An Indiana University lecturer who was suspended after showing a classroom graphic that identified the “Make America Great Again” slogan as a form of covert white supremacy has lost her job.
Why did Jessica Adams lose her job?
Jessica Adams, who taught a graduate-level course on diversity, human rights and social justice, was suspended in October after Sen. Jim Banks raised concerns about the lesson following a student’s complaint. In May, the university informed Adams that she would not be reappointed after a review of her work, ending her employment on June 30, according to The New York Times and the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
The controversy stems from a widely used social work graphic that categorizes examples of overt and covert white supremacy. University officials said the graphic listed Trump’s campaign slogan as covert white supremacy. At the same time, Adams argued the material was being misrepresented and was relevant to course discussions about racism and social work.
“That’s not what the graphic says,” she told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “That’s not what I was teaching.”
Indiana University officials said Adams had violated a state law during her course
Adams was investigated under an Indiana law aimed at promoting “intellectual diversity” in higher education. She said the university sided with the student’s interpretation of the word placement on the graphic, believing that the slogan was worse than police shootings of people of color, which she disputed.
“A clear point in the law says that if you are teaching within your discipline, within your profession, ideas or concepts or values that are central to your profession, then those are topics you’re allowed to teach,” she added.
Free speech advocates and academic freedom groups have criticized Adams’ termination over the law, arguing it discourages open classroom discussion.
“This termination is an attack not only on Jessica Adams, but on students’ right to learn honestly about historical inequality and the impacts that still exist today,” Russ Skiba, co-founder of the University Alliance for Racial Justice, said in a statement obtained by the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “Social justice is not a fringe concept in the field of social work. It is a core professional value.”
What did Adams say in her appeal?
Adams has appealed the university’s decision, alleging that administrators improperly responded to political pressure and failed to provide due process.
“The dean thus credited a politician’s secondhand report on an I.U. classroom, referencing an anonymous student’s alleged ‘discomfort,’ and adopted it as her own internal complaint,” Adams wrote, per The New York Times.
She added: “I.U. officials have once again yielded to political pressure to persecute faculty on ideological grounds.”