Hey TT faculty who follow me! I know there are lots of you.

When I tweet about faculty labor issues and inequities in the academy, you usually don’t engage with those. Why not?

A few of you do, which I appreciate. You know who you are and I’m not addressing this to you even though I really do value that solidarity.

Other folks: do you think I’m exaggerating? Being over-dramatic? Bc I’d love to talk about that, even in private.

My DMs are open to you and I am a pretty gentle interlocutor. I will be really impressed if you message me about this! I think you’re basically like me but luckier, and if I was luckier, I’d probably resist these conversations too.

DMs still open and empty.

If you are TT and are afraid that your employer is monitoring your Twitter and that you might face retribution for public activism, either like this tweet or DM me.

Haha ok. This evening has revealed to me that above all else, well-known historians and academics who claim to care about equity and justice don’t seem to speak up about it in the institutions within which they have the most power.

OK—I want to acknowledge and affirm something I've heard from a few folks in DMs. Lots of untenured asst. profs feel (not without reason) that they're still very vulnerable. There are many different sorts of employment contexts, and it's easier to be "brave" in some than others.

So let me refine my question: if you're *tenured* or in a comfortable asst. prof. job and you aren't speaking up about adjunct/grad student/contingent labor exploitation, what's holding you back?

again, happy to chat over DMs if you're uncomfortable with public conversation.

One thing I've been thinking about is that the exploitation of academic labor is not usually our #1 political priority. It's not mine. If Donald Trump had vowed to save the adjuncts, I'd still have voted against him.

Do you feel that you need to specialize your public activism?

Lots of talk in DMs, which I appreciate. What I'm hearing is basically variations on this:

1- contingent/NTT folks don't speak out bc they're vulnerable and often face a retaliatory administration.

2- untenured TT folks don't speak out bc they are also vulnerable...

Some untenured TT folks are less vulnerable than others, of course. Some are treated like faculty royalty. Some are treated as disposable. So there's an important range that depends on the institution, department, and contract status.

As for tenured/secure folks, there are a lot of reasons to avoid engaging in conversations about academic labor:

1- you don't want to speak over the voices of NTT folks. I understand this! Maybe you were lucky to avoid this experience and so you don't want to implicitly claim it

For my part, while I appreciate that, I also think that we would appreciate your participation. TT folks have larger followings/bigger platforms/more power. And NTT people often can't speak out.

Yet parents, students, and other members of the public are largely unaware of this.

I don't evangelize to my students about academic labor, but it has sometimes come up at various institutions. They're pretty much always unaware of the structural inequalities. Why? Because who are they going to hear it from? Their TT faculty? No. Their NTT faculty? Also no.

Objection #2: I am more focused on creating change within my institution than amorphous, meaningless "twitter activism."

Good! I am onboard. Don't tweet, organize.

Why are they mutually exclusive, though?

Objection #3: I've pushed back over and over, and the admin wins every time, and so I'm just tired of losing. I don't have power.

I think it's worthwhile sitting with how we conceptualize power.

Can an individual use their power to change a big institution? Sometimes, yeah, but it's pretty rare.

If you want to effect change, speak up, join others, mobilize, and organize. No one expects you to solve this on your own. Build a coalition.

Objection #4: there's no way any real changes happens without substantive state and federal legislation.

Fed. & state disinvestment from public higher ed is incredibly shameful. But how do we change that? By bringing attention to exploitation and how to build a better uni system

When people outside of academic find out how academic labor works and how admins treat contingent workers, they're often aghast.

A big part of what needs to happen to reform higher ed is just to raise awareness of its inequities.

Again, the people who have the biggest platforms and the greatest ability to shape public perceptions are (with few and notable exceptions) the tenured folks. I don't have a platform that can shift the boundaries of public debate. A coalition of other academics, though? Maybe.

Objection #5: (last and largely unarticulated one) you think ultimately, we are exaggerating the extent of our exploitation. And you know what? I get it. It's genuinely hard to empathize with people experiencing challenges and barriers you haven't faced.

"Contingent" or "non-tenure-track labor" refers to a huge range of circumstances. I've adjuncted for $3k per course and I've been paid more like $13k per course (though I put the same energy and effort into each).

Some institutions have fairly humane relationships with contingent workers. My overwhelming sense is that that's the exception, and that the security of *TT* jobs at many institutions is crumbling as admins realize that academics won't mobilize collectively against exploitation.

If you're tenured and reading this, and that's whom I'm addressing, recognize that the security and resources you take for granted are threatened every time a contingent faculty member is exploited, every time a union is quashed, and every time the admin stifles critical speech.

Admin are already empowered to encroach on tenured faculty's privileges because they've seen that there is no solidarity among academic laborers. That's a horrible, destructive message to send.

And I just realized this long, long thread has big Dolores Landingham energy. (end)