The Times Higher Education has prompted a debate in the teaching academy over a call for “Black bereavement leave” by Angel Jones, a visiting assistant professor teaching educational leadership courses at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Jones wrote that Black educators need time off to cope with the killings of black individuals in society. The leave would not depend on the educators knowing or having any relationship to the deceased.
Jones wrote in the academic publication that
“Some may have thought I was joking when I mentioned Black bereavement leave, but I wasn’t. We need space and time to grieve without having to explain or defend it. And since the grief process, like the Black community, is not a monolith, flexibility is required.
…
Some may need a day off while others may just need to be able to work from home. Some may need a small extension on a deadline while others may need to have something removed from their plate completely.”
Jones said that such leave can help faculty connect with students and the community at large. She also said that the leave will show real commitment to racial justice since “history has shown us that Black educators often have to exert additional emotional energy to pick up the slack the academy leaves behind after it sends its obligatory, and often performative, statement to the campus community.” She insists that “anti-Blackness is intentional” so it requires actions like black bereavement leave.
“while those obviously copy-pasted, campus-wide emails are the bare minimum, Black faculty and staff don’t even get that. Where is the acknowledgment of our pain? Where are our counselling services? Where is our grace for missed meetings and deadlines while we mourn? Yes, we have jobs to do and students to support, but we also have trauma to process.”
The question is whether such race-based leave would be constitutional. Jones is calling for a categorical leave option only available to black educators. That could trigger a challenge by non-Black faculty.
The Supreme Court has required satisfaction of the strict scrutiny test in race-based programs but has not (thus far) ruled out any consideration of race in admissions or other benefits. If subject to a strict scrutiny analysis, the universities would need to show a “compelling state interest” and that the program is “narrowly tailored” to achieve that purpose. The key here is that Jones is arguing for a categorical benefit based solely on race as opposed to a case-by-case determination by university administrators. The latter is more likely to survive challenge as based on an individual professor’s need for accommodation or care.
Universities have increasingly embraced race-based programs from “Affinity housing” to safe spaces for minority students. This issue came up in a little reported exchange in the oral argument in Students for Fair Admissions v. the University of North Carolina between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and David Hinojosa, the director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law:
JUSTICE BARRETT: One question. One — one difference between your brief and your position and University of North Carolina’s is that from the student’s perspective — and you were getting at this in some of your answers to Justice Sotomayor early on about confederate statues and the presence of white supremacist groups — is that from the student perspective, you know, students — the educational benefit to the students might be in the form of counteracting feelings of isolation, sticking out, not being supported.
In light of that, I’m wondering if you have anything to say about affinity groups and affinity housing? I think one thing at least insofar as I’m aware at the time Grutter was decided and certainly Bakke, that kind of a phenomenon where you have groups, say, where, you know, black students and allies can live or, you know, black student groups, same for, you know, Hispanic groups, et cetera, was not a phenomenon that was around then.
And — and I think one of the benefits is that it allows minority students to ban together to reduce some of the feelings of isolation that you’ve been talking about. Do your clients have a position on that and whether that would be — because whatever we say or however broadly we wrote this opinion, that rationale about the educational benefits of diversity presumably might have some bearing on those questions that are post-admission questions?
MR. HINOJOSA: Yes, Your Honor. So, you know, those — those do invite, you know, very difficult questions. And I think that’s how and why a potential color-blind ruling from this Court, you know, may disrupt things even further, but also about how, you know, certain conditions may apply on a case-by-case basis. So I may not be making too much sense with what I just said there, but, you know, in terms of affinity groups, for example, research shows that affinity groups have incredible benefits not just, you know, for its own members but in helping the broader community understand, for example, you know, racial and cultural issues, you know, that they might raise. It’s not my understanding that there are any affinity groups, especially, for example, you know, black student associations that —
JUSTICE BARRETT: I’m really thinking
MR. HINOJOSA: — exclude any students.
JUSTICE BARRETT: — mostly about affinity housing. And I — I understand Chapel Hill does not have it, but UNC Wilmington does. Would your clients have a position on affinity housing?
MR. HINOJOSA: I — I — I do not know, Your Honor.
If non-Black faculty are denied the same leave, they could get standing by showing that such leaves increases their own burden for teaching and student engagement. They could also claim that they have comparative bereavement demands that are not given such categorical accommodations.
Jones received her Ph.D from George Washington University, two degrees from Georgia State University, and her B.A. from Syracuse University. He faculty bio states that her “work is grounded in Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Feminism and acknowledges the roles that race and racism play in the lives of Black students.”
