A student who plagiarized off the web and ran it through software that paraphrases to conceal the theft referred to President Ulysses S. Grant as Ulysses S. Award. Kids, don’t cheat.
"A study of 5.6mn courses at nearly 4,000 higher education institutions shows just 0.08% mention critical race theory, structural racism, systemic racism or diversity, equity and inclusion."
Shai Davidai is an assistant professor at Columbia who can't handle the presence of Muslims and I'm a former full-time professor reduced to adjunct status because I recommended my students wear masks to protect themselves against Covid. Academia is not a meritocracy.
My college has now clarified that, in addition to faculty not being allowed to mention that masks can reduce your risks of getting sick and dying from Covid, we can't mention the advisability of social distancing, which is moot since our classrooms are being packed to capacity.
1) Since I am being fired by Collin College, I should note that in my 14 years there, I’ve written all or part of nine books. I’ve authored three articles and 29 reviews of historical monographs for scholarly journals as well.
1) A Thread:
In October, the East Texas Historical Association named me “Educator of the Year.” Last Friday, I was told by Collin College in Collin County, Texas, that I am getting fired. My contract will not be renewed when it expires May 15.
The White House on lockdown: A federal law enforcement source tells NBC that beginning tomorrow, crews will build a “non-scalable” fence to secure the WH complex, Ellipse and Lafayette Square.
250 National Guardsmen have been put on standby, reporting to Metro Police officials.
"Purity of the ballot box." That phrase was in the original wording of the Jim Crow disenfranchisement bill passed by the Texas House. I guess "ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" was too hard to pronounce.
Three professors have now been fired by my college since January for the terrible sin of disagreeing with the president, of trying to organize a faculty association, and trying to keep faculty, students, and staff safe and Covid.
21) I deserve a contract renewal. I am an award-winning author, a sought-after speaker and I am respected in my field, the history of racism and racial ideology in Texas and the American Southwest.
12) I have accomplished all a professor is supposed to do. The only issue that has resulted in me losing my job is that Collin College does not respect the First Amendment.
4) I have often been asked to explain myself to administrators for engaging in free speech since 2017 when I became a leader in the movement to remove white supremacist Confederate statues in Dallas.
24) Without free speech at American colleges and universities, a significant part of American democracy dies. What happens at Collin College has repercussions for higher education not just for the rest of Texas but across the entire country.
26) I am determined because I know my cause is right. I will not allow the Bill of Rights to be trampled upon. I will assert my civil rights in the appropriate venues. Thank you for your support.
1) I've been overwhelmed by the support I've received from around the country since news broke yesterday that I was fired by Collin College because I exercised my free speech rights.
It is a moral duty of university and college presidents to condemn attempts to overturn elections by violence and intimidation. Those who don’t have failed in their responsibilities.
2) Faculty are particularly vulnerable at Collin College because the institution does not offer tenure. Our contracts have to be repeatedly renewed. Professors have lost their jobs for speaking out.
3) I now share the fate of other excellent educators and scholars who have been forced out in the last two years by the Collin College administration for exercising the basic rights of American citizens.
10) This referred to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning vaccine and mask mandates. Abbott’s executive order did not prohibit any public employee or institution from encouraging mask use. Abbott himself encouraged wearing masks in his executive order.
14) I told them about anti-mask leagues during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 and how such resistance seriously damaged efforts to bring the flu under control.
22) The news that I have been fired is heartbreaking to me. Teaching, mentoring, and getting to know my students and watching them flower into full adulthood has been one of the most rewarding parts of my life.
25) I am committed to fighting not just for my free speech rights, but for that of all faculty, staff, and students not only at my institution but everywhere in this nation. I look forward to telling my story more fully in the coming weeks.
5) I co-authored a letter published by the Dallas Morning News that called for the monuments to be taken down. The letter identified me as a member of the Collin College faculty.
7) This is just one of several instances in which my free speech rights and that of my colleagues were violated under the current Collin College administration.
6) An administrator asked to meet with me and warned me that this violated college policy. Another faculty member signed the open letter and that was later given as one excuse for firing her.
8) Last August, the administration imposed a gag order on Collin College faculty, declaring that “We cannot have any written language (signs, syllabus) anywhere requesting/requiring/ recommending (verb choice doesn’t matter) masks . . . "
12) I also encouraged students on the first day of the fall semester to wear masks for the sake of their health and that of others while I was discussing their first assignment . . .
18) The institution’s senior vice president proposed that I could make a “graceful exit” from the college by working with the administration to “construct a narrative” around my departure. He suggested that perhaps I could say I was leaving voluntarily.
15) Shortly thereafter, I was called in to meet with my associate dean and dean and was issued a discipline warning for my speech in the classroom and my social media posts revealing the gag rule.
I am honored to announce that I have received SMU's Bill & Rita Clements Senior Research Fellowship for the Study of Southwestern America for the 2022-23 academic year in order to complete my manuscript, “The Strange Career of Eugenics in Texas, 1854-1940."
@WestminsterWAG
@campbellclaret
He also has "The Bell Curve," a book that relies on eugenicists misrepresents data, & argues that Black and Brown people are intrinsically less intelligent than white people. I have the book too because I study the history of racism. I fear he see this as solid research.
My college campus is in Plano, Texas. Someone took this shot of an anti-mask speaker at a Plano school district board meeting when they were debating the district's mask policies. This is what we are are dealing with.
Today, an African American student said to me, "You're the first white professor I've had who was willing to say what should be obvious. You made me feel like you were including me and talking about people who looked like me. That matters." That made my semester.
