The New York Times - USA (2020-08-09)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020 NBU 3

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Q

:

I work with a man who is considered “nice” and “friendly.” He

always asks how I’m doing and shows interest. He also once

mansplained to me “when a female is or is not being intentionally

sexually provocative.” He often shares memes on social media

making fun of women that are very attractive, which to him

means that they’re dumb. Once he said, “Well, all that feminism

stuff is B.S. anyways.” He is also an anti-masker.

He offends me to my core, but I can’t afford to lose my job. I

have only worked here for three months, and have already seen

our (white American male) boss fire four competent women for

minor offenses, and so I don’t say anything when this co-worker

ticks me off. I don’t know whether this working environment is

toxic, or if I’m just too sensitive. Help! ANONYMOUS, HONG KONG

A great many women work with a “nice,”

“friendly” man who abuses his position

and their well-mannered tolerance of his

nonsense. You have my sympathies. It is

exhausting, pretending to find boorish

misogynists charming or clever when, in

fact, they are banal and unoriginal.

You are not too sensitive. His behavior

is inappropriate at best. And any time a

man says feminism is B.S., he is plainly

communicating exactly who he is — a

total jerk. When you cannot afford to lose

your job, your options for dealing with a

guy like this are limited, especially given

the company’s pattern of firing women for

minor issues. You are dealing with a toxic

work environment, but only you know how

much toxicity you can tolerate. Listen:

Life is short. Stop talking to this man.

Playing along with him is not part of your

job. He is a sexist pig looking for attention

from women because he suffers from

profound self-loathing. Or whatever — I

don’t really care what his problem is, and

neither should you. Document any in-

stance when he engages in unacceptable

workplace behavior. If he crosses a line

you cannot abide, you can and should

report him to Human Resources or your

management team. You need your job, but

you have rights. Your dignity matters, and

so does your peace of mind.

56, ANGRY AND OUT OF WORK

I’ve been out of work for almost a year and a

half, but my spouse is still employed. While

financially we are OK, the mental anguish is

real. After applying for and being rejected

from more than 100 jobs, humiliation, anger

and raging self-doubt plague me. I find it

hard to talk to friends because my news

ultimately ends with failure. I worry about

getting sick with my minimal, high-deductible

insurance. (I am 56 — and, yes, ageism is

real and a widely accepted business practice.)

I feel awful for depriving my family, especially

my wife, who was looking forward to an early

and financially solid retirement. And yet I

know I am lucky.

Given the wide-ranging personal and soci-

etal consequences of unemployment, should

employers give added weight to an unem-

ployed person’s application?ANONYMOUS

Millions are in a similar position, living in

economic peril, one health crisis away

from bankruptcy, because for some inex-

plicable reason, Americans are resistant to

single-payer health care and prefer having

their right to good health tied to the pre-

carity of employment. We know about the

economic consequences of unemployment,

but far less attention is paid to the emo-

tional toll it takes — anxiety, depression,

substance abuse, suicidal ideation.

You aren’t depriving your family. You

can provide for them in other ways —

taking over more of the domestic responsi-

bilities, engaging in active parenting.

These things are work, too.

I’m supposed to say that employers

should hire the best people for a job, but it

feels as if there are more “best people”

seeking work than there are jobs. And

there are all kinds of systemic biases that

privilege certain kinds of “best people”

over others. What criteria should employ-

ers use now? Should the unemployed be

prioritized? What about people with fam-

ilies to support? What about people who

are taking care of sick parents, or with

significant student debt? Do employers

address systemic bias and hire the best

people who will also create more equitable

representation in the workplace? There

are no easy answers — because fairness

and capitalism are largely incompatible.

It might be useful to have a professional

résumé doctor take a look at your applica-

tion package and LinkedIn profile to see

how you might reposition yourself. If you

haven’t already, let your professional and

personal networks know you’re looking for

work. Expand your search into adjacent

fields where your skill set would be useful.

You have a right to your despair and

anger, but I hope you don’t let these feel-

ings consume you.

