kind of weird that we aren't seeing more higher ed leaders walk out over their institutions' decisions to risk the lives of their students and staff this fall. now seems like a time for courage. where is it?

I've never had a job that paid six figures and I've never been a supervisor, so I really don't know how tightly I'd cling to power. But it's hard to imagine standing by and watching this unfold.

I'm really fucking scared about what the opening of campuses is going to do to communities. I'm worried about what the last-minute reversal of policies will do to families and students. I am horrified by the way labor exploitation is escalating during this crisis.

Every day, I understand more clearly how institutions prevent individuals from wielding their power to create change. I understand that there are a lot of people in positions of moderate power working really really hard to protect the people who report to them. Often thanklessly.

But then I think, it's not often that knowledge producers are literally asked to endanger peoples lives. Like not epistemologically or ontologically but their actual lives. And I think, I don't know, maybe that's a hard line that we don't want to cross?

A colleague reminded me (privately, generously) that we will never see most of the actions that people in positions of power are taking to protect workers now. I believe this and the last thing I want is to show disrespect to people working 24/7 to protect their staff. But

individual admins cannot carry the weight of protecting university staff alone. I worry about the well-being of the people who do the most good at our institutions. And I worry there are too few, and they are spread too thin, to stop this tide.

I don't know, y'all. I didn't mean to write this thread. I was going to write something more thoughtful, and smart, and careful, or nothing at all.

But my uncle died of covid. And all my friends work at universities. And I live in a college town. And I am scared.