Who Speaks, Who Doesn’t, and Why?

Workplace email lists are not open, democratic spaces

This is an effort to quickly turn my recent Instagram story series into a post. I may keep doing it this, or not. Drop feedback in comments (for instance, I wish I could make these images smaller). If you want direct access to @redguju send me a message introducing yourself. For the haters reading this: don’t bother! Find another hobby!

I work as a professor in a public university. As you may have heard, we’re under extreme attack right now from politicians who don’t care a damn about either education or the public good. “Our” Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, running for Vice President, openly applauds Richard Nixon’s comment: “The professors are the enemy” as he and his right-wing colleagues falsely claim that universities are bastions of left-wing thought.

You can read about my work in fighting these and other attacks on my blog and elsewhere. This post takes up a more focused set of questions about dialogue (or silence) on departmental lists, and what it means to think about that in this specific context.

If you’re not a public university professor but any of this is helpful for your workplace, or group chat, or any other space where you’re trying to build community with a sense of equity and inclusion, I’m glad!