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I'm outta here!!! When right wing extremism invades your workplace [1]

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Date: 2024-06-22  

I look at the email one more time.

I have attached my letter of resignation. I do not think this will be a surprise given that I’ve been transparent these last few weeks about my anger and discomfort with recent actions taken by the University of North Carolina, its Board of Governors, and Trustees.

I have outlined my concerns in the letter but want to make clear that this is not about UNC Hospice. This is about the larger system in which we work. A system which has revealed itself to have values and priorities in direct conflict with personal values and morals I hold dear, as well as the professional code of ethics under which I, and every social worker in this organization, have committed to practice.

Thirty-two years as a hospice social worker waiting for the lights to go out with the push of a button.

I have to admit, I’d been thinking about calling it quits before the Board of Governors (BOG) for the university system where I work started acting like mascots for right wing extremists, moving to eliminate programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Much in healthcare has changed since I arrived at a small community-based nonprofit hospice back in 1992. The number of hospices has mushroomed. Most are under the control of large healthcare systems, private equity firms, or corporate entities focused on the financial bottom line. Regulations are tighter, documentation more time-consuming, caseloads and staff turnover are often too high.

The air used to ring with words and phrases like “compassionate presence”, “sacred storytelling” and “love”. These days it rings with jargon about “productivity” (seeing more patients), “working smart” (seeing more patients, driving more miles, making more follow up calls, in the same amount of time), and “having a good work-life balance” (leaving on time and choosing the anxiety of not getting things done, over the resentment of working late).

Frankly, I’m exhausted. Periods of exhaustion, though, have come and gone over the years, turning like the seasons. I’ve always been good at keeping things in perspective, setting firm boundaries, and focusing on the meaningful moments which have always outweighed the challenges.

Moral distress is what has done me in.

Well-known in the healthcare field, moral distress is what happens when the workplace collides with one’s conscience. When one knows, or has strong beliefs about what constitutes, the right course of action but is constrained from doing it. When working in systems which betray important values or enforce priorities conflicting with one’s personal and/or professional ethics.

According to the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, common situations that can trigger moral distress include “end-of-life treatment choices, inadequate staffing, value conflicts, challenging team dynamics and duty conflicting with safety concerns, among others.”

I’ve had to navigate plenty of moral distress over the years as well. Usually, it has come from agendas set by healthcare systems overly focused on profit and squeezing more work from fewer staff, not outsiders pushing a well-funded, anti-democratic agenda rooted in right wing politics.

I open my resignation letter.

This letter is to inform you that I am resigning my position as social worker with UNC Hospice, with my last day to be 6/21/2024.

I am not leaving because I am dissatisfied with UNC Hospice. I am leaving the University of North Carolina system because it has betrayed its commitments to fostering a supportive and inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds, to social justice, and to creating a safe, respectful environment for the staff and students who form our community.

Recently the Board of Governors voted to defund programs supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to use this money for campus police and “public safety”. Renouncing a commitment to celebrating and drawing strength from our diversity, and protecting, and amplifying, the voices of those in historically marginalized and targeted groups is bad enough. Using the money for “law enforcement” suggests a clear, not-so-subtle threat against those who wish to protest, or who belong to marginalized groups against whom police have historically, and with little consequence, used disproportionately high levels of violence and lethal force.

UNC’s Board have shown themselves to be transparently aligned with prevailing cultural forces of right-wing extremism with its caustic bigotry, White supremacy, threats of violence, and vilification of others.

I am comforted by the knowledge that the Board does not define the UNC community. There are many who are angry and committed to pushing back. And there are many healthcare professionals, scholars, and outstanding students who, now, will not even consider working for or attending UNC. And there are others like me who will leave.

I pause, wondering if it’s too strong, too angry. Am I jumping to unfair conclusions? On the fence about whether to tone it down, I take a deep breath. After a long pause reflecting on recent events, I click send.

Weeks earlier when the BOG voted to axe funding for DEI programs, I wasn’t surprised. Right wing money and politicians in this state have worked to stack the BOG with operatives eager to push an agenda that appears to be grounded in White supremacy.

I’d assumed, however, there would be a forceful response from at least a few leaders across the university system making it clear that the BOG policy did not reflect the values of UNC and strenuous efforts would be made to ensure that respect for diversity, equity, and inclusion would not be sidelined. That the BOG’s implicit message – that some people and groups in our community did not matter; were not safe – would not be allowed to stand.

I’d looked for statements of opposition from UNC’s community leaders – chancellors, deans, heads of medical centers and medical school – confident some would push back. There were voices of protests here and there but I’d found nothing from the highest chambers of leadership.

I’d searched internal communications hoping to find encouraging statements, press releases, guidance for those concerned about this assault on our community’s values and the shameful targeting of friends, colleagues, and students. Despite outside press coverage, UNC’s leadership appeared to have its collective heads in the sand.

