates was a good and healthy plan for the future. In seminar after seminar, approaches to getting public attention for sociological problems are sought, and then the moment people get a chance to make a public example of dealing with their own problems, they bury their heads in the sand (and everything and everyone else that might make them look bad).

It is still my belief as a sociologist that the way this discipline improves life is by studying social problems in order to create consciousness and influence change. Instead of that happening, this situation in this department resulted in an intensification of attitudes of defensiveness, denial, and deference toward public opinion perceived as evil and repressive — while no responsibility was taken for the repressive spirit among individuals working and studying in the department.

I only pray that we’re all healing and that we can all overcome the damage done and possibly do things more openly and fairly in the future.

still shell shocked, at 11:40 pm EST on December 13, 2008

Sigh

The story says that professors act inappropriately, *according to anonymous comments from students*. One student says that filing a public complaint would be akin to being a martyr, but to me, hiding behind the veil of anonymity is just cowardly.

Apparently a huge gap in understanding exists in Gainesville. Why are we convicting the sociology faculty of misbehavior with stories like this one, when clearly the behavior is not so bad that anyone is willing to subject themselves to any personal risk to complaint?

In the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty. If someone wants to make a public accusation, where the professor has the right to review the accusation and defend herself or himself, then fair enough. But if no one wants to do that, every single one of the faculty in that department remains innocent and deserves only to be known by their scholarship, teaching, and service.

James, at 9:30 am EDT on March 19, 2007

Amazing!

I’d have to say, you’ve never been to college or grad school where I attended to not have seen this sort of pressure on students from profs. There is a god-like veil of unquestioned authority for many professors, and many I know, at Florida Atlantic U. for instance have expressed how they were attacked, abused, and berated for their beliefs for 45 minutes at a time. And that right in front of their classmates.

In fact, the professor indicated he’d been doing that sort of thing “for 15 years” and “you can’t get rid of me, people have tried.” Whatever happened to the Civil Rights Act guarantees every intstitute of higher ed. signs off on as part of IRS regulation 75-50? Nondiscrimnation on the basis of “race, creed, color, or national origin” is patently illegal. So where are the DA’s and prosecutors?

Dr. Tony Husemann, Science Dept. Chair at CCA, at 11:46 am EDT on March 19, 2007

Nothing new at UF

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703180329

Halo, at 1:36 pm EDT on March 19, 2007

Dear John

Your response actually models the whole problem, John.

Let’s say I found your post to be degrading and offensive, so I decide to speak to your supervisors or another office on your campus anonymously. Should you mandated to go to “sensitivity training” as a result or suffer some other penalty?

Of course not. Unless I am willing to put my name on the line, bring formal charges, and provide evidence, then I could be making allegations up, just to harm your reputation.

Incidentally, do you recommend a particular sensitivity training? I can think of three or four programs that would have huge political differences, so now you’d be imposing a particular diversity agenda on me. Not good.

I really am not trying to be insensitive to the graduate students. My feeling is just that they have to decide how serious the matter is. If it’s serious enough, then one or two or more of them should file individual complaints and let the processes happen. If not, let it go.

This sort of behavior happens everywhere — industry, academy, even church — and everyone in life experiences discomfort from time to time. The real question is if the discomfort denies educational opportunities in this case. If so, then a complaint should be filed.

James, at 3:43 pm EDT on March 19, 2007

What a joke

Wow. It amazes me to see that a group of underperforming graduate students were able to parlay trumped up allegations into an Inside Higher Ed. Story. Being a student in in that department and knowing the 6-7 complaining studnets (out of 57) I’m compelled to declare shenanigans. The only reason these bellyaching malcontents have continued to flog this imaginary dead horse is to distract from their underperformance in the areas of teaching and scholarship... Seriously, they suck. It is their hope that by manufacturing a crisis they will be able to avoid becoming the miserable failures they were bound to become.

There is nothing wrong with the UF Soc. Department other than a small band of professional agitators.

Racist Gator Sociologist, Grad student at University of Florida, at 1:56 pm EDT on March 20, 2007

James: Why are you defending an institution as if it is a person? If people desire a change in government, isn’t a secret vote sufficient evidence that the existing government isn’t serving them? We don’t hold trials to determine whether the US government is racist or sexist — instead we look at concrete outcomes and aggregate public opinion.

No one has charged any person with anything — no professor is being called out by name and asked to defend his/her actions. Instead, students believe that there is a problem with the institution. Isn’t that reason enough for the institutional protections (not punishments) reccommended in the article? How does moving to three-person committees punish any particular faculty member? It doesn’t.

Not everything is a criminal justice problem. Sometimes we have to design policies around what is “probably” or even “possibly” true (example: what are the odds that the US government would mandate a single Church without the First Amendment? I’d guess they are low, but that risk wasn’t one that early Americans were willing to tolerate).

These complaints show that the existing structure of the instution allows bad people to do bad things without consequences. In politics, we take this as a sign that we need to reform the structure, because even if our current leaders (read: faculty members) are good, selfless people, that won’t always be the case and it would be foolish to design our departments around the assumption that no one will ever have unexamined prejudices or a tendency to bully others.

Redesign the institution, and it will become difficult to discriminate without producing public evidence of such that CAN be used in a disciplinary proceeding against the few bad apples (if there are any of the less-than-fresh variety, that is).

Jeff D, Assitant Professor, at 5:51 am EDT on March 21, 2007