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Very relevant piece on ways (non) apology from faculty to trainee exploits power dynamics.
"Even an apology that takes the form of a letter addressed from a professor to a student can be an institutional speech act." https://twitter.com/SaraNAhmed/status/1354446412524777474
"Even an apology that takes the form of a letter addressed from a professor to a student can be an institutional speech act." https://twitter.com/SaraNAhmed/status/1354446412524777474
"Believe me, when someone retaliates, you know it. But it can still be hard to convince others that the retaliation is retaliation. Many people do not want to be convinced because of the investments they have in persons (he wouldn’t do that; he couldn’t do that)."
"Some apologies are made so those who make them can show they have been made (“a letter that you wanted to show”). If a “real genuine apology,” would be a recognition of harm, a bureaucratic apology would be a way of appearing to recognise harm without really doing so."
"That an apology can be vaguely institutional means that an apology can be used by the institution to create an impression that it handled and heard the complaint in such a way that the institution is not implicated, or is cleared, of wrong doing."
"Apologies can be made without referring to a person’s own conduct. The person who apologises does not have to say what they are apologising for. Or a person can apologise for what they have done in such a way that they make what they are apologising for seem small or minor. "