When the BOG subsequently voted to divert the DEI money to campus cops, the silence continued. That’s when I decided to resign. Not so much because of the BOG’s power play, but in response to what looked to me like a lack of moral leadership among our community’s highest representatives.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’m an employee and alum of UNC, but, as with some other universities with which I’m familiar, I’ve long viewed the place as heavy on reputational risk management, light on moral courage.

This is the place, after all, which for decades made excuses for not removing a Confederate statue to treason and racial oppression. Placed on campus by White supremacists in the post-reconstruction South, it sent a direct message to generations of Whites being educated at the state’s most respected university, and Blacks who knew damn well why “Silent Sam” was holding a rifle.

After years of protest, instead of doing the right thing and tossing Sam into the scrap heap, UNC and its BOG cut a shadowy deal with the Sons of the Confederacy (SOC) that would have entrusted the statue into their care and paid them a cool 2.5 million for its “upkeep” (according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SOC has “prominent members with white supremacist leanings”). That’s when protesters did what UNC should have done; yanked the statue off its foundation and slammed it to the ground.

And it wasn’t long ago that the BOG rejected the School of Journalism’s recommendation to give tenure to the brilliant scholar Nikole Hannah-Jones and sent her packing. Rejected, in part, because of whining from conservative donors and alumni too fragile to forgive her for her powerful essays in the New York Times exposing America’s history of racial oppression. Hannah-Jones landed on her feet; UNC was left to make excuses for its cowardice.

Still, I’d believed at least some leaders in this system would spring to the defense of programs reflecting commitments to diversity, fairness, and inclusion. Is it unreasonable to expect that leaders will lead when core values are under attack? When no meaningful defense emerged, I had a surreal feeling, a disorienting suspicion, that UNC was not the place I’d thought it was.

There have been times in my career when, rather than resign, I’d have rolled up my sleeves and found others interested in advocacy. When I’d have given leadership the benefit of a doubt, maybe they were strategizing or advocating behind the scenes, maybe they were waiting for opposition to build or the BOG to reveal its next hand before pouncing.

But, in the past, moral distress has always come from internal sources. I’ve known where the leverage points for change were, known how to make a case, been confident that my supervisors would share concerns up the food chain. These attacks on DEI, however, are part of a broader national effort by republicans to use political power to push extremist views down the throats of schools, government offices, and universities.

Last year, according to the Associated Press, Republican-led Florida and Texas “became the first states to adopt broad-based laws banning DEI efforts in higher education. Universities in Texas have since eliminated more than 100 DEI-related jobs and Florida universities also have been shedding positions.”

This year, “Republican lawmakers in more than 30 states have introduced or passed more than 100 bills to either restrict or regulate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.”

In the interest of what? White supremacy? Fear-mongering? Political advantage? Paying off big donors? Raw power? Polarization? To undermine efforts to build a more inclusive, fair, and peaceful world?

American politics has never been pristine, but in recent years the unspoken moral compact traditionally shared by our state and national leaders has been shattered. Basic respect for agreed upon norms and restraints have been replaced by a scorched earth approach embracing deceit and self-preservation. Right wingers want what they want – to hell with fairness, justice, integrity, or working together.

For many so-called leaders, lying and shouting have replaced dialogue. Insistence that they get everything they want has replaced compromise. Respectful disagreements have been replaced by personal attacks on anyone not marching in lockstep. A commitment to democracy has even been replaced by overt attempts to seize power illegally, even violently.

Right wing extremists on the Supreme Court don’t even pretend to care about truth, ethics, or morals. Media outlets, rather than attempting to responsibly inform, amplify lies and normalize cruelty.

In my state of North Carolina, as with others, rather than play fair, republicans cheat through gerrymandered districts giving themselves an outrageous amount of inflated power, spewing lies, using levers of power for voter intimidation, rolling back worker’s rights and environmental protections, and to go after perceived “enemies.”

When did “leadership” become a license to behave like cheap thugs? Or a signal to jump when the MAGA overlord snaps his greasy orange fingers? Or, like many Democrats, to offer ritualized sound bites of “opposition” then slink away in search of missing backbones?

The unwillingness of leaders on a national and state level to stand up for core values has become a dangerous pattern. This absence of moral leadership, and a willingness by those in charge to betray what’s right, has coupled with my underlying exhaustion to eliminate any patience I might otherwise have had for the BOG’s arrogant assaults on decency or the timidity of UNC’s leaders who will not take a firm stand.

My assumption that UNC’s commitment to DEI ran deep into the bones has been undermined by the lack of pushback from those I’d trusted. I honestly don’t know if they care. Was it all just hot air? Now, I feel like I’m wandering through a Carolina Blue neighborhood I used to know, but which feels strangely unfamiliar. That’s why I’m done.

