Refrain: A is (still) for Adjunct*

As of this writing, I haven't stepped into a college classroom in a teaching capacity for almost four years.  Although I wrote about my exile and failed attempt to get back in great detail at the time, I haven't really written about it much since.  I think maybe I was too close to it all; too angry about it all; too focused on what I lost beyond a job I cared about -- maybe the last job I really cared about. A job for which I believe I had (and still have) a genuine calling.

Four years after National Adjunct Walk-Out Day and the Louisville Teach-In, very little about the plight of adjuncts has changed. Every late summer or early fall, the same stories, or rehashes of the same stories, cycle through the media. Stories of teachers living in their cars, living on the street, skipping necessary medications and meals in order to do the work they love to do.  Four years after and I'm not angry about it anymore; there's no room for anger when all it does is burn. My anger burned everything around me and almost burned me alive; it almost burned me, but it did nothing to burn down the injustice. I'm past the anger.  All that's left is the story. 

And even though I'll be posting bits of it here as it comes, a story has too much weight to just live in the digital world. It's time to bring it forth, like all buried titans.

Officially, I separated from the University of Louisville on April 20th 2015, of my own volition. But by then I'd been isolated from my colleagues and been subjected to increased scrutiny by the department.  Everything was fine at UofL until I tried to write an article for LEO Weekly about the working conditions of Part-Time Lecturers, also known as adjuncts.  By that time I'd already been banished from every Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) campus after the marketing and legal teams stalked me across social media in order to find the slightest pretext to get rid of me. And why did they even bother with one more disgruntled, underpaid, overworked, and generally exploited adjunct in a statewide community college system?

Because I was the most visible organizer of The Louisville Teach-In: a two-campus educational action in conjunction with National Adjunct Walk Out Day (#NAWD).

Up to this point, the fact that I have all the documentation to back this up hasn't meant much; I did my due diligence. I inundated them with FOIA requests. I gave my story to a local reporter, along with copies of all my findings.  I went to the Kentucky Labor Cabinet. I contacted the National Labor Relations Board. I reached out to at least one fellow colleague, a tenured humanities professor with local status some activist cachet for help. None of it did any good. The reporter wrote a very nice story and did nothing with my FOIA research. The Labor Cabinet was only concerned about whether I was being denied Worker's Compensation, the NLRB informed that because I worked for a public institution, the NLRA didn't cover me, and my esteemed colleague took a pass because he was too worried about fighting for people who already had health insurance (i.e., full-time faculty).  I took it as far as I could without hiring an attorney – which, since I couldn't afford an attorney, meant the end of the road.

Before I even really begin this story, I'm going to tell you how it ends: with me not teaching. Goliath stomped David. The Philistines still run the once golden kingdom.

But it's not that simple, either. It can't be, because this is an American story – one of the few truly American stories, stripped of bootstrap and Manifest Destiny mythos, where the plucky activist  gets steam-rolled by a giant, mindless machine. Maybe not Horatio Alger. But definitely Frank Norris.

And a canary or two.
______________________________
* Title originated from this LEO Weekly article by Laura Snyder

Solidarty Along The Dirty, Sacred River, Part 3 -- The ORR, and News From the Halls of Higher Yearning

We Are All Cone Man

Updates: The ORR

I've written in the past about #respondent53 and this person's role in my illegal and unjust termination and banishment from JCTC and the entire KCTCS system. The Office of General Counsel /Lizard Overlords of the Apocalypse responded to my Open Records Request (ORR) with a barely complete personnel file and disk of files ranging from a copy of the ADA statute (which I read) and the Faculty Handbook (which I read again) as well as a few other bits and pieces.

Some of you may recall The Cone Man Saga. That little stunt, while getting me the ear of the President without having to go through the usual channels of blockage, obfuscation, and, outright lies, also put on the radar of folks who are overpaid and thin-skinned.

The administrative response to that particular blog was interesting, though I'm sure it helped raise my readership.* One particularly thin-skinned #badmin, who apparently hasn't breathed real air or been around the proles in quite some time whined:

It's awful. He's mocking us.

Another, whose skin is so thin as to be translucent, wrote:

The fact that he is so comfortable ridiculing us makes me angry.

Clearly, they don't know me well. I came out of the womb mocking presumed assumed authority figures.

There are some other gems, such as recommendations that I need to get over myself, and that I am hard to be kind to. Of course their version of kind would have me selling pencils out of a tin cup on the street... before they called in the cops themselves to have me arrested. 

I'm still ferreting out #respondent53. It's possible that #respondent53 is a couple of people... one of whom, according to my ORR, works in the office of  Institutional Research. She sent the Facebook post related to my alleged FERPA violation to Frankfort on her very own KCTCS email, on the condition that "[her] name be kept out of it." Cowards and kiss asses are so easy to pick out of the crowd. In some early conversations with around the old camp fire about #respondent53, I posited her as a potential candidate. But I'm not certain she acted alone. And, in fact some details I still need to verify before I can name names indicates that she did not act alone. 

One of the things that is becoming very clear: even paranoids have enemies. Even me.

News From the Halls of Higher Yearning

A friendly bird and comrade forwarded this little tidbit to me, straight from the outbox of newly crowned President/CEO and El Hefe of KCTCS:

I am pleased to share that the board approved a raise of (1% or $1000 ) for every regular full-time KCTCS faculty/staff member employed before April 1, 2015 who earned at least the “Fully Met Job Requirements”(M) rating in the 2014-15 KCTCS performance evaluation system.

