protected class...what should I do

[mahagonny]

Fellow Muslim woman (of the born-into-it brand) speaking here.

What you can do is try to find whether your particular college has some sort of diversity initiative in place that may make you less likely to lose your job than your fellow colleagues if you are in a protected class. For instance, I'm at a public community college with a very strong faculty union set within an enormous university system in a highly liberal state. We actually have it written in our retrenchment policy that if staff and/or instructors have to be fired due to financial difficulties experienced by the institution, our college (and all of its sister colleges) must actually analyze what the firings will do to its level of diversity (i.e, will firings decrease the % of staff and/or instructors who fall in protected classes: female, ethnic minority, disabled, etc.)

So theoretically, I (as a Muslim minority woman) have a slightly higher chance of holding onto my full-time tenure track position than, say, a white male professor in my same position who could also lose his job due to budget cuts. And even then, that's really not enough to save me if we lose so much funding that we both have to go. (Although if it's any consolation, the department has to get rid of its adjuncts and lecturers before it gets to me).

I can't think of a more vivid illustration of liberals caring about pet causes (tenure dynasty being one, 'diversity' being another) without caring about people.

[Hegemony]

Although Riseanew's wording was a little cold, I think it's probably true of pretty much everyone that they worry about their own job before they worry about the jobs of others. That's pretty understandable. Not sure we can link that to any particular political view, and also not sure that an anecdote of 1 constitutes data.

[marshwiggle]

I have to say that when I read pieces of what mahogany, polly, Wahoo and marshwiggle write I agree with them all. They tend to repeat things over (okay, and over, and over) but they all speak alot of truth, even when it appears they are mortal enemies.

Perhaps it's just morbid curiosity, but I'd be fascinated to hear you expand on this.

I'm guessing it's a "blind men and the elephant" kind of thing.

[revert79]

Fellow Muslim woman (of the born-into-it brand) speaking here.

What you can do is try to find whether your particular college has some sort of diversity initiative in place that may make you less likely to lose your job than your fellow colleagues if you are in a protected class. For instance, I'm at a public community college with a very strong faculty union set within an enormous university system in a highly liberal state. We actually have it written in our retrenchment policy that if staff and/or instructors have to be fired due to financial difficulties experienced by the institution, our college (and all of its sister colleges) must actually analyze what the firings will do to its level of diversity (i.e, will firings decrease the % of staff and/or instructors who fall in protected classes: female, ethnic minority, disabled, etc.)

So theoretically, I (as a Muslim minority woman) have a slightly higher chance of holding onto my full-time tenure track position than, say, a white male professor in my same position who could also lose his job due to budget cuts. And even then, that's really not enough to save me if we lose so much funding that we both have to go. (Although if it's any consolation, the department has to get rid of its adjuncts and lecturers before it gets to me).

So do you have any kind similar document within your college outlining who gets fired in what order? If not, you may not even have the (very, very flimsy) protection I have.

Interesting.  There is a bit in the reduction-in-force policy that states that the VP of HR will check over terminations to make sure that no discriminatory factors have come into it, but that doesn't sound as robust as what you are describing.

At this point, it is probably going to come down to how the upper admin feel about my specialized sub-department (I have a non-faculty professional role that is very specific).  Since I am the only full-time person in this sub-department, which is public-facing and relies to an extent on the school actually being open, if they close it down it's just me they will look at for elimination.  There isn't somebody else who can be asked to take on my work and do their work at the same time--not feasible.  But closing my dept down would be bad PR for the school...so, it's sort of up in the air (although not quite as up in the air as I would like--seems a bit closer to a crash landing).

And yes, I am in the process of looking for and applying to other non-academic jobs, and I have been since before this awful time began.  My field is being hit harder than some by this disaster, so we'll see what happens with that. 

thanks for writing in!  nice to hear from a fellow Muslim woman :)

[mahagonny]

Although Riseanew's wording was a little cold, I think it's probably true of pretty much everyone that they worry about their own job before they worry about the jobs of others. That's pretty understandable. Not sure we can link that to any particular political view, and also not sure that an anecdote of 1 constitutes data.

Sorry, hegemony. Your posts are almost always well measured and strongly logical, but I'm not backing down.
True, you can't  link that one fact to anything much other than human nature, but you can link the diversity mantra to contemporary liberal thinking and academia being the nerve center for  advancement of diversity issues. There's really no choice about that. And you can link using disposable, anonymous dead end labor for your own aggrandizement to the tenure track, which is a stronghold of contemporary liberalism, which sees itself as eminently concerned for the have-nots. So that post is quite symbolic.
I'm not even getting into things like how easy it is to be called bigoted by noticing peculiar things found in Islamic scripture, while you can make fun of Catholicism all day with no repercussions.

