While we are distracted by the things the orange stain is doing.

[redstatebluegirl]

The attack on Higher Ed continues. Tenure is being attacked in numerous states. In today's world, tenure is the only protection against a governor or board of trustees firing a professor for teaching anything they disagree with, or posting something they disagree with.

Do you want your kids taught by an adjunct with very little experience but who shares the right wing views of the governor? They are also abused, poorly paid and have no benefits. Cheap labor is not good for the adjunct or the student.

Higher Ed is funded by taking a large portion of federal grants for "overhead". I assure you, as these grants dry up, universities will not lay off highly paid VP's, but look for ways to fire tenured faculty with years of teaching experience.

Ohio has already moved to do away with tenure. Oklahoma is doing so by executive order of the governor. I need to check but I am sure there are others.

As I have said before, it will take 40 years for education to recover from the past year.

Buckle up it is going to be a bumpy ride.

[markodochartaigh]

1. "While we are distracted..."

Here is my personal opinion. Probably only a few of the Republican elite realized when Trump was first nominated that the chaos that he would cause over things that they really don't care about could be used as a distraction for the media and the public and thus allow them to push their agenda behind the scenes. But after the first big billionaire bailout, the tax cuts, in his first term more and more of the Republican leadership decided that since they couldn't ditch Trump they would support him in churning up as much chaos as possible so that they could push their agenda across the country with minimal scrutiny.

[redstatebluegirl]

2. Agreed.

That is what I am seeing. Glad to be out of the bright red state we lived in for 25 years.

[young_at_heart]

3. My tenured daughter was fired!

She (and many others) made a comment that the administrators didn't like and it didn't take long for her 20+ years of professorship to evaporate.

[redstatebluegirl]

4. It is happening everywhere.

New tenure rules are being put in place without faculty knowledge. We have a close friend who had a 25 year career ruined by a student who made outrageous claims that were totally untrue.

That former faculty member is now working for a big box store. We have always thought they were forced out because they supported LGBTQ students. We also feel they are using any excuse to force tenured faculty out so they can replace them with inexpensive adjunct faculty who they have more control over.

[progressoid]

5. There are a lot of educators in my family...

from elementary school to post-secondary. To say that they are angry would be an understatement.

While the media covers Trump's latest rant about (fill in the blank), the damage going on behind the scenes goes unreported. It's horrible.