Texas A&M announces a new journalism dean. She's black and she's qualified— and an alum of the school! Ex-New York Times too.
They announce her appointment in a splashy event.
Dark forces of reaction mobilize.
The offer is watered down to one year, with no tenure. She says no way, and withdraws. National news is made. It's negative. And today, the president of A&M resigns!
@jayrosen_nyu A technical observation - one would think that a key requirement of an electronic signature mechanism is that post-facto modification of that which was signed is made extremely obvious, and that the signature is revoked.
@cohomologyisFUN The whole protocol here seems to invite surreptitious modifications.
On a technical level this would be blindingly idiotic as part of a real system, but I bet the thought was that institutional norms would prevent surreptitious mods to signed drafts, and their conversion to final offer letters. Kind of a "gentlemen do not modify each others' mail" thing. We know how that ends.
@walshman23 it’s about as secure as a printed letter with an inked signature, given that someone can forge your signature. Which is to say, not very! Especially since the recipient probably doesn’t know what your signature looks like anyways.
@cohomologyisFUN@jayrosen_nyu I think you're right. Sounds almost like there's a Word template out there which has the signature pre-baked. This is an invitation to shenanigans, of course, but as I mentioned in a diff reply that excluded Jay (because he has better things to read), maybe they were counting on "institutional norms" to prevent the shenanigans. Bad plan, but at least the pres was honorable enough to resign, once caught. Like Nixon.
@jayrosen_nyu sounds like the kind of thing that could be criminal? Altering his letter but keeping the signature could be fraud or some kind of identity theft?
@jayrosen_nyu Presidential cowardice and duplicity in action. If race was proven to be the reason for the change in term, Dr McElroy may have a discrimination case against Texas A&M. And Banks has conveniently already fallen on the upthrust sword. However, very unlikely she, herself and alone, made the decision to allow MAGA to abort the McElroy employment offer. My guess is that the foolish Banks thought she could cut the baby in half by cutting the term to one year and blaming the department Chair. Shoddy shoddy machinations.
Banks future path looks like Oral Roberts University.
@jayrosen_nyu Not clear to me what (he says) happened. So it was an earlier draft that offered a one-year appointment? That he signed? (Who signs drafts?) And there was a later draft? Was there ever an actual offer?
Using what would happen at my university as a guide. The department chair would do the recruitment, organize the search process, and communicate the terms the university is offering to a successful candidate. There could be back and forth with the higher-ups and the candidate, which the chair would be in the middle of.
The draft offer would be a way of saying "is this everything we agreed on?" The final letter would come from a dean or provost.
The fourth bullet is impossible, at least if taken at face value.
An electronic signature doesn't just confirm who signed the document, but also that the document hasn't been altered since the signature was applied. A signature on a since-altered document would fail verification.
@jayrosen_nyu Interesting story, thanks. Not surprised that MAGA Repugnicans lost their soothers over a qualified black woman getting the job, especially in Texas. It's a Talibangelist state, like Florida.
@jayrosen_nyu Speaking as a white person, it feels personally discouraging to see another white person - president of a university, no less - prove that white people are still too damn stupid to be part of the solution.
@jayrosen_nyu not to sound like it sounds, but what notable journalism came out of TAMU's alumni? What did they possibly have to lose by letting Prof. McElroy, Ph.D, retired NYTimes editor, and simultaneous alumni of the Bryan-College paper, possibly the only one on earth to do both, try to work some magic?
@jayrosen_nyu I recently spoke to Dr. Peniel Jospeh, a UT Austin professor and author of the Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle to Achieve Racial Justice in the 21st Century, about whether he thought about leaving Texas as a result of the #DEI pushback. He said “Texas is ground zero” for his work. I admire that.
@jayrosen_nyu Banks had been spiralling before this. She had lost the confidence of the students and research faculty. But the final nail was the faculty senate meeting on Wednesday. She honestly claimed she had no idea about McElroy's slow motion hiring disaster. Incompetence at the highest levels.
@jayrosen_nyu When I was an undergrad at Rice in the 90s, the Corps at A&M felt fascist-adjacent, very militaristic. Sad to see that the school is regressing to that sort of ideology in even more concrete ways now. If I were choosing where to get an education these days, red state colleges and universities would be an automatic no.
I do have a ton of respect for the people trying to resist and make change from within. I don't even feel comfortable visiting my family in Arkansas anymore.
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