BY ANTHEA BUTLER AND KEVIN GANNON
Since 2014, scholars’ summers have been filled with the news of African Americans dying at the hands of police. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. But as we well know, African American deaths by police know no season, no break. Laquan McDonald. Tamir Rice. Breonna Taylor. Countless others.
Anthea Butler and Kevin Gannon
It’s hard to think about preparing or teaching a class, writing a book or article, or chairing a panel amidst the ambient violence of state violence, senseless murder, and racism. What about our students, especially our students of color? How are they managing in the midst of this racial maelstrom?
Given the recent events—namely the recent police shooting of Jacob Blake seven times in Kenosha, WI, and the same police force aiding and abetting a white terrorist who murdered two demonstrators—we can no longer sit quietly amidst state violence against communities of color. It is time for the academic community to do more than teach classes and offer reading lists on racism, policing, violence, and racial injustice. It is time for us to pause the endless meetings on diversity and inclusion, disrupt our institutions’ routines, look outward to the American public, and share our dismay, disgust, and resolve.
Scholar Strike is an action, inspired by professional athletes from the WNBA, NBA, and MLB who went on strike (the NBA players even interrupted their postseason) to underscore the urgent importance of addressing the grave injustices faced by people of color in the United States. This unprecedented action, where highly-skilled and well-paid workers withheld their labor, reflected not only the athletes’ solidarity, but the failure of our governments—local, state, and national—to reckon with the tragic enormity of racist violence besetting, in particular, the Black community in the United States. Where the state fails, society steps in. And it is in that spirit, a spirit of labor solidarity, that the Scholar Strike was conceived.
Scholar Strike is both an action, and a teach-in. Some of us will, for two days, refrain from our many duties and participate in actions designed to raise awareness of and prompt action against racism, policing, mass incarceration and other symptoms of racism’s toll in America. In the tradition of the teach-ins of the 1960s, we are going to spend September 8–9 doing YouTube ten-minute teach-ins, accessible to everyone, and a social media blitz on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to share information about racism, policing, mass incarceration, and other issues of racial injustice in America. Participants at various institutions will be engaging in their own programming with students at their universities, and sharing with us their teach-ins and other activities. Scholar Strike has even gone across US borders, with our Canadian academic neighbors to the north engaging in their own action across Canada on September 9–10.
We are also acutely aware of the precarity of most college faculty; many of our colleagues hold positions in which they cannot step away from their duties for a day or two, or are covered under collective bargaining agreements. It might seem odd to think of college faculty as “workers,” but the stereotype of the fat-cat tenured professor is not an accurate one. Indeed, 75 percent of all credit hours in US colleges and universities are taught by underpaid adjunct faculty, who not only lack the protections and benefits of full-time faculty, but are employed on a class-by-class, term-by-term basis. Even those of us in more secure positions still work on campuses where fiscal crises and a pandemic have combined to make everyone’s employment status precarious. We are indeed labor, as are the professional athletes who went on strike last week. And, as US history shows us, there are times when the most powerful way that workers can force an issue or work for change is to withhold what others see as their most important feature: their labor.
We believe that it’s of crucial importance for those of us in higher education to take a stand with our students and the communities we serve. Should you wish to join in, organize an action, or contribute in our social media blitz or contribute a video, please contact us at Scholarstrike@gmail.com, and we will get back to you. We won’t tell you what to do on your campuses, but if you are led to participate in the YouTube or social media blitz, please reach out!
The guest bloggers are organizers of the Scholar Strike. Anthea Butler is associate professor of religious and Africana studies and interim chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Kevin Gannon is professor of history and director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Grand View University.
As Marshall Sahlins notes in the Nation article linked above, the 1965 Teach-In was not a strike, and that was one of the things that made it so successful, because no one could object to professors engaging in educational events after their classes. A general strike, on the other hand, can raise objections and can violate collective bargaining agreements as well as the ethical concerns many teachers have about refusing to teach their students. I would prefer to see this event include the option of education, in which faculty make issues of racial justice part of their course curriculum on Sept 8-9 (whatever course they’re teaching) rather than being depicted as refusing to teach. Asking professors to strike actually makes it too easy for them to refuse; asking professors to put racism at the center of their courses for one session is a much stronger and more effective request.
