Adjunct Fired for a Bad Joke

BY HANK REICHMAN

In my October Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture at the University of Michigan I argued that “the gravest challenge to academic freedom, one that exacerbates all others, [is] the steady erosion of the tenure system and the concomitant and explosive expansion of contingent, frequently part-time faculty employment,” what some have labeled “adjunctification.”  Part-time faculty members off the tenure-track are especially vulnerable when they are targeted for harassment and abuse for comments made on social media or for speaking out on institutional issues.  Such assaults result not only in quiet non-renewals but far too often in outright dismissals, as was the case, for examples, with Jeffrey Klinzman at Kirkwood Community College in Iowa and Nathaniel Bork at Community College of Aurora in Colorado.

The latest incident comes from Babson College in Massachusetts.  Asheen Phansey, a Babson alum, part-time instructor, and the college’s sustainability coordinator, in what he later described as a “bad attempt at humor,” posted to Facebook an obviously facetious proposal that Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei “should tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb.”  Phansey suggested those targets might include Minnesota’s Mall of America and a home of the Kardashian family, among other locations.

Predictably, and sadly, the post became fodder for the Internet right-wing outrage machine.  Turtleboysports.com first reported the story.  The site has been described as “a cultish Worcester, Mass.-based blog of Patriots worship, investigative reporting about Massachusetts miscreants . . . and smiting of Social Justice Warriors, dumb criminals, bad parents and Black Lives Matter supporters.”  It was then picked up by the Boston Herald.  (Turtleboy would complain that “Hack Boston Herald Reporter Shamelessly Steals Story We Broke About Douchebag Babson Professor That Was Sent To Her And Passes It Off As Her Own.”)  The remark was clearly a response to President Trump’s call, later retracted, for the U.S. to bomb 52 Iranian cultural sites if it retaliated for the U.S. assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

In a Wednesday email to the Herald Phansey wrote:

I regret my bad attempt at humor.  As an American, born and raised, I was trying to juxtapose our ‘cultural sites’ with ancient Iranian churches and mosques.  I am completely opposed to violence and would never advocate it by anyone.  I am sorry that my sloppy humor was read as a threat.  I condemn all acts of violence. I am particularly sorry to cause any harm or alarm for my colleagues at Babson, my beloved alma mater, and the place where I have enjoyed teaching students and serving as its sustainability director.

That was apparently not enough for Babson.  Today the school issued a statement that it had suspended Phansey with pay “pending the completion of our investigation” and that the college “condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate.”  Hours later, however, Babson sent another statement, writing: “Based on the results of the investigation, the staff member is no longer a Babson College employee.  As we have previously stated, Babson College condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate.”

So much for due process.  So much for free speech.  So much for academic freedom.

Writing before the dismissal was announced, Adam Steinbaugh, director of the Individual Rights Defense Program at FIRE, told the Daily Beast that the post amounted to “core political speech, protected under any principled understanding of freedom of expression” and that, “while Babson College is a private institution not bound by the First Amendment, it has committed itself to principles of academic freedom and freedom of expression.”

“Babson has betrayed those principles,” Steinbaugh added.

Indeed it has.  According to the college’s website,

The faculty of Babson College has the primary responsibility to develop, sustain, and enhance the intellectual and academic quality of the College.  To ensure this, the College uses a model of shared governance in which its faculty is responsible for all policies relating to the college curriculum content and pedagogical process, intellectual vitality and research, academic standards and admissions policies, as well as the manner in which faculty work.

More specifically, in faculty-administration relations, the site claims,

  • Deliberation precedes decision-making in order to bring together relevant constituencies and information for active discussion and debate;
  • All parties continually strive for transparency in decision-making;
  • All parties communicate openly and appreciate the diversity of individuals in relation to the more broadly-defined needs and interests of the institution; and
  • All parties work to create an environment of trust and goodwill.

Yeah, that clearly happened here.

Moreover, the Faculty Senate, we are told, has as part of its charge to

  • Be the faculty-sanctioned voice to make recommendations in those decisions that affect the faculty or impact the overall mission of the institution or compromises the values or reputation of the College;
  • Promote transparency so that data or reasons behind decisions are clear and well-understood;
  • Promote a climate of academic freedom for the College community (emphases in original)

I certainly hope the Babson Senate will raise its voice to protest this egregious violation of these principles and to demand due process and academic freedom for Asheen Phansey.

