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The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

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Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#231

Post by claudiawerner »

jessaustin wrote: post #220
claudiawerner wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case; if speech is considered an action like any other, it can be regulated like any other action. The implication is not that actions are forbidden unless they are specifically allowed. You aren't specifically allowed to eat fries or post comments on HN - yet you do so anyway. And you would, rightly, resist a law which says you can't, just as you'd resist a law which contravenes a constitutional right…

OK you finally confused me enough that I had to click through your link and read. I was somewhat disconcerted that the first thing I read was "please don't distribute this link publicly" (was that ironic?). Later on when discussing the crux of this thread (is there a significant difference between speech and other physical actions?), the author dropped an "[as] I’ve argued in previous work..." on us. There is referen…

It was probably my mistake to link the paper despite it being the best resource I could remember reading, and a mistake on two fronts: firstly since it's aworkshop paper as you note, an secondly because the more forceful refutation of the speech as separate argument is in the other paper she mentions. That said, this one seemed more relevant to the legal aspects and the issue of free speech rather than only the metaphysical aspects of speech. At the very least, the paper (convincingly in my view) refutes or at least mentions refutations of the main arguments for a specific right to freedom of speech (such as the truth argument or the democracy argument).

Regarding the bulwark against authoritarianism, this is already hinted to - being particularly hazardous about policing speech doesn't make so much sense when we already legislate on many other issues which seem to have bigger effects - such as food safety regulation, or the law of murder, or laws against literal genocide. I feel similar to Schauer here, but I'm uncomfortable about taking the plunge and sticking to the unjustified status quo which already seems to produce unfavorable results without much going for it. Even under a system with no free speech law, we'd have no reason to think political speech would necessarily be repressed but good reason to think that various reasoned arguments against hate speech and pornography would be entertained - to me that's a good thing.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#232

Post by strken »

JBlue42 wrote: post #227
ordinaryperson wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I'm not disputing the injustice (at least, as his essay lays it out -- some comments on the article tell a different story of him being difficult to work with). But contracts not being renewed -- happens all the time in the "real" world. My point is just: good people don't get their contracts renewed all the time, often for silly or dumb reasons, and it's not some cosmic injustice because most people find anothe…

Where is the 'reward' of at-will employment? It seems it's mainly on the employer side.

It's never happened to me personally, but a friend that managed a team of email content developers took more than six months to fire an employee who literally didn't know HTML. PIP after PIP, meeting after meeting, a union rep getting involved, etc.

The reward is not having to work with that person. Probably not a good enough reward to justify the downsides, but still a reward.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#233

Post by linuxftw »

screye wrote: post #200
linuxftw wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of legit opportunities in Higher Ed. Higher ed was never a legit opportunity in the first place. It's all gate-keeping by the establishment. In this professor's case, they seemed to mistake experience with value. Turns out, you can use a slave-laborer (grad student) to teach classes much more efficiently. The market value of a college professor is apparently 0.

When the only good job in a field is to teach people who want to enter the field, it is the closest equivalent of an academic pyramid scheme.

At least in a decent pyramid scheme you have the chance to have your own recruits. In academia, the pyramid is much flatter.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#234

Post by JBlue42 »

strken wrote: post #232
JBlue42 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the 'reward' of at-will employment? It seems it's mainly on the employer side.

It's never happened to me personally, but a friend that managed a team of email content developers took more than six months to fire an employee who literally didn't know HTML. PIP after PIP, meeting after meeting, a union rep getting involved, etc. The reward is not having to work with that person. Probably not a good enough reward to justify the downsides, but still a reward.

I assume this was in Europe? I've read elsewhere about some of the protections over there and length of time it could take to lay someone off as well as even putting in your own notice (like a month in the UK?).

I really wish there was a bit of a balance here in the US but I think the at-will stuff (along with stagnant wage growth) is why companies have such a hard time keeping people. Most of my working career has been (about 15 years discounting part-time work in high school) has been one in which I've worked with other people that very clearly knew or experienced that there was no such thing as stability in the modern workplace and you can be out on the street on a whim.

At least in the Duke professor's case, there was a process and a means of appeals it seems. There has to be a more human way for us to do this that balances the needs of people (and their faults) with that of a business.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#235

Post by yarg »

yarg wrote: post #228
RickJWagner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Such protectiveness is motivated less by a reasonable concern for students’ mental health and more by political ideology. The complaint of a group of conservative students who felt singled out or disrespected or uncomfortable in class would be taken far less seriously. I have been on the receiving end of faculty emails making light of just such complaints. Nor would a complaint by religious students that God and Chr…

The institution should be straight down the middle. I cannot agree with this; both the left and the right are motivated to manipulate world views in order to control perception of the world and the direction of social progress. The institution should cover the mainstream social perspectives and attempt to ascertain the motivations behind them. It should not, however, base its own perspective on any number of transien…

Or rather attempt to ascertain the validity of and motivations behind them.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#236

Post by krageon »

apta wrote: post #218
krageon wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn’t matter if you actually harmed someone. > What matters now is whether someone feels you as doing harm Can you briefly explain what you believe the differences between those statements are, as I can very easily imagine a position where I would say that those are arguably the same.

