Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/18/california-state-employees-may.html
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pfff… who needs experts (UK) or scientists (US)? They just meet and plot to make our children autistic, defy gods creation with this evolution nonsense or bloviate chinese propaganda about global warming.
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This seems like an incredibly misguided idea on many levels.
Academic conferences aren’t organized by governments, they are largely organized by academics. So it makes it very difficult for your researchers to do their job. Collaborators in Tennessee? Better ditch 'em.
Will it actually hurt these states? Would need to see the dollar value of travel by California employees to these states, but I can’t imagine it’s that much. Maybe if another 25 or so states signed on? Things are probably too interconnected to make that happen.
Will state governments in these four states give a hoot? Seems more likely they’ll wear it as a badge of pride. Why give them ammunition?
Seems a better plan to export your values to backward states, rather than re-enforcing the echo chamber.
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Sooo… you alienate what are probably bastions of LGBTQ support because the state who they have no power over has shit laws?
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What was the result of the various boycotts of North Carolina after HB2?
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I hope California makes an exception when the venue is in a municipality that formally resists a state’s bigoted laws. Even in a benighted and backwards state like Mississippi the college towns and urban areas are islands of liberalism and progressivism in a sea of Know-Nothing conservatism.
Making this exception would only be fair, as California itself intends to do what it can as a state within the Union to resist and defy whatever depredations the new administration will try to visit upon the country as a whole.
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Boycotts by the NBA? I’d say it showed people that there was a price to pay for being backward in a world that was going forward.
Plus HB2 wasn’t a bill that many people actually cared about. I don’t know what happens in the bathrooms of the state legislature, but I’m pretty sure that most people greatly prefer not to know what is going on in the stall next to them and to generally think of going to the bathroom only when actually going to the bathroom.
But boycotts by another state government for a wide array of possible laws? To me that sounds like it’s going to allow people to get their backs up and defend indefensible things with “who do Californians think they are?” rhetoric.
Of course this will all make more sense when California secedes.
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Is that any different from how Texas controls what goes into everyone’s school textbooks?
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Of course. When it’s a red state imposing values, it’s “states exercising their rahts.” When it’s a blue state doing it, it’s “coastal elites think they know better than Real Muricans.”
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What was the result?
In general, boycotts usually have limited success.
Plus we are talking one state and state employees taking trips OUTSIDE of the state. I have a feeling that impact isn’t super great. Plus one assumes that the 49 other states won’t come if say Kansas University hosts an academic conference just because some people from CA won’t be there.
This is a good thing, but there is an important caveat: for the average State of CA employee like me, travelling out of state requires the signature of the Governor. I have only had the chance to do this twice in my career, and since the 2008 repression (recession+depression==repression), travel funds have virtually disappeared for all but upper management. I have not traveled anywhere for work since 2006 or so.
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So I’m guessing here that the proclamation is largely for show. Makes good print. Blunt force political pressure always does.
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A better comparison here would be the city of Cincinnati, after the passage of its1993 city charter which was supposed to prevent “special rights” for GLBT people, but in fact made it legal for gay people to be denied housing, employment, or the right to gather on the basis of suspicion of sexual orientation. The city lost most of its convention business; nobody wanted to hold a convention somewhere where they could get shut down if someone thought someone else was gay. Restaurants & businesses downtown that relied on convention business went under. In the end, it was the pressure of big businesses that overturned the law. Loss of major revenue from conferences can cause major pressure on cities and states.
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i think you’ve mistaken who is doing the alienation here, and in a table turning manner, by placing an expectation of responsibility for the alienation of LGBTQ by a state at the feet of those organizing to counter it. Nice try.
I may be misunderstanding things, but really, alienation of the local intelligensia is not the primary or even secondary impact of a travel ban, and is a trivial potential concern relative to the -actual current- treatment of LGBTQ (intelligensia or otherwise) in that state.
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As an academic based in Tennessee, who participates frequently in conferences in North Carolina, Mississippi and the state I live in… that’s going to hurt. I understand the reasoning, and I even support it, but most of us in academia actively oppose the discriminatory laws of the states we live in. Even if we don’t actively oppose them we often voice our support for our colleagues who do. It’s going to be a sad state of affairs for awhile. I hope things change.
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This seems like an incredibly misguided idea on many levels.
Agreed. Not to mention, hate and ignorance breeds in part due to lack of exposure. If our response is to isolate, it will only serve to widen that gulf.
Also, there are LGBTQ people and allies living in those places. Should they be forced to move in order to participate in culture?
I understand the impulse behind this, but it seems like it can only make things more polarized.
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Here in Indiana, about the only municipalities that were affected by the boycotts were the two most liberal areas of the state. And Mike Pence couldn’t give a shit if our status declined because he thinks our bigger cities and the den of sin contained within should be burned at the stake anyways. It was only when the Republican CEOs of Eli Lilly and Angie’s List decided they were going to stop donating money to him and had floated a recall plan (the former CEO of Angies List, the one that headed up Bush’s office of Management and Budget is now spearheading the creation of a multimilion dollar GLBTQ center here in…because not all republicans are COMPLETE assholes).
But here in Indiana…we got fucked with all the boycotts and otherwise…and the people hurt were the ones that were going out of our way to make a better world for marginalized peoples.
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Wow.
I submit that, based on what you’ve said, you do not.
but it seems like it can only make things more polarized.
No is a very polarizing word to those who have overstepped their boundaries.
No is what I say to Tennessee. I’m not sorry, and get used to it.
Badges of pride cometh before something… what was that thing? Anyone??
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I’m genuinely curious: does this apply to all state employees? Are academic employees exempt?
False dichotomy.
The status quo is the US Constitution, Tennessee has become the echo-chamber.
please, let’s keep the cart and the horse in proper order.
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