How Not to Treat Colleagues in Red States
By 
I happen to teach in Rhode Island, but it’s not like I have much of a choice, not if I want to stay in my chosen profession. This is the only tenure-track job I was ever offered and there simply aren’t jobs in my fields anymore. Maybe 1 a year in labor history, maybe 2 or 3 in environmental history. For the entire country. Universities will not hire anyone to tell the story of the Trump years, basically. But that’s beside the point here. I could have ended up anywhere. My first visiting job was in Texas, my second was in Ohio. My wife’s previous tenure-track job was in a 75% Trump country in western Pennsylvania; the state might be purple, but basically no part of it is actually purple. So I know a lot of people who teach in red states and I was very sympathetic to piece by a historian working in Texas.
A colleague I very much respect who teaches at a university in a solidly blue coastal state recently posted on social media that it is unethical for academics to continue working in states that have undermined academic freedom and imposed censorship. It was not the first time I’ve been told that academics who teach at public institutions in places like Florida, or my current home state of Texas, are, at best, complicit in the assault on higher education and, at worst, legitimizing it.
These calls are motivated by justified anger. However, this language embodies a growing rhetorical pattern that needs to stop.
When academics in more comfortable political climates declare it unethical for the rest of us to remain and to fight, they undercut the solidarity necessary to help move toward the kind of world they want to see. Judgments against those who do the work of teaching, researching and mentoring under increasingly difficult conditions do not help. More importantly, calls for an academic exodus would have us abandon vulnerable students who need us the most.
he students most affected by the misguided and dangerous political interference in my state are often those with the fewest alternatives. Most of my first-generation college students, working-class students, rural students, students of color or LGBTQ+ students are dependent on the pockets of support they have made for themselves. They live at home, they support their families and, in the face of mounting tuition costs, they rely on the in-state tuition rates of public universities. They cannot suddenly gain access to institutions and communities elsewhere. Nor can most of my colleagues.
Calls for academic boycotts often invoke historical precedent. And history does indeed show that boycotts can work. But they are most effective when they emerge from and are led by those directly affected. The Montgomery bus boycott did not begin in coastal conference rooms with demands for the exodus of Black Alabamians. It was organized by Black residents in Montgomery who intimately understood the risks and challenges of their endeavor and chose to fight at home. External allies had important roles to play, but they followed the leadership of those on the ground. They did not announce, from afar, that remaining in Montgomery was unethical.
Beyond anything else, that colleague in a blue state is a fucking idiot. First, you are where you are and if you think academics in fields like history can just find a different job, you are already completely clueless, as I stated above. Second, students may be told they need to major in the practical majors (never mind that most of these people are likely to lose their jobs through AI if the techbros have their way and won’t have the critical thinking skills to adjust), but they thirst for the knowledge they get in humanities classes and especially history. They really want to know what we know. They want to understand this messed up society. Third, a red state still usually had 35-40% of its people who are ardent Democrats! Do all these people suck??? Fourth, you are never going to change this nation if Democrats all move to blue states and Republicans all move to red states. Look at how the Senate works, among other things. Fifth, there are tons of fights and organizing on the ground. The most involved I ever was in actual organizing was in Knoxville, Tennessee in the late 90s precisely because it was so right-wing and those who wanted change found each other out of desperation.
In conclusion, if you live in a blue state, try not to be an asshole to people who live in red states.