Given that a transcript will most certainly not be coming (because optics), and given the questions/text/reaching out from some folks, I figured it may be worthwhile to take a bit of a dive into the discourse of the furloughs at UA, including their messaging, in a little thread. https://twitter.com/trans_killjoy/status/1251565386891313152

First, it needs to be understood that there is no "floor" to these furloughs, meaning people who make $0-$44,000 are still required to take furlough (13 days). Last time I was at UA (as a #sapro), there were furloughs, but I was spared due to there being a floor.

The lack of a floor is important to note, as it suggests a particular brand of racialized and class cruelty on behalf of those who created the plan. It suggests they do not care in the least about their most vulnerable staff, many of whom will go into further debt from this.

Think of the custodial staff, dining staff, groundskeepers, IT front line folks, and those who make the uni spaces many of us move around in possible. These are the essential workers who will be absolutely decimated by the need to take 13 days furlough. Absolutely and completely.

This debt, and the bills that will pile up, will surely filter down through generations, too, especially given that many folks use their pay to support their families. Thus, there is a present as well as future racialized and classed effect to these furloughs.

Quick aside: I recall being in a meeting w/ the UA president last academic year, and he was eating a bagel. When he was done, he crumpled the paper wrapping and tossed it in the corner of the room (there wasn't a trash bin). So there's an idea re: how custodial staff are viewed.

The broader discourse operating here is one of cruelty and generational harm and violence. And, as Magolda wrote about in his book on campus custodians, many of those most vulnerable may not have much choice but to keep these jobs and deal w/ furloughs (because global pandemic).

In relating the news of furloughs to the campus community, the UA president sent out an email and hosted (with multiple members of his senior "leadership" team) a virtual town hall meeting. Both of these artifacts had some wild, yet very predictable, elements. First, the email:

After listing the furlough brackets, the UA president stated, "As significant as this plan is, it will cover less than 40% of our projected shortfall through June 30, 2021, even though salaries and benefits comprise more than 60% of our spending." This statement is a problem.

Most notably, the statement is a problem because it suggests we as employees should all be thankful the furloughs and cuts weren't deeper. It suggests we should be grateful to those who are gouging us for their poor fiscal (ir)responsibility. It victim-blames us for our anger.

Additionally, in the email the UA president noted "immense challenges," that "[t]he task ahead is not easy," and that "[w]e are not alone" in these sorts of cuts. This sort of we-are-all-in-it-together rhetoric is a way to suggest "we" are all the same...which "we" are not.

As I tell the students I learn with, one ought not use "we" as a universal in written work, as it suggests a similarity and familiarity between the reader and writer that one cannot assume. In this case, the senior "leadership" is nothing like the staff they are writing to.

Not only are these groups not the same due to salary, but they also are not the same due to decision-making ability and power. They are also not the same due to various vectors of identity, namely race, gender, sexuality, disability, and the like. So the "we" language is false.

Next, in the town hall, a white woman on the senior "leadership" team recounted "how much sleep [she] had lost" given the cuts and furloughs. She emphasized the point, centering her own emotionality of hurt and pain.

She makes $230,000/year. I'm sure she's sleeping just fine.

As Accapadi, Thompson, and DiAngelo have articulated, this move for white women to center themselves through projections of hurt and sadness is a ploy. It is a move to distract from the violence and harm they are taking part in, and a manifestation of white supremacy.

If you want to learn more, read:
1. Accapadi's piece ( https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899418.pdf),
2. Thompson's piece ( https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0951839032000033509), and/or
3. DiAngelo's article-length work ( https://robindiangelo.com/2018site/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/White-Fragility-Published.-1.pdf).

There's more out there, but some quick sources for now.

I and other people on the call were also treated to the UA president (who makes $875,000/year) discuss how much of a "team" "we" all were, and how "we'd get through this together." I've already discussed the "we" discourse, so either folks are daft or oblivious to their actions.

Another point of note was that the "Q&A" portion of the town hall was curated, allowing the senior "leaders" to avoid hard questions and taking responsibility for their actions. Their upbeat tone only marked how completely dismissive they were, despite their desiring not to be.

The overarching discourse, then, is one of neglect (at the most generous), and of callous and uncaring harm and violence (at the most close of critical readings). This whole charade was an example of how racialized capitalism and white (women's) fragility is literally deadly.

Also, it should be noted that I am not tenured. Whether it be rational, it has taken me some time to write this thread because I, too, feel intensely precarious. I know not many will read this, but still, the discourse of precarity and scarcity are silencing tactics.

Many faculty, with or without tenure, are made to feel vulnerable, as are staff and students. So we, too, get scared. Add to this the trans oppression I face from all levels (e.g., the president assuming I was a trans man [I am not] earlier this year), and there's a lot of fear.

However, I also know I have a responsibility to say something, to call things out, and to use the small platform I have. Thank you to my one colleague (who I will not name out of respect to her) for reminding me of this point. It is our job to speak at these moments.

So that's what's going on at UA. That's how this decision occurred and was relayed, and how those who are most vulnerable are left to pick through the rubble. I have colleagues who want to leave, who have medical and student loan debt, and who are not doing well. This isn't okay.

And, the last point, which cannot be emphasized enough, is the negative influence on students and student outcomes. I have already emailed my advisees to share with them some of what I know, but the fact is, this disaster capitalism suffuses the plane, and will hurt students.

I and my colleagues will do all we can, but I’m devastated for those who are already vulnerable and have just been made more so by an uncaring, cruel, and senseless senior administrative who don’t know or care enough of their employee’s plights to make more equitable decisions.