Unfortunately, this case is hardly an isolated incident.  The continuing assault on non-tenure-track faculty members, who now constitute the overwhelming majority of our profession, has contributed to the growing recognition that without the protections of tenure, endangered as those protections also are, adjunct faculty lack not only academic freedom but basic civil and employment rights.  Apparently, they can’t even make a bad political joke without losing their job.

8 thoughts on “Adjunct Fired for a Bad Joke

  1. It is sad for this longtime Marxist to say, but more often than not, it is pseudo-LEFTISTS who jump on unintended “micro-aggressions” and bad jokes to do harm to contingent faculty members (and sometimes even tenured professors). The IHE is filled almost daily with such incidents. It even happened to me, a prof and department chair who, in the later stages of my career, decided to “give back” and continue to teach on an adjunct basis.

    Here’s my story: https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_–_Revised_and_Updated

    In another incident akin to the “bad joke,” I once jokingly told an incompetent student assistant that “heads would roll.” I was reported to the Provost and threatened with dismissal for supposedly calling for the return of the guillotine! The morale: avoid ANY attempts at humor!

    That said, I certainly agree that Hank’s statement about “he continuing assault on non-tenure-track faculty members, who now constitute the overwhelming majority of our profession, has contributed to the growing recognition that without the protections of tenure, endangered as those protections also are, adjunct faculty lack not only academic freedom but basic civil and employment rights”

    • It is simply false to claim that “more often than not” it is leftist students who are to blame for such incidents. I read IHE every day and frankly stories about left-wing censorship do not appear almost daily; not even weekly or monthly. Indeed, I challenge Professor Tomasulo to name more than 5 (if that) incidents in which a faculty member was fired under pressure from leftist students for right-leaning political speech.

      In 2018 political scientist Jeffrey Sachs created a database of all publicly reported incidents from 2015 to 2017 in which a faculty member at an American degree-granting postsecondary nonprofit institution was fired, forced to resign/resigned as part of a settlement, or was demoted/denied promotion due to speech perceived by critics as political. That database is here:

      https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eeTHZQOh9faZ2P3C_O3sVBuRAG1LzIZnsq6LB50NUHk/edit#gid=122618086

      The conclusions are clear: According to Sachs, “of 45 cases more than half (26) occurred in 2017, the clear majority (19) being over liberal speech. This disparity persisted even after removing terminations occurring in private religious institutions.” He has a nice chart showing this quite graphically, but I can’t insert it into a comment. However, you can find it in this piece, which is well worth reading in full:

      https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/

      Things have not changed since 2017. A recent Twitter thread from Sachs documents 35 individual cases of faculty members fired or disciplined for speech after complaints were made — not by “pseudo-leftist” students but by right-wing media, conservative trustees, or craven administrators. It is collected here:

      https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1170004733999951872.html

      I won’t deny that leftist students (and some faculty members) can inappropriately chill free expression on campus, especially with regard to outside speakers, and I have previously written about this on this blog and elsewhere. But cases in which such students have succeeded in getting a conservative (or one deemed conservative) faculty member dismissed or even severely disciplined are rare. Professor Tomasulo himself may be one of those cases, although I won’t comment on his case since I know only what he has shared. This may understandably justify his strong feelings, but it is, after all, a single incident. And, of course, he and I surely agree that whether it comes from the right or the left such political pressures do create a serious chilling effect often leading to self-censorship, a problem especially acute for those outside the tenure system, which was, of course, the point of this post and of the AAUP’s recent statement “In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education.”

      I should also add that with respect to Professor Tomasulo’s story of being threatened with dismissal by his Provost for an innocuous “heads will roll” comment (typically atrocious administrative behavior), even as I write a fully tenured law professor has been placed on leave without pay pending termination for making just such a flippant remark to an administrator. (I’m not at liberty to identify the professor or institution at this time.)

