In April of 2021, finishing up my 7th year on the tenure track as an Assistant Professor, I received a job offer from another university. I was excited about this new opportunity for a variety of reasons; some of which included an opportunity to work at an institution where the importance of anti-racism was more recognizably in practice than at my current institution.
I informed my chair of my offer. It was an awkward and brief conversation that was indicative of my interactions with them from previous years. My chair informed me that they would be in touch after speaking with the dean. Later that day, I received an email requesting the terms of my counter offer and the negotiations began. I followed up via email the next day with my asks for a counter offer, of which included a change to the publication requirement for tenure. Some of my proposed terms were met, but this particular request was denied, which ostensibly killed my already tepid interest in remaining. The following is an email I composed, but never sent, in response to the denial of rethinking my tenure publication requirement:
Hi [chair of the department],
Thanks for turning this around quickly.
I suspect I know the answer to this question, but may I ask why rethinking my tenure publication requirement cannot be accommodated?
If it’s helpful, another way to frame my request is that rather than reduce the minimum number of publications needed [for tenure] from 8 to 7, I am asking to count my collective accomplishments and contributions in the areas of outreach as a public intellectual and my leadership in DEI work thus far as equivalent to one scholarly publication. I have ample evidence that my work in these areas has taken the same, if not more, intellectual rigor to produce and maintain, and has had a much greater impact on my field, my colleagues, and the university than most of my previous publications in peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, this work sits outside of the general expectations or category of recognition called “service”.
Speaking to my specific proposal more broadly, the academy, broadly speaking, consistently fails to recruit and retain [under represented minoritized] URM faculty in large part due to the fact that the metrics used to judge a faculty’s value fail to capture the totality of their contributions. If the academy is going to change and become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable, the conditions under which the academy determines who is retained must similarly change. It has never, and I would argue it cannot continue, to be enough to ask certain faculty who bear larger and unique burdens within white and male dominated spaces to achieve a narrowly defined category of scholarship in order to earn the rights and protections, on the other side of tenure, to then work to change a system of evaluation we all know from the outset is problematic.
It is true that I could have negotiated these terms prior to agreeing to the appointment conditions I am now advocating to be altered, but making these arguments and attaining the necessary evidence to support them was not possible in 2014 [my first year on the tenure track], nor was it imaginable in the minds of the people who set the conditions for my appointment.
It is also true that I could advocate for future such changes for incoming faculty once I’ve met the requirements for tenure, but that is the sort logic that perpetuates a culture of exclusion and marginalization within the academy and privileges white and males scholars at the expense of URM scholars.
I am routinely told by colleagues, students, and people outside the academy that my public scholarship and DEI leadership is deeply impactful, essential, and that the gains from this work would not have happened without my presence. Moreover, my accomplishments in this area are directly in line with [this institution’s] mission and have raised the consciousness of colleagues and otherwise created space that wouldn’t exist for the work we say we need to engage in at the department level. I am not a named leader of DEI work in the department, but I think most would agree that I am arguably the most heavily relied upon faculty resource within the department on issues of DEI. I would also argue that the overwhelming majority of initiatives and positive changes that have occurred in the department have been directly influenced by my presence and contributions.
Finding a different way to recognize and value my unique contributions is not a necessary condition for me to earn tenure here, but it is deeply important for me to feel supported and valued at this institution. This is why my asks for a counter offer would primarily take place after the summer of next year, when my tenure case would all but be decided. I understand the anxiety associated with the reality that I have yet to reach the minimum number of publications, but I am confident I will achieve such in the next 17 months. I understand that perhaps you are not able or unwilling to consider addressing my concerns about how my contributions are understood and valued through this negotiation process beyond having absolute confidence that I will achieve tenure, but a large part of my consideration on which offer to accept hinges on my ability to imagine that my value to this department and institution is understood beyond the tenure process. Just as I must demonstrate my value to this institution beyond tenure, this institution must demonstrate that it understands that value.
Rethinking how my impact as a scholar is understood within the process of tenure and promotion would go a long way towards addressing the retention problem URM faculty ,here and in academia generally, who are actively engaged in the broader impacts of their scholarship. URM faculty are constantly told throughout the recruitment and pre-tenure process that our unique contributions and mere presence is essential to the academy, yet the standards by which we are judged as being valuable are still rooted in the privilege of being white and male. My anxieties about staying here aren’t rooted in the last two publications I need to meet the old standard, but rather in the perpetuation of a culture where the work I’m told is just as impactful as publications, work I know my white counterparts either cannot or have not done at the level I have demonstrated, is primarily a rhetorical devise to lure folks like me to institutions to only be valued through the lens of whiteness. I am anxious that upon achieving tenure the isolation, lack of recognition, and the tremendous burden of navigating a culture of white supremacy will not fundamentally change for someone like me here.