[polly_mer]

I have to say that when I read pieces of what mahogany, polly, Wahoo and marshwiggle write I agree with them all. They tend to repeat things over (okay, and over, and over) but they all speak alot of truth, even when it appears they are mortal enemies.

Perhaps it's just morbid curiosity, but I'd be fascinated to hear you expand on this.

I'm guessing it's a "blind men and the elephant" kind of thing.

The mortal enemies part tends to arise from what we think can and should be done to address the known problems.  We're usually even better than describing the elephant, but we differ greatly as to whether we want that elephant to be in the circus, the zoo, or the wild or whether we really ought to be promoting dogs over elephants for home living.

[mahagonny]

Although Riseanew's wording was a little cold, I think it's probably true of pretty much everyone that they worry about their own job before they worry about the jobs of others. That's pretty understandable. Not sure we can link that to any particular political view, and also not sure that an anecdote of 1 constitutes data.

Sorry, hegemony. Your posts are almost always well measured and strongly logical, but I'm not backing down.
True, you can't  link that one fact to anything much other than human nature, but you can link the diversity mantra to contemporary liberal thinking and academia being the nerve center for  advancement of diversity issues. There's really no choice about that. And you can link using disposable, anonymous dead end labor for your own aggrandizement to the tenure track, which is a stronghold of contemporary liberalism, which sees itself as eminently concerned for the have-nots. So that post would be seen as  symbolic to many (away from the tower).
I'm not even getting into things like how easy it is to be called bigoted by noticing peculiar things found in Islamic scripture, while you can make fun of Catholicism all day with no repercussions.

I have to say that when I read pieces of what mahogany, polly, Wahoo and marshwiggle write I agree with them all. They tend to repeat things over (okay, and over, and over) but they all speak alot of truth, even when it appears they are mortal enemies.

Perhaps it's just morbid curiosity, but I'd be fascinated to hear you expand on this.

I'm guessing it's a "blind men and the elephant" kind of thing.

The mortal enemies part tends to arise from what we think can and should be done to address the known problems.  We're usually even better than describing the elephant, but we differ greatly as to whether we want that elephant to be in the circus, the zoo, or the wild or whether we really ought to be promoting dogs over elephants for home living.

I'm not expecting to have any influence anywhere. Nada. I'm just a member of union because one, although it may make little sense anything else makes less sense, and two, the right people hate me for doing it.

[revert79]

I have a nice idea for all of you who love to bicker back and forth, to each other, in endless self-referential circles that literally nobody else cares about: maybe you should set up a private place to do this.  Since this is purported to be a forum for asking specific questions related to professional life in academia, some of your points might (rarely) be on-topic but for the most part it's just noise.  Nobody cares about you one way or another, nobody hates you or likes you or anything with judgement or interest attached.  You are like jackhammers or air compressors outside one's window, making meaningless but distracting sound when one is trying to think.  And if this activity is actually interesting to a few people, please go away and set up a private Facebook bicker-fest page for yourselves.

Another idea, could whomever set up "The Fora" please just go ahead and quietly set up another similar forum for people who actually want to engage in conversation about specific topics?  Then these noise machines can keep blasting each other with atonal sound and other people can finally engage with each other.  Maybe they can pick up the tab for the web hosting etc while they're at it.  Because right now you are paying for their private bicker party.

The original topic of this thread was, is it ethical or even useful to make one's non-obvious protected status apparent in the hopes of influencing upcoming layoff determinations.  Potentially this would be of interest to other readers.

[polly_mer]

Ah, revert79.

1) No one controls a thread.  As someone put it, we're just a big faculty meeting with all the distractions thereof.  When we discussed what we wanted in a new forum, the first suggestions were pleas to keep games and general discussion.  Direct professional questions alone are not the reasons the regulars tend to come.

2) If you want a different forum, then you are entirely free to set one up, make any rules you like, and restrict discussion any way you want to do so.  I'll even tell you the steps:

* Get a domain name.  GoDaddy.com has pretty cheap rates.  If you search around, then you can probably get one for free if you pay for hosting with a given company.

* Find someone to host it.  Again, there are some pretty cheap rates if you don't want to host it yourself.  It's even possible sometimes to find an organization that will give you free hosting for some time, as eigen did here.  Some of us have volunteered to chip in when the time for paid comes.  If you think I think certain posters are a waste of my money, then you haven't been paying attention.

* Set up the software.  Paid hosts will often do it for you as part of the service.

* Invite your friends to join you.