June 21, 5:00 PM

I wrote the foregoing weeks ago and held it while working out my notice. Much has happened in the ensuing weeks. Some good; some, well, you know.

The BOG doubled down on its complicity with the NC State Assembly in attempts to deny the right to free speech, mandating that “all UNC schools comply with a series of amendments passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in the past year that limit what can be discussed or taught about race, racism and sex in government institutions.”

Initially, it had been unclear whether the assault on DEI applied only to UNC’s academic campuses or also encompassed its medical and healthcare enterprise. It applies to both.

In a statement about the BOG’s vote, UNC’s Systems President failed to inspire confidence. “Our public universities must take a stance of principled neutrality on matters of political controversy…Faculty and students are free to weigh in on all manner of current events and high-profile issues, while university staff must exercise restraint.”

Principled neutrality? What does that mean? Calling for neutrality when important values are under attack does not inspire confidence.

The university posted an update on the BOG’s policy change downplaying any negative intentions or effects. There was predictable lip service about welcoming people from all walks of life and varying perspectives, but it seemed to come down to, “Aww shucks, folks, don’t worry about it.”

An email from the Carolina Alumni Review acknowledged the policy change and had some words of support for DEI as well as noting vaguely that there have been criticisms. It failed to connect what was happening to larger efforts to undermine DEI across the country.

On the other hand, the Systems President has rejected the BOG’s authority to mandate that the money taken from DEI be given to the cops. Prominent alumni have opposed the policy change and voices of protest have risen from faculty, staff, and students. A few, like me, have resigned in protest.

I’m aware of local departments and settings within the larger system that are reviewing ways they can ensure that protections related to DEI will not flag in the face of political assaults. I know of one UNC healthcare entity, for example, starting its own DEI committee.

I suspect when the students return and writers for the campus newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, begin adding their voices along with campus activists and student centers, the fight will go on.

In the last weeks, I’ve also had time to reflect on the intensity of my anger that a coordinated response from the highest ranks was not coming and coming fast. Anger that right wing extremism so prevalent around the country had pushed its way into my place of work. How that anger was intensified by existing frustration and grief about ongoing attacks on vulnerable groups, and failures in moral leadership on a state and national level.

Did I pull the trigger too fast? Should I have let it play out more? I’m at peace with my decision. The heat I’ve been feeling reflects the seriousness with which I try to live values rooted in respect, fairness, and a commitment to leaving no one out. And to looking at ourselves and our history in an honest, unsentimental way, admitting longstanding patterns of bias, oppression, and exploitation of some groups (and of denial and victim blaming from those who have benefited from this oppression).

I’ve also reflected on the ways my anger may have seemed like a blanket defense of all things DEI, regardless of occasional flaws in its implementation. I understand that reasonable people acting in good faith have levelled fair criticisms. But miscalculations, imperfections in attempts to implement DEI-informed policies, programs, and education do not undermine the need for these policies and programs. It only strengthens my belief that the complex, nuanced focus of these efforts requires the kind of skilled professionals that the BOG is trying to get rid of.

Was I too hard on leadership, too quick to assume they were, and would remain, cowed? Probably. Well, maybe. Eh, who knows? I understand that leadership believes they need to be careful and play the long game. I get that there are many “stakeholders”, and we live and work in a remedially “red” state. There are risks and dangers for those who speak out.

I can imagine a dean or chancellor responding to my criticisms. Wadda you know? I can make all the noise in the world and it won’t change the fact that this policy is going through. All it would do is make me enemies on the BOG, undermine my ability to create broad coalitions, and put a bull’s eye on my back for the right wing attack machine looking for another target-of -the-day, or for those who want to replace me with someone more to their liking. Do you really want me to lead a charge into twenty yards of quicksand?

Yes, I do. At least some of you. What’s so crazy about expecting leaders to say something strong when an institution’s moral identity is under attack? If someone shows up in your neighborhood proclaiming that some of your neighbors are not important, your leaders – at least some of them – stand the hell up!

Despite the self-protective caution and moral cowardice evident in so much of our national, state, and local leadership, examples of courage are plentiful. From Cassidy Hutchinson and Adam Kinzinger to Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff. From those who convened, and testified, at the January 6th hearings, to Alvin Bragg and E. Jean Carroll. Capital police who’ve spoken out, like Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn, to fierce truth tellers like Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ibram X. Kendi, even late-night comedians like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel who routinely use their platforms to speak the truth.

People do stand up. Why not the leaders of an institution to which I have given years of my career?

Does my little action really accomplish anything? Wouldn’t it be better to stay and speak out, be an ally to those directly under attack? Leaving may make a transient statement of protest, may telegraph to those who are wondering if anyone cares that, yes, many of us do. But does it really matter?