I'm not OP, but an example is people feeling "triggered" because they don't like what they're hearing, even if it is the truth and backed up by evidence, and they in return cannot back up their view.

I guess I have always failed to see the trouble with empathising with someone else, saying "I'm sorry to hear I made you feel that way" and moving on. It costs you nothing and if the response made you feel exasperated then you can opt to not continue the conversation. Isn't that the polite way to handle people you don't want to interact with? There does not, to me, seem to be a reason to feel strongly about it.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#237

Post by abrugsch »

JBlue42 wrote: post #234
strken wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never happened to me personally, but a friend that managed a team of email content developers took more than six months to fire an employee who literally didn't know HTML. PIP after PIP, meeting after meeting, a union rep getting involved, etc. The reward is not having to work with that person. Probably not a good enough reward to justify the downsides, but still a reward.

I assume this was in Europe? I've read elsewhere about some of the protections over there and length of time it could take to lay someone off as well as even putting in your own notice (like a month in the UK?). I really wish there was a bit of a balance here in the US but I think the at-will stuff (along with stagnant wage growth) is why companies have such a hard time keeping people. Most of my working career has b…

Once a probationary period has been completed (usually about 2 months in most companies) a month's notice on both sides is usually the bare minimum for someone in Full Time Employment in a non trivial job in the UK. after some length of service (in the order of 5 or 10 years) that can increase to 3 or more years. Of course the employer can opt to just pay your that notice period and say farewell if you are judged a security risk, and even with this notice period in place a UK firm cannot simply "fire" you because of trivial reasons (like you manager has a hangover and doesn't like your chirpy attitude that particular day) it has to go through a process - with exceptions for gross misconduct but they are usually explicity laid out in a contract and can be validated/overturned by industrial tribunal

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#238

Post by gdfasfklshg4 »

winston_smith wrote: post #225
gdfasfklshg4 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science and religion are not comparable. A key difference is that science is stronger when people question its authority. Science does not require faith but scepticism. That is the whole point of the scientific method! Meanwhile religion requires faith. This sounds like a good question that should promote a good discussion and would probably end with a cohort of people far better equipped to argue the case for scienc…

Of course they're comparable, and you just compared them. Like all pairs of things, they have similarities and differences. You're claiming that they're very different, which is fine, but you're dressing it up in language that suggests it's not even possible to disagree, which is silly.

I guess I am saying that the intrinsic nature of the two topics are so different that arguing about them is a matter of deep philosophy rather than right vs wrong and point scoring.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#239

Post by jessaustin »

claudiawerner wrote: post #231
jessaustin wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK you finally confused me enough that I had to click through your link and read. I was somewhat disconcerted that the first thing I read was "please don't distribute this link publicly" (was that ironic?). Later on when discussing the crux of this thread (is there a significant difference between speech and other physical actions?), the author dropped an "[as] I’ve argued in previous work..." on us. There is referen…

It was probably my mistake to link the paper despite it being the best resource I could remember reading, and a mistake on two fronts: firstly since it's aworkshop paper as you note, an secondly because the more forceful refutation of the speech as separate argument is in the other paper she mentions. That said, this one seemed more relevant to the legal aspects and the issue of free speech rather than only the metap…

In that case you simply disagree with the Constitution and many free speech fundamentalists about how public discourse works, nowadays even more than centuries ago. That's fine, but there is no need to dress up a simple factual disagreement in all that philosophy. There isn't much contemporary controversy about whether murder and genocide should be illegal, although of course there are exceptions about which there is also not much argument.

In USA history, curtailing the Bill of Rights has always been a bad thing. Expanding it, e.g. through 14A incorporation, has always been good.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#240

Post by ordinaryperson »

asleori239k wrote: post #229
ordinaryperson wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great feedback. Can you tell us more about your decision to leave? Besides the family stuff, what kind of "administrative nightmares" were you dealing with?

A lot of the administration problems had to do with internal communication problems in the department and university, and severe budget shortfalls (in part due to state politics). You could say it was climate or culture as well, but to me the primary issues were communication problems, mostly due to personal, private interactions superceding formal, transparent, public processes and discussion, coupled with a failure…

Interesting. Corporate America has been a similar experience for me but it's obviously you're much less emotionally and personally invested in each corporate opportunity. Thanks for sharing.
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