MINOR REPARATIONS

I work on a small team within a large city’s

government. We are doing work around

equity, and one of the first things is to hold

speaker events to educate ourselves.

Because it’s government, we don’t have a

budget for this. Our budget is allocated well

in advance and there’s nothing we can shuffle

around. One of the members of the organ-

izing sub-team said we should ask employees

who attend these events to contribute per-

sonally to pay speakers. I’m deeply uncom-

fortable with asking people to pay for things

associated with work. Am I wrong to object?

ANONYMOUS

Kudos to your team for their willingness to

do the work of expanding and improving

their thinking and efforts around diversity,

equity and inclusion. Public speaking is

labor that deserves to be compensated,

but it is absolutely unacceptable that your

team members should be spending their

own money on this. You are not at all

wrong to object. It is ridiculous that the

most feasible solution here is for your staff

members to assume their employer’s

financial obligations.

I do not believe there is nothing in the

budget that can be shuffled; I believe

there is nothing your organization is will-

ingto shuffle. When an organization truly

wants to find money for something they

prioritize, they find the money. If they

aren’t going to treat work around equity

as a priority, you and your fellow employ-

ees don’t need to pay the bill. There are

other things you can do — reading groups,

discussions and the like. But mostly, you

need to hold your management account-

able. This is their responsibility, not yours.

WORK FRIEND ROXANE GAY

Beware the Jerk Disguised as a ‘Nice’ Man

MARGEAUX WALTER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Roxane Gay is the author, most recently, of

“Hunger” and a contributing Opinion writer.

WITH CORONAVIRUS CASESspiking in doz-
ens of states, the prospect of anything re-
sembling a normal school year is fading
fast.
Schools can’t safely reopen if infections
are exploding in the communities they
serve. But in regions where the pandemic
appears to be under control, it is most im-
portant to get the youngest children back
into school buildings. Older students, espe-
cially those in college, are better equipped
to cope with the difficulties of online educa-
tion.
That is the consensus among experts on
back-to-school priorities. But, as things
stand now, much of the United States is pre-
paring to do exactly the opposite.
In many towns, college students are more
likely than kindergartners to return to
school for in-person instruction. An exam-
ple is my home of Ann Arbor, Mich., where
schoolchildren will be learning completely
online and university students will be at-
tending at least some classes in person.
Sixteen of the 20 largest school districts
are expected to be teaching fully online in
the fall, according to data collected by Edu-
cation Week, a trade publication. By con-
trast, among colleges, the pattern is re-
versed. Just 131 — roughly 4 percent — of
the nation’s thousands of colleges have an-
nounced plans to hold classes solely online,
according to data gathered by Davidson
College.
There are plenty of exceptions. At the ele-
mentary and secondary levels, major
school districts like Hillsborough, Fla.
(which includes Tampa) and Dallas are
planning to have students attend classes in
person. New York City, which has the na-
tion’s largest school system, is trying to
have it both ways, with students splitting
their learning between the classroom and
the home.
The Boston campus of the University of
Massachusetts plans to shift classes com-
pletely online, as do several of Harvard’s
graduate programs. But most colleges are
welcoming students back to campus this
fall, while enormous public school districts
like Los Angeles Unified and Philadelphia
are expected to have no children in their
buildings.
A broad group of educators and health ex-
perts argues that young children should be
the first back in classrooms, partly because

if a child doesn’t learn to read, write and

handle numbers early in primary school,

she or he may struggle for the rest of her or

his life. And as a practical matter, many

young children can’t log themselves onto a

computer and learn independently, as uni-

versity students can.

The educational needs of young children

have economic implications. When children

learn at home, they need adults nearby to

assist them. Affluent families can afford to

hire a nanny to supervise their children dur-

ing the school day, but most people cannot.

Sometimes older siblings will help young-

er ones, which can interrupt their own

learning. But a lot of parents will have no

option but to give up work to watch their

children, which will hamper the economic

recovery and aggravate inequality in

wealth and income. The economic case for

getting young children back to school first is

therefore very strong.

But just because something makes sense,

doesn’t mean it automatically happens.