Our Collin College colleague died of Covid contracted while teaching. She was anonymously referred to as a side note in the 22nd paragraph of an email sent by our college president, Her name was Iris Meda. Say it & help her family.
@bfriauf
@LDBurnett
17) My provost and the senior vice president for campus operations later also recommended that my contract not be renewed. Last week, I was told to meet with them.
@mattyglesias
It is terrible that historians see the past in new ways as they uncover new evidence, acknowledge new perspectives, incorporate the stories of how events affected groups previously ignored, & make use of new theoretical insights. It's almost like they seek better understanding.
11) The Council on Excellence, a faculty body, recommended the extension of my contract this semester.
I am respected in my field, by my colleagues, and by my students.
10) One student last semester wrote on an evaluation, "I had always hated history before this semester, and now it’s one of my favorite classes. Phillips constantly went above and beyond, and I will miss this class once it’s over."
3) I’ve won a fellowship to study the history of eugenics in Texas from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. I won a Charlton Oral History Research Grant from Baylor University.
Somebody wanted verification of the directive at my college that faculty should not only avoid mentioning masks in our syllabi but even social distancing. This is from an email attachment we were were sent yesterday.
2) I’ve presented papers or participated in panels at academic conferences and other educational forums 38 times. I’ve been an invited speaker for public events 55 times.
#twitterstorians
, I can now officially announce that I am one of the first official recipients of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. I will use the research grant to uncover the history of eugenics in Texas from the 1850s to the present.
Tonight, we hit a major milestone with our manuscript on the history of eugenics in Texas. We sent it to our editors at the University of Oklahoma Press.
We started writing this in 2014.
A colleague came up to me in at the campus today, shook his head in dismay, and said he was devastated to hearing of my firing. He said that if someone of my stature could be kicked aside everyone can. He then said I was his hero.
5) I’ve co-sponsored three student organizations (The Muslim Students Association, Working-Class Heroes, and Students Demand Action), have been on the Steering Committee of the Texas Center for Working-Class Studies since its inception in 2014 . . .
4) I won the C.K. Chamberlain Award for Best Article of the Year from the East Texas Historical Association and just this past month won the Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr. Best Article Award from the Texas Oral History Association.
I never knew that getting fired would get me 1,300+ Twitter followers. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but welcome aboard. I will try to put off being alienating.
I may be a lowly two-year college professor in Texas fired for exercising free speech but clearly I’m a better person than much of the Harvard faculty.
Since the college announced they're firing me effective May 15, I've suffered daily sadness. When I finish covering a subject I think, "Wow. That's the last time I'll ever cover that topic." Who knows? I might get another teaching gig. But I'm mourning a looming loss.
Nice racist framing there, Cancun Cruz. In previous eras, the image of immigrants as disease carriers was used by Know-Nothings, the Klan and eugenicists
Whatever happens in the next few days, weeks, months, or years, I will take comfort in the fact that I stood up for members of the faculty at my college whose Constitutional rights were violated, I sought to keep my students safe from Covid, and I denounced racism and homophobia.
So I guess that white supremacists who wants to pretend that racism isn’t a major factor in American history and culture have embraced hypocritical race theory.
This is the most I've been interviewed since I was involved in the movement to take down Confederate monuments in Dallas and I got a death threat. There seems to be a growing awareness of the the threat to the First Amendment posed by Collin College.
I was once called into a virtual Zoom meeting with administrators because of my social media posts, including one in which I described a nightmare I had about no Covid protocols being followed at Collin College when the campus reopened. Yes. I was forced to account for a dream.
@twitterstorians
, like my Collin College colleague
@LDBurnett
, I've been targeted by Campus Reform, a group seeking to deny free speech to academics they disagree with. They pay bounties to students & whip up campaigns to get professors fired. This is cowardly & un-American.
1) My colleague, friend, and one of my heroes, Suzanne Jones has been reinstated by Collin College and has won a hard-fought battle for free speech for faculty everywhere.
About 90 minutes ago, a student turned in an assignment to me in person for the very last time in my 14-year career at Collin College."You are the best professor I've ever had," he said. "Thanks for teaching students what they need to know."
@GregAbbott_TX
Except for parents who want their children to be taught history honestly and to attend schools whose library shelves aren’t empty because of book bans.
@toddstarnes
When did we have God in government? During slavery? During indigenous genocide? During Klan terrorism in the Reconstruction era? During … never mind.
@jennifernvictor
We have no tenure protections. A professor got fired by the college president for writing a Faculty Council resolution suggesting safer alternatives regarding Covid. Meanwhile, the president didn’t get fired after making a racist “joke” that he couldn’t tell black deans apart.
So I’m working on what I hope will be a groundbreaking book on the history of eugenics in Texas, I’m doing some research for an important new documentary on how the Civil War has shaped America today and I got a part-time gig teaching world history at Cabrini University.
I am a consistent critic of the Democratic Party and of American capitalism and imperialism but I know fascism when I see it and the footage from January 6 made me cry. We are in deep, deep danger.
Collin College, which has been in the local and national news repeatedly since the beginning of the pandemic over free speech, labor rights, and racism issues, has now been sued in federal court by Dr. Suzanne Jones, who was fired last year.
As Covid spikes yet again, it's time to remember that it's the people who didn't get vaccinated & resisted mask wearing who have let this virus mutate and thrive. Let me also remind you that I got fired by Collin College, in part, for recommending vaccines and masks to students.
A reminder: my institution, Collin College, fired an excellent professor in part for signing an open letter calling for removal of Confederate monuments in Dallas. The rest of the world has moved ahead on this issue at least.