I work at a place that prides itself on its commitment to “social justice” and “looking forward” and a whole host of progressive values rooted in a particular religious tradition. Yet, I find myself constantly running encountering the reality that, while many individuals here might be, the institution treats social justice as a brand rather than an actual mission, especially the closer to home a situation hits. Help earthquake victims in Haiti? Sure! Address the complaints of your faculty of color? Let’s hold another meeting and have yet more “conversations.” Usually those conversations revolve around having more meetings to have more “conversations” that will do the same thing.

Meanwhile, the work of upholding civil rights law devolves upon already overburdened faculty and staff, either as yet another task dumped off on them or as another voluntary service obligation. The work of upholding civil rights law, usually overseen by whole offices or departments, is then decentralized and done by people who have “training” and “certification” but no real background or education. No attorneys or legal professionals enter in at any point. The school, however, can claim compliance.

Unfortunately, this means that neither the people who have grievances nor the people who are supposed to address these grievances know what to do when a situation arises. This can be something a big a outright discrimination or as routine as someone needing time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act (which is a whole other problem). As a result, the school is minefield of civil rights suits that even the person who graduated last in his law school class and barely passed the bar could win.

Yet, the powers that be seem unconcerned and even annoyed when this is pointed out, even when I gave evidence that the two similar institutions that they look to as guides have offices that deal with civil rights and diversity. Our powers that be want to either maintain the status quo or dump it all on HR, thus giving them the work of two offices.

There are moments when I teeter between, on the one hand, wanting to throw myself into the battle of making this a place that I can bear to work and that will take care of the people whom I enjoy working with, and, on the other hand, wanting to bury myself in my own privileges and say, “fuck this place. I’ll only invest in it what it invests in me, and that ain’t much.”