Rachel McKinnon/Veronic Ivy threatens legal action against own university for poor performance review

[RoyalCorgi]

Read and enjoy:

twitter.com/MatthewGreenf11/status/1271719496097714176

I thought in the US it was hard to be granted tenure? Makes me wonder if they got it because the university were scared of legal action/discrimination claims?

Jesus, that tenure report extract. How is someone that shit keeping a job, let alone being promoted?

It’s almost as if McKinnon has been masquerading as someone qualified, rather than actually being qualified. Strange.

I have wondered that. The other thing that's crossed my mind is that there is surely a duty of care on the institution to safeguard students from unprofessional and damaging behaviour from staff, not to mention that in an era where student fees are astronomically high students who feel they're being shortchanged academically are likely to complain.

I got the sense from that evaluation that the module Professor Ivy teaches was light on content and the students' assessment tasks were far from taxing. In the short term, students are probably delighted to get an easy high mark, but if they find that they're not well prepared for the next level modules and get lower marks as a consequence, they may feel differently later on.

Tricky area as the students are legally adults, but still young and impressionable, and financial dependence on parents during the student years has an infantilising effect.

It looks like someone who wants to play at being an academic in the same way that Marie Antoinette pretended to be a shepherdess: None of the actual work, just play with the sheepies.

[quote Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]Just seen a tweet with what appears to be an excerpt from the minutes of the 2019 Charleston College discussion about whether to give tenure to McKinnon, which was the name in use at the time. I honestly would expect to be sacked if comments like this were made about me, never mind promoted. twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1265194717597270018?s=20[/quote]
That excerpt is shocking. They were scared to speak up against McK and some abstained rather than voted no. The whole modules operandi of shouting transphobe and bigot at anyone who disagrees with you is encapsulated right there. The comment about how disagreement and criticism was considered to be “morally illegitimate” is horrendous.

that would be modus not modules.

Jesus, that tenure report extract. How is someone that shit keeping a job, let alone being promoted?

You can read between the lines ... no one was willing to stand up against someone who casts disagreement and criticism as 'morally illegitimate'. Someone who is supposed to be a philosopher, ironically.

It's fucking trans Teflon coating in working action.

Wow, Gasp0de, that report is unbelievable. Amazed they didn't sack McKinnon after that.

Taking all the equalities issues out of it, surely there would have been a case for saying McKinnon was bringing the college into disrepute with all those abusive, aggressive tweets. Is this behaviour is carried across to other social media platforms?

It may not be that one characteristic is now seen as teflon. Academia is hopeless across the board at making principled decisions that take guts. Inertia is their default setting.

I've sat in meetings re. academic competence where the meeting as a whole has realised they now can't do anything about the obvious raving incompetent in their midst because they've left it too late and they'd now get sued to kingdom come in an unfair dismissal case. (It was a meeting in which I took great delight in saying "I told you so - 2 years ago, I told you to ease this person out the door with a consolation prize masters, and you ignored me and took the word of the most disorganised academic in the department that he'd supervise this person properly...")

Issue was, incidentally, purely one of academic competence versus desire of department to get grubby paws on postgraduate fees for a prolonged period of time. No other issues about the person's behaviour.

@CaraDune, I'm sitting on my hands here. I used to be an administrator in a university department where that same academic inertia led many, many time-consuming and damaging problems which could and should have been avoided if certain people had been better managed, or (actually) managed.

I'm shocked that there is no requirement to be impartial when conducting research. VI has an obvious vested interest in TW competing in women's sport so the 'research' is designed to prove an outcome

surely there would have been a case for saying McKinnon was bringing the college into disrepute with all those abusive, aggressive tweets
I would say this is obvious - would you want to study philosophy in this department, or fund your daughter or son to attend?

VI has an obvious vested interest in TW competing in women's sport
This also seems super obvious - is there not some kind of committee overseeing which research the department funds, that screens for conflict of interest etc? I’m not an academic but this is a clear conflict of interest surely. As well as not really in the realm of philosophy, more physiology?

You get an appraisal that basically says you're not pulling your weight in the department.

Instead of asking what to do better, you tell all of your colleagues fuck you on social media.

That's a great way to keep your job. Can't imagine any college going near them now.

The university must be rueing the day they ever gave Her Iviness a job!

surely there would have been a case for saying McKinnon was bringing the college into disrepute with all those abusive, aggressive tweets

McKinnon is not, by any means, the only academic who gets away with this. I can name a dozen just off the top of my head in the U.K. who do the same thing. Their employers do nothing while they abuse their colleagues and members of the public. It’s despicable and brings the entire profession into disrepute.

I work at a uni and we're just so slow to change, and rubbish at social media. It's like its going to take another few decades for us to get our heads around it, and I can't work out why.

Part of it is academic freedom and all that - people have to have the right to say what they want (but only if it fits the zeitgeist of course). Meanwhile senior management treat it like a broadcast medium where if you say the right things you'll be fine - forgetting that there are students and alumni who can contradict them publicly.

But we don't seem to anticipate really obvious things heading our way, and only make changes when someone in the industry has huge problems. For example, Warwick's group chat scandal - which could have happened to any university at any time - was a warning sign to us to look at codes of conduct. Why wasn't that thought of ages ago? Why aren't we as a wider group trying to anticipate really obvious problems from technology and fix them in advance?

(Sorry, this has long been an annoyance of mine!)

I kind of admire the sheer audacity of the mediocre man in situations like this. They just don't give one single shit and yet still quite determinedly expect plaudits for their actions.

The absolute self confidence bestowed on such individuals through their lifelong male entitlement means they are confident of putting in lacklustre efforts and being rewarded like a vanquishing hero.

It's quite remarkable really.

I'm cool with slagging off an individual who hope I, along with other women, would 'die in a grease fire'. Fuck niceness to abusers.

Every time I see this quote, my eyes skim over it, because the US-centric language weakens the power of what McK actually wished on women.

Compare:
"I want [women] to die in a grease fire"

With the UK "translation":

"I want [women] to die in a fire of boiling oil"

We (mostly) all remember news of chip pan fires in our youth; not to mention Claire Goose's horrific deep fat fryer death in the first ever Spooks - so awful that it is actually relatively hard to find online now.

THAT is what McKinnon wishes on women.

Poor big Ivy.

This has just made me laugh for the first time today

Particularly this tweet;

How that bonfire ended with satisfactory is beyond my understanding 🤣

I’m not sure how I feel about what should be confidential appraisals being leaked to the internet. However here we are.

There is a real disconnect between the language used in most of it and the grade bands awarded.

The key thing I would take this if I were the individual is that I would get through if I just start pulling my weight and doing the bare minimum in the department. Do what I need to do. But rather than sucking it up RM/VI has decided to turn it into a fist fight.

Is it only me who finds IRL those who consider departmental/corporate admin/ops:management stuff to be beneath them even when a clear expectation are normally acting from a atance of male privilege that this is beneath them?

That's a great way to keep your job. Can't imagine any college going near them now.

Indeed. However, I don't know, I can't be sure but if/when their career collapses, I am wondering if they will find a way to blame that on them being...Twanz?