Good. About time.
The journalist did a solid professional job in a tough, intimidating situation. I like that he kept cool and repeated, “Please don’t push me.”
As activists, we need to ask each other better questions about safeguarding fairness while pursuing social change.
“Blocked a student reporter” being a euphemism for “tried to call in a beat down”
I’m pretty sure that if I instigated the assault of a faculty member as a student I would be unwelcome back to that campus.
Holding such an opinion leaves me really wondering why the fuck she still has a job.
Because tenure
Sure. We’ve gotten pretty sensitive on what counts as a “beat down” since popular front days. But okay.
Easy. It’s just a video. She can’t hurt us.
I’m still totally confused as to why protesters, any protesters, would not want journalists to report on their protests. I always thought the whole point if a protest was to communicate. Even critical journalism raises the profile of a protest.
If I recall, she is an assistant professor. That’s the entry-level position for someone on a tenure-track. It typically goes:
Assistant Professor -> Associate Professor -> Professor (tenured)
That is, she doesn’t have tenure. The university can fire her, they just chose not to.
Thanks for the correction.
Fair nuff but what other possible meaning could “can we get some muscle” have in context?
Yes, why not negotiate with offer for an exclusive interview and some video. He seemed to know what he was doing. He may have agreed, and the communities they were demonstrating to help may have liked that outcome better than the Stalin-sends-thugs-to-crush-journalism story that memed instead. The activists acted like a bunch of (so loveable!!) amateurs.
Hmmm, maybe things have changed or are different in different places, but what I saw in undergrad was assistant prof (tenure track) -> tenure -> apply for promotion to full prof.
Typically it goes like this:
- Get a tenure-track job as an Assistant Professor on a series of one-year renewable contracts
- After 3 years or so, have a mid-tenure review. Possibly get fired if not making suitable progress towards tenure (i.e., not publishing enough, being collegial, doing departmental service duties, teaching well).
- After seven years, go up for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. Get fired (perhaps with a one year grace period) if tenure denied.
- Be a tenured Associate Professor for anywhere from five to forever years.
- Promotion to Full Professor.
Tenure doesn’t mean you can’t get fired. It just means you can’t get fired without cause. That means they can’t lay you off to save money on payroll but they can still get rid of you if you do something to bring a firing upon yourself. (Speaking as a tenure-track faculty member.)
And as noted, it’s unlikely she has tenure anyway if her job title is “Assistant Professor.”
Their argument seemed to be “the media will twist things to suit their agenda” or something like that.
The media can do that with or without reporters there.
Ironically, I still don’t know what the protest was about, I just know they acted like a bunch of Brown Shirts with a reporter.
It goes assistant (untenured) -> associate (tenured) -> full (tenured).
Don’t forget “adjunct/part-time.” Nowadays just getting on the full-time payroll in academia is like winning a lottery.
