this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
190 points (99.5% liked)

news

23464 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.

Rules:

-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --

-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --

-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --

-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --

-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--

-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--

-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --

-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
all 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

The relevant Senate committee was not consulted, as required by university rules

This has been one of the most wild things about the universities responses to these protests. Most of them are breaking their own internal rules with the way they’re responding! Most universities have both a student government and faculty senate (staff can get fucked) and at most universities those two bodies have to be consulted at some level before you can do things like call in outside cops and mass suspend/expel students.

A bunch of university presidents are going to lose their jobs over this, depending on the power of their faculty senate, all for something they could’ve just left alone. None of these encampments were even really disrupting normal activities, you could’ve just left them there and they’d probably go away after a few weeks.

Instead you threw a temper tantrum, broke your own rules, and in many cases broke state or federal law as well - The uni I work at is now being sued for violating the ADA because they arrested a disabled student for having a chair in the quad. My president unfortunately won’t lose his job for this, his hiring broke state law and university rules in the first place and was opposed by the faculty senate and student government, and forced through by ronald, but at a lot of schools the faculty senate has more power than it does here.

[–] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 38 points 1 year ago

University presidents be like: I am the senate unlimited-power

[–] huf@hexbear.net 37 points 1 year ago

i'm sure if the university president loses his job over it, he'll be rewarded somehow for his selfless sacrifice for the greater good. so i dont see how this is a real downside for them.

[–] footfaults@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The donors and the administration don't give a fuck about what a ~~model UN senate~~ faculty Senate and student government says. They don't have any power.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It very much depends on the school. Some they have basically no power, but at some they have binding powers. I’m pretty sure Columbia is the latter but I’m not that familiar with it.

[–] bbnh69420@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Even the schools that pretend to have binding/meaningful senates, there’s usually a presidential veto that ultimately works for the board of trustees (the biggest Zionists in the school system). There was a college in California where students and staff voted twice in the last 5 years to divest from Israel and were vetoed both times

[–] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

What are the protests there like at the moment ? Asking as an alum.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

9 people arrested last night, DeSantis wants them to be expelled. It’s been smaller than most, and by that nature less disruptive and “violent” than the others. There were a couple hundred people on the second day, but through the nights it hasn’t been many at all.

[–] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's heartening to hear that there are folks in Florida that care about Palestine like that. I always feel like I live in Chud country after leaving university. I hope there are some faculty sympathies to encourage student resolve. I remember my profs giving us support at the start of the Trump years, especially when that vile Richard Spencer tried to come to campus.

[–] ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I keep thinking about when Richard Spencer came and how different the response was to this. They fought tooth and nail to make sure he was able to speak. They spent millions on security to protect him and his Nazi friends. But as soon as they saw a keffiyeh in the plaza they called in state troopers.

The contrast really shows the beliefs of the people in power and to what lengths they will go to when they feel that their power structures are threatened.

[–] RyanGosling@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

A bunch of university presidents are going to lose their jobs over this

They’ll be asked to resign then quietly get a job at a different university a few years later

[–] marxisthayaca@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This has been one of the most wild things about the universities responses to these protests. Most of them are breaking their own internal rules with the way they’re responding! Most universities have both a student government and faculty senate (staff can get fucked) and at most universities those two bodies have to be consulted at some level before you can do things like call in outside cops and mass suspend/expel students.

Rules are there to hollow out your fucking soul through continuous interaction with bureaucratic committees where almost everyone there, doesn't want to be there. So it just grinds down any suggestions into limp biscuits.

[–] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago

Um sweaty it’s called the rules based order

[–] happybadger@hexbear.net 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope these protests continue to spread with the same departmental support. There is already massive tension between department faculty and admins at many universities and a huge wave of grad student unionisation in response to terrible working conditions facing both them and non-tenured professors. If they can build solidarity strikes with the anti-Zionist students, the scope of the unrest can expand. Any attack on them by police means a response from UAW since that's who they're with.

There is already massive tension between department faculty and admins at many universities

It reminds me of one of Graeber's Bullshit Jobs/Utopia of Rules points that many of our actually useful public institutions (within the realm of education, healthcare, etc.) have become bloated with class middlemen - a vertically swelling stack of bureaucratic administrators that manage the tension between owners and labourers with increasingly technical systems of means testing and whatever else. These people have a distinct class position from actual educators, so even though professors can be all over the place ideologically depending on their department, it's really not a huge surprise to me that the sociology folks are on the right side of history here.

[–] Ideology@hexbear.net 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do universities even need a board to operate normally?

No, in fact it seems like the board of a university is consistently a hindrance to the day to day operations of the school, and every university would be better off burying every board member in a shallow grave and forgetting they ever existed.

[–] abc@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago

no but most will have one, if only for the purpose of raising tuition year over year so they can line their pockets dean-smile

[–] TheOtherwise@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there a columbia newspaper article (or any article) on this? Whered you get the pic from?

[–] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This was posted to Twitter by several of the professors who endorsed the letter, and an official version was sent to Columbia a few days ago. I haven’t seen anything in the student papers regarding this but I can’t say I’ve combed through them either. It’s increasingly difficult for students to produce news articles, especially as of the past 24 hours where student press has been banned from campus.