Apologies for the dissertation and for not being more explicit about the nature and context of my requests for a counter offer. Should any of what I’ve explained resonate with you I’d be open and interested in talking more about such. If not, I understand and will take more time to contemplate the counter offer as it stands.
Thanks for you time and consideration.
-Jonathan
So, why didn’t I send this email, which better contextualizes my initial proposal? Why not give the institution a chance to negotiate on my terms? Quite frankly, I was beyond tired. Tired of dealing with individuals and an institution who’s rhetoric never matched their actions. I was tired of educating those who were better compensated than I and, in some cases, who’s literal job it was to “diversity”, on how I was being marginalized and how they could do better. Like the majority of my DEI work there, I was acting out of self preservation. Creating space were people were less structurally and interpersonally racist helped me as much as it helped the institution and others within the university.
My now former institution had ample opportunity to demonstrate that the logics of what I outlined in my letter were understood and practiced. The fact that I felt it necessary to explain such logics is evidence of my lack of confidence in the institution’s ability to make good on their mission of “diversity”. In discussing the logic of this specific issue and the terms of my counter offer with an administrator, their response to my request to rethink my tenure publication requirement was, “oh, you’re trying to have a paradigm shift”. This administrator then followed up with, “it’s not that these things don’t count, they count, just as service”.
After that conversation, it was clear to me that those in power were not willing to confront the status quo in the way I needed them to and that not even the potential of me leaving the institution could bring this about.
And then the bitterness set in.
All the years of confronting the culture of white supremacy, of educating my colleagues on their individual racism and the racism of the institution, of tempering or otherwise swallowing my frustrations, of leading without credit or compensation, of being told to “be patient” for the change I wanted to see, of the gaslighting, microagressions, and outright hostility, came bubbling to the surface.
And then finally I remembered something very important I had forgotten during this process of trying to make this abusive relationship work; I had an offer from another institution. So, I finally said to myself the words I desperately needed hear:
“Fuck this I’m outta here. I literally don’t have to take this shit anymore”.
The rhetoric of “diversity” at institutions of higher eduction almost never matches the actions and consciousness of those who profess such rhetoric. The following is an account of some of the contradictions I’ve observed during my time in higher ed from those who claim “diversity”.
You can read the original Twitter thread here.
How you want DIVERSITY (Blackness) at your university, but... (a thread)
1/don’t know how many Black faculty are in your college.
2/don’t teach any BIPOC scholars.
3/don’t know how many Black students you’ve graduated.
4/don’t know where the Black student union is.
5/have never set foot in the Black student union.
6/can’t name the top 5 most influential thinkers in your field who are Black.
7/don’t go to any Black professional group meetings/talks at society meetings.
8/always have social events at an Irish Pub.
9/don’t know the first thing about the history of Black people in your town.
10/have never been to a Black church.
11/can’t name or identify any Black sororities/fraternities.
12/would be super uncomfortable in a room full of Black people.
13/have never been invited to the cookout.
14/have never resolved an interpersonal conflict w/a Black person.
15/think “Black” and “African American” are interchangeable terms.
16/prefer Black music.
17/like the police (as an institution).
18/don’t have a robust AfAm/Africana studies program and/or aren’t pushing for one.
19/have no/bad experience hiring a Black faculty member.
20/aren’t self reflective.
21/can’t say “Black ppl” in front of a Black person.
22/can’t or rarely name “whiteness” or “white supremacy” out loud.
23/have never talked to your older white relatives about their experiences during/before civil rights era.
24/won’t call out your racist family members.
25/think racism is primarily perpetuated by overtly racist ppl.
26/consistently fail to call out racist actions of colleagues.
27/have tenure and don’t use it to aggressively combat whiteness.
28/ask Black ppl to teach you about Blackness.
29/get defensive about being called out for your racism.
30/have never seen a Black movie.
31/have no meaningful connections w/Black womxn.
32/have never done a demographic audited of your personal network.
33/rap the n-word when no Black ppl are around.
34/use passive aggressiveness as a primary strategy of communicating your frustrations.
35/act genuinely surprised when a racism, any racism, happens.
36/watch Fox News.
37/don’t actively talk to the white young ppl in your life about racism from a very young age.
38/don’t hate white supremacy.
39/think reverse racism is a thing.
40/think institutional statements of racial solidarity actually do anything.
41/don’t understand the power of social media
42/use the term “dialogue” when talking about DEI.
43/still “raise the roof” gesture.
44/use the term “working class” when talking about a certain demographic of white ppl.
45/think winning over white voters is equally/more important than protecting voting rights for Black ppl.
46/don’t like grits.
47/don’t know any Black line dances.
48/can’t tell Black ppl apart in the wild.
49/expect Black folks to succeed w/out changing your concept/measures of success.
50/appoint a DEI head who isn’t also a tenured professor at your institution.
51/don’t know if your have salary discrepancies correlated w/race.
52/encouraged your untenured faculty to “keep their heads down” until they earn tenure.