For colleges, competition for tuition dol-

lars is pushing them to take outsize risks to

get students back on campus, while for pub-

lic school districts, inadequate funding —

combined with the failure of government to

curb the coronavirus — is keeping them

from getting children safely back into

school buildings.

Consider the plight of some American col-

leges. Most rely on tuition to survive,

though some schools have other revenue

streams: Public institutions get financial

support from their states and a relatively

small number of private schools have enor-

mous endowments that generate substan-

tial income.

Colleges without deep pockets — those

that rely most heavily on tuition — are at the

greatest risk of extinction in this pandemic.

Many college administrators rightly fear

they will lose students to their competitors

if they don’t hold out the promise of in-per-

son classes — which means opening their

campuses. This creates what, in economics,

we call an immense coordination problem.

The first colleges to announce that they are

teaching entirely online will risk a plunge in

enrollment and tuition revenue, so rela-

tively few have been willing to do so.

The colleges that have bucked this trend

tend not to face strong competitive pres-

sures. In California, the chancellor of the

large, statewide community college system

recommended in May that these schools

should go online. This was a logical move,

from an economic standpoint, because stu-

dents tend to choose the community college

closest to their home, and that reduces com-

petition: Each college has market power in

its area. A community college in San Diego

doesn’t worry about its students decamping

to a school in San Francisco.

Two community colleges in Los Angeles

might compete with each other, however.

But because the community colleges are

part of a unified system, they can act in con-

cert and are not driven to risk the public

health in order to compete for students who

prefer learning in person.

In contrast, the elite University of Califor-

nia campuses like Berkeley and Los Ange-

les operate in a highly competitive envi-

ronment, vying with each other (and with

top private colleges) for the best students in

the world.

Perhaps that’s why the University of Cali-

fornia schools held out the prospect of in-

person classes long after the community

colleges. The University of California,

Berkeley, announced only in late July that it

would be operating completely online,

while U.C.L.A. revealed in mid-June that it

was planning to teach just about one-fifth of

its classes in person or in a hybrid format.

If competition for students is preventing

many colleges from making choices that

would benefit the public, constrained public

revenue streams are behind the existential

challenge for schools that educate younger

students.

Because of the crisis, budgets are being

cut just as costs are rising. Schools that

hope to reopen safely need a steady supply

of masks and sanitizer; upgraded ventila-

tion systems; more school buses and driv-

ers; a robust system of testing and tracing;

and lots of extra real estate for social dis-

tancing.

Without extensive investment in safety

measures, virus outbreaks will most likely

close any school that opens its doors. And

with Congress headed toward its August

vacation, it’s unlikely that fresh funds will

start flowing to local schools soon. In this

environment, it is not surprising that many

districts are deciding not to reopen class-

rooms and that many teachers are pro-

testing when asked to return.

The decisions of schools reverberate be-

yond the classroom, affecting the broader

economy. And, like the pandemic itself, the

effects spill across city and state lines, with

the choices in one place constraining the

ability of businesses in another to survive. A

pandemic is exactly the type of interstate,

multisector challenge that an active federal

government is built for.

By now, in many places, it’s already too

late to undertake the enormous preparation

needed to open classrooms to young chil-

dren this fall. That could change in the un-

likely event of a big and immediate infusion

of federal funding.

This assumes, of course, that the govern-

ment has succeeded in suppressing the

pandemic outsideof schools. If the coro-

navirus is raging unchecked through a re-

gion, no amount of funding can make it safe

for children to be in school.

ECONOMIC VIEW SUSAN DYNARSKI

Reopening Schools, but Maybe Not in the Smartest Way

Some in higher education rush

back to in-person learning

while a pandemic rages.

An elementary school in the

Bronx, closed since the spring

because of the coronavirus.

New York City schools are

expected to reopen in the fall

with a hybrid of online and

in-person learning.

VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

SUSAN DYNARSKIis a professor of education,
public policy and economics at the University of
Michigan. Follow her on Twitter @dynarski

The youngest children,

not collegians, would

benefit the most from

returning to classrooms.