It looks as if the special committee of the Grove City Board of Trustees is getting some faculty pushback in the wake of its recent anti-wokeness statement. (Get up to speed here.) Yesterday adjunct professor Cedric Lewis weighed-in. This morning Jennifer Trujillo Hollenberger, an assistant professor of social work, offered her take on the statement. (It appears that Hollenberger joined Twitter in order to write this courageous thread).
Brave indeed!
Yes–this is particular brave in light of the fact that the Board statement says that President McNulty will “take appropriate actions” against anyone who demonstrates “misalignment” with the college’s values.
In my American history courses, I warn my students at the start of a semester about the kinds of issues we will discuss and how to think through them by applying standards of historical thinking. I tell them that they will find themselves getting very emotional whenever we deal with matters of social justice but that they need to work through those feelings before drawing conclusions. I find that in our online discussions on these issues that students will usually default to their feelings rather than confront the evidence. In classroom settings face to face the same kind of emotional response does not emerge. The anonymity of online discussions certainly plays a role in this, just as it does in Facebook and other social media platforms. In the adversarial culture we live in where every issue is politicized I am not surprised at the parental slander of Professor Trujillo Hollenberger for attempting to help her class thinking Christianly about race. It is not merely the current generation that believes that their feelings alone reflect truth. We’ve been heading this way for several generations. You are “misaligned” no matter which side of the line you’re standing on.