By allowing this professor time off after each and every black on black deadly crime in this country, she wouldn’t have to work at all. I suggest this university thank this visiting professor for her service at the end of the semester and send her on her way.
Yet another manifestation of the will to Black Privilege based on the perception that this country is a real sucker about giving it.
It should be ridiculed & trashed.
Hm. What would Booker T. Washington think of this?
Pretty sure he would have little patience for such nonsense.
I had no idea black academics were perceived as so emotionally weak by other black academics. If they need the time give ‘em all they want. Hell make it permanent. Just don’t pay em and let’s see how much “grief” they can afford. Now imagine if the shoe were on the other foot.
Qhat has happened here is that Angel Jones remembered the telegram Herman Mankiewicz sent to Ben Hecht from Hollywood in 1925:
““Will you accept three hundred per week to work for Paramount Pictures. All expenses paid. The three hundred is peanuts. Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around.
“Herman Mankiewicz.””
Jones’s estimate of the ‘idiots’ has dropped from Mankiewicz’s. The competition is idiotic enough that it doesn’t matter if you bawl it from Mars Hill. The suckers will still give you what you want.
“Your wisdom people believe to consist in this, that you look upon yourself as self-sufficing and regard the changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your virtue. Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also our Scævola here, how you bear the death of Africanus. This curiosity has been the more excited from the fact that on the Nones of this month, when we augurs met as usual in the suburban villa of Decimus Brutus for consultation, you were not present, though it had always been your habit to keep that appointment and perform that duty with the utmost punctuality.
Scævola. Yes, indeed, Lælius, I am often asked the question mentioned by Fannius. But I answer in accordance with what I have observed: I say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief which you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a man of the most illustrious character and a very dear friend. That of course you could not but be affected—anything else would have been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature—but that the cause of your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness, not melancholy.
Lælius. Thanks, Scævola! You are quite right; you spoke the exact truth. For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be withdrawn from a duty which I had regularly performed, as long as I was well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything that can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty. As for your telling me, Fannius, of the honourable appellation given me (an appellation to which I do not recognise my title, and to which I make no claim), you doubtless act from feelings of affection; but I must say that you seem to me to do less than justice to Cato. If any one was ever “wise,”—of which I have my doubts—he was. Putting aside everything else, consider how he bore his son’s death! I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes Gallus. But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his when he was a full-grown man with an assured reputation. Do not therefore be in a hurry to reckon as Cato’s superior even that same famous personage whom Apollo, as you say, declared to be “the wisest.” Remember the former’s reputation rests on deeds, the latter’s on words.
Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now), believe me, the case stands thus: If I were to say that I am not affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to justify my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie. Affected of course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there will never be again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before. But I stand in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation, and it consists chiefly in my being free from the mistaken notion which generally causes pain at the departure of friends. To Scipio I am convinced no evil has befallen: mine is the disaster, if disaster there be; and to be severely distressed at one’s own misfortunes does not show that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Friendship
Some of us need serious bereavement leave due to what Black Lives Matter and Antifa have done to our country!
This does not create the steady reliability a business owner looks for when he is considering promoting someone to a position with higher pay and more responsibility.
Someone is always dying somewhere at some time.
One could argue if cities like Chicago would get serious about crime and criminals, there would be a whole lot less deaths in general.
I think that is why Lori Lightfoot lost the mayor’s election.
Had absolutely nothing to do with her skin color, her sex, or her sexual preference.
It had to do with her competence as a mayor.
And that is what voters voted for.
If there is to be bereavement leave, then it needs to be offered equally to all. If someone needs more PTO than has been earned, then allow what they need, without compensation, to an agreed upon limit. If any more time is necessary, the employer should have the right to fill that position as necessary.
We need to end the entire concept of protected classes. There should not be carve outs for minority this, women that, or any of the other lettered groups that self-identify as deserving of special legal considerations. We cannot “equity” our way to equally secure our right to the pursuit of happiness.
IN A SOCIETY OF LAWS, LAWS MUST BE OBEYED
OF COURSE, DIVORCE – OF IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES
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“Should Universities Offer Black Bereavement Leave,” Professor Turley?
It seems they may not have been admitted in the first place, as per the original intent and passed legislation of the very American Founders themselves.
The Supreme Court recently acted retroactively by 50 years to correct governmental and jurisprudential errors and acts of corruption, such as the manifestly fraudulent and nefarious decision by the high-criminal Supreme Court of 1973 to preposterously claim abortion was a constitutional right.
