Something really bugging me right now:

Academics that protest cops on the streets, and then go into the classroom and turn into another kind of cop.

I mean going into the classroom and imposing authority for authority’s sake. Punishing students for failure to conformity to the rules, whatever the hell they are, instead of looking to help students.

Especially when those impositions of power punish students in asymmetric, oppressive ways.

Teachers don’t usually use physical violence, but we can still destroy hopes, opportunities, careers, and lives.

Example (and here’s where I’m going to lose a lot of you):

I know plenty of profs who impose harsh grading penalties for failure to use proper citation format, even in gen-ed classes.

Some do this without bothering to teach how to cite properly.

First of all, if you require proper citation format and you’re not teaching how to do it in your class, you’re straight-up penalizing people for their educational background, which is obviously subject to oppressive pressures. You’re perpetuating.

Second, even if you do teach citation practice - why? Totally get it if you’re teaching future researchers. But a gen-ed class? What use do most gen-ed students have for it?

(You can encourage engagement with textual specifics without requiring proper MLA or whatevs)

You’re creating an arbitrary rule, that serves little real educational purpose in the context, and penalizing people for failure to conform.

Where the rule is formulated to give an automatic advantage to students from privileged backgrounds.

Plenty more stuff like this. Harsh late penalties for getting in stuff 7 minutes late. A more tangled case: I sometimes worry that a lot of us are grading on grammar without teaching grammar - which means we’re grading on pre-existing educational privilege.

Basically, teachers: we’re gatekeepers with enormous powers over people’s lives. But I keep seeing academics talk the social justice talk, and then in the place where they have genuine power, turn into cops and bullies.