Board of UNC-Chapel Hill Denies Tenure to Distinguished Journalist | Diane Ravitch's blog

Board of UNC-Chapel Hill Denies Tenure to Distinguished Journalist | Diane Ravitch's blog

Board of UNC-Chapel Hill Denies Tenure to Distinguished Journalist

The faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill selected the highly accomplished Nikole Hannah-Jones to serve as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the UNC Haussmann School of Journalism and Media.

She was quite a catch: she has won a Pulitzer Prize, a coveted MacArthur Fellowship, has worked for major newspapers. She’s even an alumna of UNC. The committee that interviewed her was impressed. They offered her the chair and tenure. All previous holders of the chair at UNC were awarded tenure.

But the board of the university withdrew the offer of tenure. They said she lacked academic qualifications. They made that lie up on the spot, because the position CONTINUE READING: Board of UNC-Chapel Hill Denies Tenure to Distinguished Journalist | Diane Ravitch's blog

CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Teacher Fired Over Political Tweet. If Only There Was A Way Protect Against Such Injustice.

CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Teacher Fired Over Political Tweet. If Only There Was A Way Protect Against Such Injustice.

MI: Teacher Fired Over Political Tweet. If Only There Was A Way Protect Against Such Injustice.

Be careful what you wish for.

Conservative media made a small summer meal out of the story of Justin Kucera, a 28-year-old social studies teacher/coach at Walled Lake Western High School.

The known facts of the story appear to be this:

On July 6, Kucera retweeted the Trump classic, "SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL."  He followed that with “I’m done being silent. @realDonaldTrump is our president … Don’t @ me” Further down the thread, he responded to someone with a "liberals suck, man." That tweet, which Kucera later characterized as a sort of light sarcasm, was later deleted, but the damage, apparently, was done.

The district superintendent offered a bit of a subtweet on July 7, including "We believe in the importance of discourse, but we will not stand for speech or actions from those that represent our District that seek to divide or demean our staff, students, citizens."

Kucera was pulled into a virtual meeting with his administrators, the HR department and his union reps on July 10. They asked him why he tweeted those particular messages, and ultimately gave him the choice of resigning or being fired in a July 15 meeting. He chose not to resign, and the district fired him.

The district has maintained that they did not fire Kucera for boosting Trump, but Kucera has presented his story to many outlets as "I was fired for supporting Trump." Many folks have poked around the tweeterverse to unearth other Walled Lake teachers who have been critical of Trump without repercussions. His termination letter cited "a lack of professional judgment."

The superintendent reached out to Kucera, and on July 22 they met. The personnel file obtained by the Detroit News says the superintendent was looking for ways "we may be able to save this CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: MI: Teacher Fired Over Political Tweet. If Only There Was A Way Protect Against Such Injustice.