The Supreme Court must now act retroactively by 150 years to correct, reverse and fully abrogate the illicit and unconstitutional seizure-by-force of Lincoln and his successors (secession was and remains not prohibited and fully constitutional), and to compel the full implementation of extant immigration law and deny admission to those who “…may [NOT] be admitted to become a citizen…” per the Naturalization Act of 1802, which was in full force and effect on January 1, 1863.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four iterations – they meant it)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
It is a convenience not to have to travel to WY, to visit Old Faithful, with Geo around to bawl and spew.
To reiterate some comments above, with the rising murder rate, specifically in relation to black-on-black crime; would this mean Ms. Jones’s use of “Black bereavement leave” will result in her NEVER having to show up for work again?
Black or white, teachers grieving over the death of other individuals with whom they have no personal connection and who request a paid leave of absence should be granted PERMANENT leave. This dude is teaching other teachers how to teach?
“Dude”
Dudette, actually.
Treating students and teachers on the basis of racial characteristics was supposed to have been eliminated 60 years ago. Yes, Bakke was a travesty of a decision, one badly in need of eviscerating, and the Supreme Court seems on its way toward partially doing that. Here it is comical that highly educated professionals would be in need of time off to greave for the deaths of people that they did not know, but are connected to by a mystical bond of race.As the de rigueur term seems to be “affinity”, one must ask why a similar connection would not adhere to other races, ethnicities, language groups, political viewpoints, or any other connection via one’s personal identity.
A color blind society is likely not entirely possible from a social standpoint, but it is from a legal one. Laws and policies can be enacted and enforced without concern for race, and that means all races treated equally, not with this devolved interpretation of equity that has seized the dubious intelligentsia in this country.
Theoretically, a black faculty member would never have to work a single day. A black person is always dying somewhere in the world, at any given moment, especially Africa. The same can be said of any race, creed or color.
Try talking to a person who is a refugee from places such as Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia and similar settings. There are many people from every walk of life who are carrying very heavy burdens. They deal with it and keep putting one foot down in front of the other. They do it because it is necessary.
One can think of any job as though it were a one person hotdog stand. If the person shows up and works and has customers willing to pay for the product, then that person makes money that day and the people wanting hotdogs are satisfied. If the hotdog vendor don’t show up then the hotdog stand makes no profit and the customers have no hotdogs. An organization is just more of the same. The employee must show up, the business must keep hours and have a product the consumer wants and is willing to pay for.
Regarding organizations they are a collection of individual hotdog stand owners. The company or university needs customers, they must offer a product the customer desire and the workers are paid to produce the product. If one person does not show up then the others must shoulder the additional burden. It’s just that simple. You don’t work, you don’t eat.
This is a case of an overplayed hand.
doesn’t instead of don’t. oops.
Each of us is always free to choose to work or not as we please.
As you note, that may result in having nothing to eat.
That is how actual rights work.
An actual right never creates a duty to act on the part of another.
We have the right to life – not the right to be kept alive by others.
We have the right to whatever we can provide for ourselves. But we do not have the right to have those things provided to us.
@E.M.
Exactly. What this woman is, isn’t ‘black’; no, she is an ignorant, very spoiled, radical, and privileged Western progressive. They might as well come off of an assembly line these days. I suppose a modern university works just as well in that metaphor. 🙄🙄
I need a few days off because Chanel (no number) can’t find a horse riding helmet:
“About eight years ago, she reconnected with her father, a native of Jamaica. As the two grew closer, Ms. Robbins decided to style her hair in dreadlocks, like her dad. But there was a problem: Her riding helmet no longer fit, and she couldn’t find one that did.
“I finally freaking feel like myself, and now society is asking me to change,” Ms. Robbins, 27, of Alliston, Ontario, said as she choked back tears. “I just want to be able to ride.”” – today’s nyt (no kidding)
I’m freaking devastated. Society is asking her to change…SOCIETY.
This is just more racist behavior illustrated by the ill-educated in society. They are using class/race warfare to destroy the US … and due to the soft and coddled mind of much of the US population as well as President Biden, they are having some success.
Progressive clowns are funny. When would they “work”? What a joke. What will they “think” of next? Academia is lost to the clowns.
Well, if that is the logic of the delusional prog/left, I would imagine that my SO (being an orthodox Jew) will be taking off the rest of his life on account of the Holocoust. Do these mentally constrained individuals realize that their wanderings are reaching the edge of ridiculousness?
Full sabbatical for Ukrainians. Now!