Graduation Stories

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(05-21-2019, 01:02 AM)Dill Wrote: Unless Taylor university has a specific (and unusual) policy requiring attendance (written into contracts), only a few professors would actually be "on the clock" at a graduation, namely those tasked with introducing the speaker or otherwise saddled with administrative duties, like a dept. chair who introduced his/her department's students. 

But the administrators who invited Pence to speak were certainly on the clock when they did so.

Do you think that walking out of a Pence speech shows bias, while inviting him does not?  No politics if "staff" and students don't protest? 

If so, then you have defined any behavior other than quiet submission to an administration's choice as "biased" and "political."

If Taylor University is indeed a university, then its mission quite exceeds vocational training and includes imparting to students a capacity for critical thinking, for questioning the status quo rather than reflexively upholding it.

So sharing "political bias" while on the clock can indeed be part of what a professor's job "really is." 

Inculcating blind submission to authority is not.

When you are salaried and representing an organization you are "on the clock". Taylor is a Christian University and Pence is known as a high-profile devout Christian. You nor anyone else knew if the speech was to be political; as they walked out before a word was uttered. If Pence kept his comments to Religious views then he, nor the administrators made it political; however, the ones that walked out did, because they disagree with his politics.

We will further disagree that part of an educator's job is to make known their political bias.