53/think you’re a competent academic, but this thread is reading you for filth.
54/don’t know what the phrase in #53 means.
55/can’t directly contact 3 Black colleagues when your dept has a job ad.
56/think diversity statements in job ads do anything other than privilege white men who can write semi-coherently about DEI.
57/expect sports and politics to be separate.
58/tone police Blackness in anyway, including saying things like, “I think they could have done/said it in a different way.”
59/think cancel culture is a thing.
60/think wokeness culture is a thing.
61/don’t get violently angry when someone even thinks about touching a Black person’s hair.
62/comment out loud about your Black colleague’s appearance beyond something like “I like your shirt.”
63/ask a Black person if they know the work of well known Black person w/o having any idea of how said well known Black person is understood by Black ppl more broadly.
64/don’t have a file on your como to document all the racist BS you’ve witnessed at your institution.
65/when you see white locs don’t immediately think of Toni Morrison.
66/call locs “dreds”.
67/don’t hold problematic Black ppl accountable b/c you’re afraid of being called racist.
68/are more afraid of being called racist than understanding and eradicating your racism.
69/listen to podcasts but don’t have any hosted by Black ppl in your top 5.
70/have ever cried white ears in front of a Black person while getting called out.
71/treat non-Black POC like shit and expect to still be in good relation with Black colleagues.
72/blame students' for their poor performance in your class on their "work ethic" instead of your all white syllabus.
73/don't know what shea butter is.
74/have never used shea butter.
75/have never used raw shea butter.
76/have ever commented out loud about a Black person's complexion, especially in relationship to your tan.
77/don't know what Juneteenth is.
78/send emails about DEI initiatives, scholarships, jobs without context, care, and conversation.
79/insist that "doing something" around DEI is better than "doing nothing".
80/remind your Black colleagues, especially when pressed to be more explicit about holding whiteness accountable, that "we are going to make mistakes" and "we won't always get it right" and "we are trying".
81/think DEI work is more about "connecting" with Black folks than dismantling white supremacy.
82/don't ground your DEI work in Black scholarship, esp Black womxn scholarship.
83/don't think about or plan accordingly for how field camp might be experienced differently by your Black students.
84/don't actually like Black people.
85/have never been invited to dinner in a Black person's home.
86/have been invited to dinner at a given Black person's home only once.
87/don't like red Koolaid.
88/don't understand that "red" is a flavor.
89/think racism is worse in the south compared to the north.
90/think racism is worse in the US than in Canada.
91/ask Black ppl who talk about racism in their field "so how can we fix this, these issues?"
92/proceed with a search that has no Black applicants.
93/don't collect or update any data on hiring, graduation, advising, committee, service demographics at the department, college, university level.
94/don't conduct, analyze, reflect on exit interviews of Black faculty or use said interviews to inform your practice.
95/USE THE TERM DIVERSITY HIRE
96/suggest to Black folks what is/isn't "strategic" when planning/acting on DEI initiatives.
97/think hip hop culture is more misogynistic than whiteness culture.
98/think objectivity or "taking the emotion out of it" is actually a thing.
99/quote MLK to Black people.
100/like Tyler Perry movies.
Thanks for sticking around folks! I think I'm done for now. Cite Black women, cite Indigenous women, tear down white supremacy, drink more water, see a therapist, universal healthcare/education, reparations, honor treaties, mindyabizniss, tip well, love fully, be safe.
Okay! I’m reloaded!!!!
101/still require standardized tests
102/make derogatory remarks about hillbillies/rednecks thinking that scores points w/Black folks instead of outing you as an equal opportunity bigot.
103/think Abraham Lincoln was “one of the good ones.”
104/use the term intersectionality like my dad uses hot sauce (he puts it on everything).
105/organize a panels on diversity w/o Black folks.
106/organize any panel w/o Black folks.
107/act shocked when we tell we don’t really know The Rolling Stones or the Beatles, but when we ask do you know Muddy Waters & Sister Rosetta Thorpe y’all look at us like we grew a 2nd head
108/let your dog roam around where they want including other people’s personal space.
109/act shocked when your dog isn’t warm & friendly towards the first Black person they’ve ever seen you talk to.
110/claim the pipeline of Black PhDs in your field is small, but haven’t ever looked up the actual stats on earned PhDs by race.
111/don’t ever write formal letters of recognition on institutional for the important contributions your 1/2 Black colleagues makes thinking that your private email of gratitude to them is sufficient (it’s nice, but formalize that shit! Both and ppl!)
112/don’t speak up in meetings but thank your Black colleague privately after the fact.
113/never invite Black colloquium speakers.
114/don’t lead your ask of any Blackademic w/how you plan to compensate them for their time/energy.
115/assume that any two Black adults you see together are either in a romantic relationship or are close family.
I may add to this thread over time, so give me a follow if you haven’t already.
Cheers!