Who knows? But I believe that in an age when ethics and morals in public life have been thrown to the wind, we must all be conscious of the moral implications of our choices, words, and behaviors. We must find ways to act, however small or symbolic. It all counts.

I have no illusions that resigning is the only morally informed response. Far from it. It’s my response. Maybe yours, informed by the same values, would be different. I’m privileged to be in a position where I can choose to be without a paycheck for a while. Maybe it’s gutsier to stay in a system under attack because you want to resist, or because you have a child in need of medical care who is depending on healthcare benefits or because your options are limited, bills must be paid, and you’re determined to show up and continue doing your job with integrity.

I know it’s dangerous to say that we should be more conscious about moral decision making. Our history and current moment are replete with those espousing high sounding principles while wetting their blades with the blood of innocent victims. If a commitment to nonviolence, loving kindness, fairness and empathy are not among the values with which we weigh our decisions, we are in trouble.

UNC is filled with good people, including in positions of high leadership. Many will find ways to push back. This is as much their work now as anything related to academic, administrative, or healthcare duties. I wish them strength and courage. And humor when spirits flag.

But what’s my work now? For thirty-two years it has been serving those who are dying and their loved ones. However haywire the world has appeared, working at bedsides and kitchen tables, amidst the bustle of nursing homes or in the profound silences of a death that has just occurred, has kept me centered in what’s important. What now is my work?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a passage in Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague. Isn’t it mysterious the way things experienced or read decades earlier can arise from the mists of memory when big questions are churning?

A deadly pestilence has hit the city of Oran and people are falling like leaves in an autumn wind. Amidst the confusion and fear, each person must take a personal, moral, stance, and decide how to respond to the plague’s dangers. What values are needed when norms are shattered, and fear runs high?

Do we fall into denial or despair, or find meaning in service or creative expression? Do we see the ravages of the plague as evidence of an inherently absurd universe where we are left to fend for ourselves, or find meaning and connection despite the apparent absurdity?

Doctor Rieux labors caring for those who are suffering and dying. He’s talking with his friend Rambert about how he responds to the plague (for Camus, we are always in times of plague).

These times do not require heroes, he says, they require ‘common decency’; being a decent person, unshaken from basic morals by a world in crisis.

Rambert’s response is something like, ‘Decency, what the hell does that mean, pal?”

Rieux replies that he cannot speak for anyone but himself, but, in his case, it consists simply of doing his job.

Rambert replies, ‘I wish I knew what my job is’.

I can relate to Rambert’s question.

I’m comforted by the thought that our work during plague times need not be heroic. We do not need to be E. Jean Carroll or Harry Dunn. Maybe one’s work is to be a good parent and raise children who value inclusion and standing up against bullies, regardless of what they see on cable news. Maybe it’s to volunteer with a group that works for peace or cultivate a daily meditation or spiritual practice focused on compassion. Maybe it’s to work within a system or institution that is losing its mooring to bedrock principles, and help it get back on track. Maybe it’s deciding to leave.

I must admit, the idea of jumping quickly into something new gives me pause. I’m tired, Tired of a healthcare system that has lost its way, of the endless fear and anger addictions of media and politicians, of the shouting, reacting, lying, and clicking, tired of worrying about what’s next.

I need a break. I think most of us do. I’m aware that the fact that I can do this, at least for a short time before I start worrying about health insurance and not having a paycheck, is a privilege most do not have. I wish we could all take a break, a collective breath. Whether we have a Black Lives Matter sign in our front yard or one that says Make America Gr—. Oh, crap, I can’t bring myself to say it, you know what I mean. We ALL need a break.

In her book Rest is Resistance, Tricia Hersey makes the case that rest is subversive in the best possible way. Taking time to step back from the exhaustion, reactivity, and distractions of our “cult of busy-ness and productivity” helps us reflect, feel our interior life, engage the power of our inner vision and imagination.

In her analysis, pausing each day and taking short breaks, resting, putting down the cell phone, is resistance to the dehumanization, competition, and division of “grind culture” which separates us from our deepest values. Rest, as she sees it, helps us connect with our core (she uses the word soul), hear our inner poetry, unshackle ourselves from the fear and exhaustion that benefit those who profit from the status quo. It can help us figure out what our ‘work’ is.

For now, that’s what I want to do. Rest, reconnect with my deepest self. I’m trying to trust that I’ll find out soon enough what the next iteration of my work will be during these dangerous times. I wish you rest as well, and I wish you strength, hope, and courage as you do your work.

Note to readers — Thanks for taking time to read this reflection. I hope it’s clear that the targets of my criticism are not the faculty, professionals, and employees of UNC, or UNC Hospice, for whom my respect is unshaken.

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