People really have nothing to do with their lives if they waste them on the following kind of silly riddles:
The Basketweaving department has a few long-serving full-time faculty, and a host of adjuncts. One of the adjuncts has been there longer than most, and has been conspicuous in going above and beyond to help the department. Let’s call her SuperAdjunct.
The department has a retirement, and gets the opportunity to hire a full-time replacement. It drafts a job description, assembles a search committee, and starts the process. But the chair openly refers to the position as rightfully SuperAdjunct’s, and seems to resent even having to go through a process when it’s clear what the outcome should be. Meanwhile, HR is pushing for the full, open process, on the grounds that anything less is discriminatory.Now, let’s add a wrinkle, just to make things interesting. SuperAdjunct is white. The college has an affirmative action policy, and it has identified diversifying its faculty as a goal. In these circumstances, do you side with the chair, or with HR?
Nobody in their right mind will “side” with anybody in this group of arrant idiots. Both the Chair and the HR Department are usurping the academic freedom of the faculty members who are the only ones entitled to make this decision. The Chair and the HR have to facilitate the bureaucratic aspects of the hiring but it is egregiously wrong for them to try to influence the selection process.
In this kind of a situation, members of the search committee should refuse to participate in the process that has been vitiated from the start. Tenured faculty members should also start a grievance procedure and make this assault on academic freedom public.
I’m sick to death of people who keep whining about injustice in academia but always chicken out when it comes to naming names and putting to shame corrupt and vicious administrators.
Clarissa's Blog 
I understand your frustration on people’s fear. On the other hand, according to my daughters, the very few people who had been brave enough to denounce injustice in academia were placed out of business in very short time. They tell me that they learned the lesson for their entire life in all spheres of life. Maybe my daughters are exaggerating but , as a result, these 2 talented and dedicated people are now driving a taxi and selling liquors. That’s scary.
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This is why I specifically mentioned tenured faculty members. If they have tenure, nobody can touch them for refusing to serve on a committee or insisting on self-governance.
I actually think the university community will be thankful to them because this idiot of a Chair is putting the entire school at a risk of getting sued.
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do people in academia make a lot of money?
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A janitor at my school makes a minimum wage. And the President of Yale is a multi-millionaire. You need to make your question more specific.
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To Kelly’s point: My cynical take on all this is that in the academic world you may bite any hand except the one that feeds you. However, academics are getting braver as the injustice gets crasser. Faculty may have tenure, for instance, but does this help if the department they work for is sidelined or shut down?
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I’m sure no department will be shut down as a result of people refusing to conduct a fake job search.
There is always an excuse to do nothing to fight the injustice. The situation described here is one where there is absolutely no reason to let academic freedom be trampled.
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And as to braver academics, I’m yet to see a single one who ditches the lofty speechifying about vague injustices and does something concrete.
Not a single person came to my side when I denounced Bates College for unfair hiring practices. Instead, “brave academics” came here to threaten me for daring to break the silence.
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