I think this activist effort should also try to coordinate with other events going on. For example, Haymarket Books has an event on Sept. 8 about the 2019 LA teachers’ strike that might be good to make part of this campaign: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/186-when-we-fight-voices-from-the-2019-los-angeles-teachers-strike
Thank you for posting on this site and for organizing this action. PSU-AAUP (Portland State) has tweeted this and will put it in our newsletter.
Sure, encourage faculty to further deprive students of color of educational opportunities by going on strike! How about alternative EDUCATIONAL means by which to spread the word?: teach-ins that don’t conflict with class time, marches, hand-outs, speeches, etc. — all of which would be valuable ADD-ONS to regular education, not the deprivation of learning opportunities.
BTW, I boycotted one (extension) class during the Vietnam War and never fully learned the topic that was covered — and it affected my career.
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I am the son of a NYC union leader, I have experienced numerous city worker strikes in NYC growing up, I am an outspoken social activist who believes in a true social healthcare system that serves all regardless of ability to pay. I believe in racial equality and agree we are at a time in our country’s history where the injustice present by police action against people of color is intolerable. I truly understand the power of collective action whether it be a group of workers, athletic professionals or educators who make their points and beliefs known through coordinated social action and yet I strongly oppose this proposed work stoppage next week by college and higher education scholars. It is the wrong action since it punishes and affects the people we serve, students, especially those that need to be in class and are anxious for face to face or online instruction because they are the most vulnerable and the overall timing is terrible. Work stoppages have historically been done to illuminate the plight of others and to stand up in solidarity with those being oppressed or victimized. It is to punish or at least call attention to the decision makers and cause positive action by using work and ultimately financial means to affect change.
I know this may differ by educational institution but as a faculty member in a Jesuit institution where social justice is paramount in all we do and teach I realize how important it is to support our students and all of those around us in our communities but we also need to support our students in their education. I teach in a professional program where the knowledge that would not be taught next week in a two-day work stoppage following a holiday MUST be taught at a later date. Considering the impact on education from the pandemic and the need to make up classes from the spring in our program and insure we get in all of our labs and clinical skills that must be taught before a second wave hits us this fall, this two day strike would have devastating implications on our students, especially the ones who needs us to be present in class and are already struggling because of the remote changes incurred due to Covid. Often, I have seen how strikes, while sometimes a necessary action by oppressed or individuals who want leaders or decision makers to take notice but the ones that are affected are the least among us. The low wage workers who need the jobs, the low skilled workers who are inadvertently affected when professional athletes go on strike or stop playing and now I feel our students are those same individuals.
As I said I am a firm supporter of union collective action and the use of a strike but it must be powerful by involving ALL and have an impact that is highly significant. This last minute, voluntary and haphazard attempt to make a statement will only fracture our community and not have the affect we wish. Now I would be the first to be a part of a well-planned, large scale work stoppage that affects political decision makers at the local, state and national level but this is not it. We can march, demonstrate, hold rallies, hold classes and have discussions around social injustice on our campuses with colleagues, students and community but not instead of teaching our classes. Not now, please.
Ira Gorman, PT, PhD, MSPH (he, his, him)
Assistant Dean/ Associate Professor
School of Physical Therapy | Rueckert-Hartman College for Health Professions
3333 Regis Blvd. G-4, Denver, CO 80221
P 303.458.4986 | E igorman@regis.edu | REGIS.EDU
This may be a well-intentioned but ill conceived idea. We need more education, not less. And not in little 10 minute YouTube bits. Teach more and more deeply, learn more and more deeply about these issues, these realities, these outrageous actions and conditions that affect us all.
Respect to all those who call attention to the need to increase equity for our students! I am sure there are many ways to achieve this. Here is one approach:
In light of recent events and aligned with my usual theme of Social Justice, I am including How to be an Antiracist (Kendi), Stamped (Kendi and Reynolds), and Just Mercy (Stevenson) as required reading in my first year composition classes. We will also listen to the Ear Hustle podcast, read prison newspapers and indigenous poetry: all with an eye on the fact that “justice” plays out differently in America depending upon factors that one does not always have control over: such as skin color, neighborhood of birth, and income.
It has been my experience that students can learn all the rudimentary aspects of writing BEST when engaged with a story that both awakens their mind and calls on their courageous hearts. Education, I agree, is the best way to combat racism and create a level playing field for all of our POC students. Sharing stories is the best show of solidarity I know.
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