      • Apparently Hank is one of those people who put words in people’s mouths and then critiques the incorrect paraphrase. I’m used to such people because I am VERY precise with my words and people often read into them what they want to hear, based on their pre-existent ideological bent and attitudes. (I’ve written several scholarly essays on this subject; one of them is aptly entitled “I’ll See It when I Believe It” — about the multiple views of the Rodnny King video. Cf. https://www.academia.edu/1904793/_Ill_See_It_When_I_Believe_It_Rodney_King_and_the_Prison-House_of_Video)

        Let me take SOME of the points raised above and deconstruct them in ALL CAPS (but I’m not shouting!) . I don’t have the time or energy to address all:

        1. It is simply false to claim that “more often than not” it is leftist students who are to blame for such incidents. I read IHE every day and frankly stories about left-wing censorship do not appear almost daily; not even weekly or monthly. Indeed, I challenge Professor Tomasulo to name more than 5 (if that) incidents in which a faculty member was fired under pressure from leftist students for right-leaning political speech.

        MY STATEMENT WAS NOT ONLY ABOUT PROFS BEING “*FIRED* UNDER PRESSURE” AS IS CLEAR FROM THE EXACT WORDING. ALSO HANK MAY BE READING A DIFFERENT VERSION OF IHE THAN ME BECAUSE *ALMOST* EVERY DAY THERE IS SUCH A STORY ABOUT “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE AMOK.” IT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU THINK CONSTITUTES THE FAKE “P.C.” PRACTICES I’M REFERRING TO. I INCLUDE EXAMPLES OF ALLEGED “MICRO-AGGRESSIONS,” INVESTIGATIONS, CHARGES, ETC.

        AS THE ITALIANS SAY, Traduttore, Traditore (TRANSLATORS ARE TRAITORS).

        I ALSO DID NOT SAY THAT LEFTIST STUDENTS WERE PRESSURING RIGHT-WING PROFESSORS. SOMETIMES, THOSE PHONY “SJWs” TRY TO EAT THEIR OWN, AS IN MY CASE AND THE LIBERAL SCIENCE PROF. AT EVERGREEN WHO WAS PILLORIED AND ALMOST FIRED FOR TRYING TO HOLD CLASS.

        In 2018 political scientist Jeffrey Sachs created a database of all publicly reported incidents from 2015 to 2017 in which a faculty member at an American degree-granting postsecondary nonprofit institution was fired, forced to resign/resigned as part of a settlement, or was demoted/denied promotion due to speech perceived by critics as political. That database is here:

        https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eeTHZQOh9faZ2P3C_O3sVBuRAG1LzIZnsq6LB50NUHk/edit#gid=122618086

        The conclusions are clear: According to Sachs, “of 45 cases more than half (26) occurred in 2017, the clear majority (19) being over liberal speech. This disparity persisted even after removing terminations occurring in private religious institutions.” He has a nice chart showing this quite graphically, but I can’t insert it into a comment. However, you can find it in this piece, which is well worth reading in full:

        https://www.niskanencenter.org/there-is-no-campus-free-speech-crisis-a-close-look-at-the-evidence/

        Things have not changed since 2017. A recent Twitter thread from Sachs documents 35 individual cases of faculty members fired or disciplined for speech after complaints were made — not by “pseudo-leftist” students but by right-wing media, conservative trustees, or craven administrators. It is collected here:

        https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1170004733999951872.html

        AGAIN, HANK HAS DISTORTED MY EXACT WORDS SO THAT HIS CITED “RESEARCH” FITS THE RESULTS HE WANTS TO CONVEY. I WAS *NOT* CONCERNED MERELY ABOUT FIRINGS, ESP. SINCE IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO FIRE TENURED FACULTY MEMBERS.

        I won’t deny that leftist students (and some faculty members) can inappropriately chill free expression on campus, especially with regard to outside speakers, and I have previously written about this on this blog and elsewhere. But cases in which such students have succeeded in getting a conservative (or one deemed conservative) faculty member dismissed or even severely disciplined are rare. Professor Tomasulo himself may be one of those cases, although I won’t comment on his case since I know only what he has shared. This may understandably justify his strong feelings, but it is, after all, a single incident. And, of course, he and I surely agree that whether it comes from the right or the left such political pressures do create a serious chilling effect often leading to self-censorship, a problem especially acute for those outside the tenure system, which was, of course, the point of this post and of the AAUP’s recent statement “In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education.

