I’m not a fan of the #CampusReform website or tactics AT ALL. That being said, I was glad to see they posted two letters that Dr. Neal-Boylan sent to university administrators after she was fired. Here’s why:
Reading those letters gave me a sense of the complex political issues at play - issues having nothing to do with the statement she issued.
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I would *never* advocate for or support a dean being fired for issuing the statement she did. “Cancel culture” is toxic.
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I don’t know why the Dean was fired. Reading the letters she shared with Campus Reform, it sounds like she doesn’t either.
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What her letters *do* show is a lack of awareness about racism. She mentions that her daughter is Korean in a paragraph explaining that she’s not racist. <face palm>
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I’ve read WAY too many tweets over the past 24 hours from people praising her good intentions in the same breath they say racist, hateful things about those who took issue with her statement.
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I don’t know Dr. Neal-Boylan.
I don’t know why she was fired.
What I *do* know is that many of the people rallying behind her on Twitter are targeting their harassment toward a student for tweeting about the dean’s statement. And that isn’t OK.
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That student was called a “sociopath,” “mentally ill,” “hateful,” “psychotic,” and “dangerous” because of their tweet - and those are just the insults lobbed at them in ONE of the many tweets targeting them yesterday.
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I hope @UMassLowell will support this student as they try to deal with the hate being directed toward them.
Twitter mobs can be pretty frightening. This student deserves the support of their institution.
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As for Dr. Neal-Boylan, I wish her only the best.
/end thread
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If you’re white, you know someone who empathizes with the mob at the Capitol.
You know someone who *supports* the actions taken by that mob.
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You know someone who thinks Trump won the election but it was “stolen” from him.
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You know someone who called it a “riot” when Black people took to the streets to protest racism in policing, broke windows, and burned buildings, but...
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In the J-term class I'm teaching, the topic of "faking it" came up yesterday. I don't know who needs to hear this today but I thought it was worth sharing.
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Some women and non-binary people with vaginas feel pressured to "perform" pleasure for the benefit of a partner. In movies and on TV, sex rarely takes a long time -- it's done quickly and both parties act as though they had an orgasm through penis-in-vagina sex.
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In reality, reaching orgasm for people with vaginas is generally more complicated than that. It can be difficult for someone to feel confident enough to say to a penis-having partner that they need more than PIV in order to have an orgasm.
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I've worked as a volunteer at the past three inaugurations: twice with the American Red Cross (Obama 2009, Trump 2017) and once with the Boy Scouts of America (Obama 2013).
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I was proud to serve at all three events. Crowds in 2009 and 2013 were massive but I felt safe. Crowds were tiny in 2017 and there was more discord but I still felt safe.
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I'm sad to say I won't be volunteering to serve at Biden's inauguration because after this week, I have zero confidence in the ability of the Capitol Police to handle anything other than maybe defending the body wash aisle in CVS.
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Like the author of the piece, I've been on the "patient side of the stethoscope" before -- through hospitalizations with Greyson, my (compulsively early but) late wife, and myself.
I empathize with how frightening it can be when a loved one is in the hospital. I also empathize with how difficult it can be to be a healthcare professional taking care of someone - someone who is usually cared for by a loved one who, at that moment, feels helpless.
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The concerns raised by physicians on Twitter about the medical inaccuracies in the article are valid ones.
I feel more conflicted about the comments re: the author "hissing" at a resident who tried to examine her daughter in the middle of the night.
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Thank you to my @UVA, @UVASON, and @uvamedicine colleagues who have been speaking out loudly, clearly, and consistently on Twitter over the past year (and long before that) about the ways in which politics, policy, racism, and health are inextricably intertwined.
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For my colleagues at UVA who *haven't* dipped their toe into using Twitter to speak truth to power, here are a few tips for getting started.
1. Decide what kind of world you want to live in.
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2. Decide whether you're willing to say hard truths out loud, in public, even if that means the people you work with -- or for -- may not like what you have to say.
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