If you are in the thick of some institution that is complying with fascism, and if you feel there’s just nothing you can do from where you sit to stop it, you have no power at all…
…there is one thing you might be able to do to help: keep records.
Write down what happens — contemporaneous notes of the who, what, when, where, how — in a safe place your organization cannot delete out from under you. Just store it away.
It might matter one day. Heaven willing.
1/
@inthehands Imagine you're in the middle of taking on a lifetime of debt for the privilege of attending Columbia, and next thing you know its administration is destroying your hard-won education opportunity by self-unravelling out of cowardice. Is that grounds for a class action lawsuit?
@pieist
Academic freedom is the key principle here.
Off the top of my head, in employment law there is the concept of a hostile work environment, so you could argue the university created or tolerated a hostile study environment. Other potential causes of action in negligence, contract, deceptive trade practices, misrepresentation, IIED, NIED. And more, depending on whether it is a private or state university.
Seriously, tho! I think so! @pieist @inthehands