I know this is only a modest increase, and we would have done more if the budget allowed.  It is important to note the $1000 increase is as much as a 4 % raise for some of our employees in the lowest pay bands.  Additionally, the $1000 will have a greater economic impact than a flat percentage raise for the majority of our employees. 

PLEASE NOTE: ADJUNCTS ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THE FOLKS WHO GET THIS INCREASE -- OR SO I'M TOLD.

SOLIDARITY!

I want to thank everyone again who signed the petition to have me reinstated without prejudice. If you'd still like to, or if you want to pass it around, here it is.

A friend and Fellow Worker, J.P. Wright, has started a small support fund. If you'd like to contribute, go here.

Some have expressed an interest in writing letters of support of my reinstatement. Here are some addresses:

• Insider Louisville: Sarah Kelley, VP of Content and Editorial Director: sarah@insiderlouisville.com.
• Louisville Courier Journal: 
• http://archive.courier-journal.com/interactive/article/99999999/CUST/80212021/Letters-Editor
  JCTC Human Resources: Toni Whalen, Head of Human Resources at JCTC: toni.whalen@kctcs.edu
• KCTCS Head of Human Resources: Jackie Cecil: jackie.cecil@kctcs.edu

Solidarity Along the Dirty, Sacred River, Part 2: Action

Updates

A wise man is one who realizes that pissing off a donkey will only make him kick. With any luck, you've seen the Insider Louisville  article by David Serchuk about my situation. Some crucial information that is awaiting authentication was left out; but with any luck, when my open records request is answered (I was notified by email this week that it is forthcoming), there will be more, which I mentioned in my previous post. There are some updates, however, that I can talk about prior to seeing what the KCTCS Office of Legal Counsel releases.

1. After some some research and the help of some supportive friends, I've learned that the National Labor Relations Board laid down no less than 4 decisions against employers using social media posts as a justification for firing an employee. 
2. While it is true that I was a fixed-contract/ at will employee, the fact is that their dramatic bushwack of a meeting had nothing to do with terminating my employment for any of the vague reasons given by Lisa Brodsky or the spokeswoman for KCTCS, Kristin Middleton.  
3. Toni Whalen, head of HR at the Louisville campus said specifically, in this meeting, that the FERPA violation would be the reason for termination listed in personnel file -- not that a class didn't make (it did, I was on my way to teach it), or that there was no need (the current adjuncts are stretched and exploited as it is). It could fall under the generic heading of "administrative matters." 
4. If my termination were simply a matter of either 1) them not needing staff or 2) the class not making, all they had to do -- and all they would normally do -- is inform me over email, generally through my department chair. Had they done that, I might not have just cause for retaliation. It would have been a suspicious termination, but a legal one nonetheless.

Something else to consider is the fact that while the Facebook post may be a rare example of one my less than stellar social media moments, the fact is, all the information in that post is covered by an exception listed in FERPA:

"Another exception permits a school to non-consensually disclose personally identifiable information from a student's education records when such information has been appropriately designated as directory information. "Directory information" is defined as information contained in the education records of a student that would not generally be considered harmful or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. Directory information could include information such as the student's name, address, e-mail address, telephone listing, photograph, date and place of birth, major field of study, participation in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height of members of athletic teams, dates of attendance, degrees and awards received, the most recent previous educational agency or institution attended, grade level or year (such as freshman or junior), and enrollment status (undergraduate or graduate; full-time or part-time)."

And, in spite of what people outside the inner halls of higher yearning institutions, FERPA offenses -- be they alleged, borderline, or confirmed -- are not handled directly by the Academic Dean, the head of HR, and the Provost.  If this situation had been handled SIMPLY ON THE MERITS THEY CLAIMED IN THE MEETING, I would have

1. been called to a meeting with my department chair and given a severe tongue lashing; and
2. ordered to undergo a FERPA counseling session...

both of which would have been marked in my personnel file.

I haven't even gone into detail about the administrative path my termination took. That's some murky shit, friends and readers.

And that, along with more about the scab otherwise known as #respondent53, is for a later post.

Please Help

I want to thank everyone who signed the petition to have me reinstated without prejudice. If you'd still like to, or if you want to pass it around, here it is.

A friend and Fellow Worker, J.P. Wright, has started a small support fund. If you'd like to contribute, go here.

Some have expressed an interest in writing letters of support of my reinstatement. Here are some addresses:

Insider Louisville: Sarah Kelley, VP of Content and Editorial Director: sarah@insiderlouisville.com.

LEO Weekly: Aaron Yarmuth Executive Editor:  ayarmuth@leoweekly.com

Louisville Courier Journal: 
http://archive.courier-journal.com/interactive/article/99999999/CUST/80212021/Letters-Editor

JCTC Human Resources: Toni Whalen, Head of Human Resources at JCTC: toni.whalen@kctcs.edu

KCTCS Head of Human Resources: Jackie Cecil: jackie.cecil@kctcs.edu

REMEMBER: THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT ME. THEIR EXTREMELY UN-PROPORTIONAL REACTION SHOWS THAT MY FIRING WAS NOTHING LESS THAN AN ATTEMPT TO SILENCE ME. ACTIVISTS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY ARE BEING SINGLED OUT AND RETALIATED AGAINST.