We agree. We also agree that that's easy for us to say. That being said, in our career as an adjunct professor of history at Raritan Valley Community College we said no. Twice. These stories will be familiar to long time reader(s) of this blog.
In the wake of Andrew Breitbart's death (and P also BUH) then as now, we wondered what we could do. We decided to hold a rally and called it, Israel is Great. Well two days before the rally the VP for finance and facilities tried to cancel us. We went immediately to his office and asked to see the man. 'He's in a meeting' the secretary said. 'We'll wait,' we replied. So we had our little meeting and he said political rallies weren't allowed on campus. We pointed out that just a few months before, the professors on campus had a political rally. Our Israel is Great rally went ahead.
Five years ago now, the RVCC Humanities Department lead by the adjunct coordinator*, tried to screw us. Briefly, the department took a class away from us and then took another class away from us but promised we'd be 'taken care of' later. When that didn't happen they said, 'We will make future assignments on a semester-by-semester basis reflecting your progress toward effective teaching of World History.' You don't treat colleagues that way and you sure as hell don't treat William Stroock that way.
We said, 'Fine. We quit.' They said, 'You can't quit. It's the middle of the semester.' We did our best Pierre Trudeau and said, 'Just watch me.' We prolonged our career there by two semesters.
Saying no works.
*Literary revenge is a fickle bitch, and her gods are cruel.
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