        YES, I THOUGHT THAT HANK WAS A BELIEVER IN FREE SPEECH AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM, SO I WAS SURPRISED THAT HE MIS-CHARACTERIZED MY WORDS AND ATTITUDE. I’VE ALREADY POSTED A META-CRITIQUE OF ONE PASSAGE FROM THE RECENT AAUP STATEMENT, WHICH I MAINLY AGREE WITH (EVEN ITS VAGUENESS).

        I should also add that with respect to Professor Tomasulo’s story of being threatened with dismissal by his Provost for an innocuous “heads will roll” comment (typically atrocious administrative behavior), even as I write a fully tenured law professor has been placed on leave without pay pending termination for making just such a flippant remark to an administrator. (I’m not at liberty to identify the professor or institution at this time.)

        HERE IT MAY NOT HAVE BEEN “WISE” TO SAY “HEADS *MAY* ROLL” (I ACTUALLY USED THE CONDITIONAL, SO I MISQUOTED MYSELF.) BUT IF WE PENALIZED EVERY UNWISE STATEMENT UTTERED BY A PROFESSOR, WE’D ALL BE IN HOT WATER WITH OUR PROVOSTS. INCIDENTALLY, I JUST HEARD OF ANOTHER SUCH SEMANTIC INJUSTICE. A PROF. USED THE EXPRESSION “LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT” TO A LESBIAN STUDENT AND WAS REFERRED FOR DISCIPLINARY ACTION! LIKE HANK, I CANNOT REVEAL THE IDENTITY OF MY SOURCE.

        • Frank complains that I put words in his mouth and distorted his position. But the same could be said of his comment. I posted a piece about the dismissal of an adjunct faculty member. He then claimed that this was commonplace. I demurred. But now he says that he was really talking not about faculty dismissals but about PC culture (whatever that may be) more generally. We can differ about the extent to which “PC” has run rampant on campus or on how frequently IHE reports such rampancy. I think it’s been much exaggerated and there’s much reporting and research to support my claim. Be that as it may. But that was not the subject of this post and I would expect that comments actually address the topic of the post, which was not political pressure (right or left) in general but faculty dismissal. Hence the evidence I presented in rebuttal related to that. But let us agree to disagree. Although I will agree that the “let me get this straight” story is horrific. (By the way, I have a sense that much of the PC pressure of this sort comes not so much from leftist or other students but from a certain sort of mid-level administrator, often in student services. But that’s another topic.)

          • I didn’t realize that we had to stick SO closely to the opening post here. I thought that in my first reply I was challenging the assumption that the right-wing is so often guilty of creating “fodder for the Internet right-wing outrage machine.” Then he cited something called Turtleboysports.com, which I never heard of and probably has no influence — even if the BOSTON HERALD picked up the story.

            I was pointing out that in my experience and reading it has been PSEUDO-leftists who more often endanger Free Speech rights on campus and in U.S. society. That is probably a hard stat to compile.

            Yes, Hank, let’s agree to disagree, while these fake “SJWs” — who just engage in semantic games and the cancel culture, without doing anything meaningful in terms of REAL injustice — ensure a backlash against their Stalinist tactics and guarantee an electoral victory for “the Donald.”

      • Hey, Hank, here’s something that just popped into my Inbox, admittedly from a right-wing site. There’s a video to go with it:

        Professor calls free speech ‘racist’ (audio)

        DONOVAN NEWKIRK – UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO •JANUARY 8, 2020

        SHARE THIS ARTICLE: The College Fix on Facebook The College Fix on Twitter The College Fix on Youtube Share on Email

        Also worries Democratic presidential win could spark another Civil War

        A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor recently called free speech racist and said he worries that if a Democratic presidential candidate wins the 2020 election it could spark another Civil War.

        Eric King Watts, an associate professor of communication studies, made the comments during his keynote speech “Tribalism, Voicelessness, and the Problem of Free Speech” that kicked off a two-day conference on free speech.

        “Democracy needs free speech, but it is increasingly vulnerable to its excesses,” Watts said in his speech.

        “I will first set forth how freedom of speech is implicated in racism by linking its historical contingency to the production of blackened flesh,” Watts said. “I will demonstrate how racism produces its uneven distribution of capacity and debility….”

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