* Decide just how restrictive you're going to be and how much of your time that's going to take.  Approving accounts and first posts along with responding to reports takes under an hour a day.  I don't know how much time would be spent if one actually policed every post for being on-topic and something with which I agreed.  I would rather spend my time writing than being the post police.

[writingprof]

Since this is purported to be a forum for asking specific questions related to professional life in academia . . . . 

Is it? That sounds much more boring than what we have.

So theoretically, I (as a Muslim minority woman) have a slightly higher chance of holding onto my full-time tenure track position than, say, a white male professor in my same position who could also lose his job due to budget cuts.

Well, that's it. I'm voting for Trump.

[marshwiggle]

Ah, revert79.

1) No one controls a thread.  As someone put it, we're just a big faculty meeting with all the distractions thereof.  When we discussed what we wanted in a new forum, the first suggestions were pleas to keep games and general discussion.  Direct professional questions alone are not the reasons the regulars tend to come.

One point I'd add is to note how vastly different the amount of traffic is on different threads. The threads that don't include much of this heated debate tend to not have many postings at all.  A forum without any uncomfortable discussion would mostly sound like crickets.

[apl68]

I have to say that when I read pieces of what mahogany, polly, Wahoo and marshwiggle write I agree with them all. They tend to repeat things over (okay, and over, and over) but they all speak alot of truth, even when it appears they are mortal enemies.

Perhaps it's just morbid curiosity, but I'd be fascinated to hear you expand on this.

I'm guessing it's a "blind men and the elephant" kind of thing.

Jimbo seems to think much as I do here.  For me, "blind men and the elephant" does tend to sum it up.  Plus polly's posts, in particular, contain informative nuggets and vivid turns of phrase that are worth digging for.

That said, the four of them together can kind of suck all the air out of the room sometimes.

[Cheerful]

The original topic of this thread was, is it ethical or even useful to make one's non-obvious protected status apparent in the hopes of influencing upcoming layoff determinations.

No and no.  You are no more special than any other person facing upcoming layoff determinations.

[apl68]

Although Riseanew's wording was a little cold, I think it's probably true of pretty much everyone that they worry about their own job before they worry about the jobs of others. That's pretty understandable. Not sure we can link that to any particular political view, and also not sure that an anecdote of 1 constitutes data.

True enough.  However, there are those in positions of responsibility who are worrying a great deal about the jobs of others right now.  I know librarians who've had to lay off members of their staffs.  I've been hoping against hope that it doesn't come to that here.  There's not anybody who works here who is "expendable," or who I know doesn't need the work.  It would be heartbreaking to have to lay anybody off.

I can assure you that many of those "heartless" administrators who are now having to make hard decisions about laying off faculty, adjuncts, staff, etc. at institutions around the country are engaging in a lot of soul-searching in the process.

[revert79]

Ah, revert79.

1) No one controls a thread.  As someone put it, we're just a big faculty meeting with all the distractions thereof.  When we discussed what we wanted in a new forum, the first suggestions were pleas to keep games and general discussion.  Direct professional questions alone are not the reasons the regulars tend to come.

2) If you want a different forum, then you are entirely free to set one up, make any rules you like, and restrict discussion any way you want to do so.  I'll even tell you the steps:

* Get a domain name.  GoDaddy.com has pretty cheap rates.  If you search around, then you can probably get one for free if you pay for hosting with a given company.

* Find someone to host it.  Again, there are some pretty cheap rates if you don't want to host it yourself.  It's even possible sometimes to find an organization that will give you free hosting for some time, as eigen did here.  Some of us have volunteered to chip in when the time for paid comes.  If you think I think certain posters are a waste of my money, then you haven't been paying attention.

* Set up the software.  Paid hosts will often do it for you as part of the service.

* Invite your friends to join you.

* Decide just how restrictive you're going to be and how much of your time that's going to take.  Approving accounts and first posts along with responding to reports takes under an hour a day.  I don't know how much time would be spent if one actually policed every post for being on-topic and something with which I agreed.  I would rather spend my time writing than being the post police.

okay, ha ha, point taken!  that's not my scene.  I run enough websites.

I never thought you specifically thought anything in particular, I just personally got fed up with what I see as less debate than snipping and groaning in a place where things could be more, to my mind, productive or generous.  but that was my very own response...it is what it is.  not assigning thoughts or feeling to anybody else.  you're right, I wasn't really paying attention.  If everyone else is happy and feels like this is working for them, then that's what this forum is.  The thing I wish it was just doesn't exist.

I do feel like you have given me very good advice, and I'm grateful for it.  This just isn't the place for me.