Thousands of Professors and Students Go on Strike to Promote Racial Justice
“The two-day action, which continues today, was conceived of just two weeks ago, following the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha”
Too many people in higher education, both students and educators, believe that the whole point of college is protesting. This is a distraction from the real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
Scholars on Strike
Thousands of professors and students suspended business as usual — as usual as can be during a pandemic — to promote racial justice Tuesday, the first day of Scholar Strike.
The two-day action, which continues today, was conceived of just two weeks ago, following the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wis., and a related wildcat strike by professional basketball players. Yet by Tuesday morning, the strike had dozens of contributed lectures and discussions uploaded onto its own YouTube channel, along with live panels and constant social media activity under the hashtag #ScholarStrike.
The National Communication Association’s African American Communication and Culture Division, for instance, organized an all-day, livestreamed strike conference. Panels ranged from those on understanding the Black Lives Matter movement to infusing diversity in the classroom and curriculum.
The premise of the latter panel was that diversity is too often an afterthought on most syllabi and should instead be centered in many courses from the start. Student and faculty activists have of course been saying the same thing in their own campus organizing for some time.
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Comments
How does a student “strike”? Their presence isn’t required for the class to go on. They’ve already paid their tuition. *scratches head*
Virtue Signaling 101
Proof once again that education is the one commodity for which many insist on receiving less than they paid for.
Will anybody miss them?
“There will be a pop quiz tomorrow, and it counts for 40% of your final grade.”
-signed- Professor T F Grizzly
A strike is a work stoppage designed to encourage people who depend on that work getting done to concede to the demands being made.
When both the faculty and the students go “on strike” who are the people that depend on the work getting done? Who is negatively impacted by the work stoppage to the point they’d be encouraged to concede to any demands?
As someone else noted: virtue signalling at its finest.
Of course, a significant number likely just supported the “strike” as a great way to get a couple extra days off without consequences, so there’s that. I have to say, I’d have been tempted to be in that camp were I a student.
Exactly right. Also, in a real strike of less privileged workers, the workers don’t get paid by the company as long as they are striking. These professors don’t lose a dime, so this is nothing but cheap virtue signaling. Neither the profs nor the students have any skin in the game.
I wish some administrators would do the same thing GM or Ford would do: No pay and no benefits while the “workers” are on strike.
Sailorcurt and OldProf2 have just described college campuses from 1969 through 1971.
Plus ca change, plus ca reste le meme.
This is a distraction from the real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge.
People who think they already know it all feel no need to pursue it.
Let’s all stop doing what we’re supposed to be doing to try to intensify a misguided moral panic to support a felon and rapist who got exactly what he deserved. And since what we were supposed to be doing is actually causing greater harm to the greater good, because we’re not really doing it, who cares? We who are paying for this ritualized prancing about need to reconsider our ROI on education.
“This is a distraction from the real purpose, the pursuit of knowledge.”
It used to be the pursuit of knowledge in the service of wisdom, but that was so long ago that people can’t even remember it.
Bring back the “lock-out”.