boycotting nca

Music: The Today Show

While I am eating my feet, I thought I would go ahead and stick the heels in: I have decided to cancel my appearance at the National Communication Association convention in San Diego. This decision was made, in part, because that trip would have been my eighth of the year and I'm a little burned out (as I would still have two more trips to go). I also made this decision because of the colossal and continued blunders made by my professional organization; increasingly, my intellectual home is in the Rhetoric Society of America. Because I'm committed to our students and love to see my friends, I will not swear off NCA forever, but I have serious concerns about the future of that organization under its current leadership.

I first started thinking about skipping NCA when the NCA Forum group decided they would invite David Horowitz to come speak at the convention. The decision was made not to extend the invitation, and I felt better about the convention.

Then, NCA instituted an early registration policy that required members to pay-up four months a head of schedule or they would be dropped from the program. Many grad students really got squeezed (since many if not most don't get funding in the summer). This new policy and the way it was enforced were irritating. There were a number of poorly worded, almost coercive emails from NCA ("register, or else!"). I understand the need for the policy; how it was implemented and defended was rhetorically insensitive.

Finally, the straw: it turns out the conference hotel is owned by a man who is actively homophobic and exploits his workers. Originally I was ambivalent about the calls to boycott the hotel in the name of gay marriage, but once Chuck Morris and others stressed homophobia was really the issue, I was resolute. Then, to compound matters the labor union announced they would be joining forces with the LGBT community to picket the hotel. Then, what really got me even more upset and angry was how NCA and its head, Roger Smitter, chose to respond to all of this: by remaining strategically silent, then by getting righteous, by inviting the owner of the hotel to the convention, by actively attacking the labor union calling for a boycott (and worse and worse it goes).

Then, whining, disrespectful, misogynistic and otherwise hateful posts poured onto CRTNET (the NCA listserve). I know I shouldn't be astonished to learn there are bigots and haters in a field as large as mine, but reading all of their views on CRTNET was enlightening.

Our organization has a number of masterful rhetoricians who can craft messages that acknowledge the complex situation, uphold common values, and still condemn what is morally reprehensible. Of course, none of these people were consulted (or if they were, they were ignored). Instead, NCA members have witnessed a number of ill-conceived responses to the call for boycott that offend, as oppose to ease, the conscience of many NCA members. In the last six months the rhetoric coming from the national office has made it very, very clear that NCA is an autonomous corporation that is no longer a professional organization; it is more interested in preserving and minding the bottom-line than serving the interests and careers of its many thousands of members. I recognize this is a consequence of growth and size. But I also think this is a consequence of leadership---or a lack of it.

Now, I understand there will be a picket line and protesting outside of the convention hotel.

I can imagine at least half of the conversations at the actual convention will be about the rise and fall of NCA, how the conference is a terrible mess, the boycott, hotel homophobia, and so on. Our department has (thankfully) moved our party off-site to avoid the mess. Others have as well. I know there are some negotiations going on behind the scene to set-up a shadow conference with alternative meeting rooms (and I hope this works out, time will tell). Good people are orchestrating places to keep the discussions about research alive without having to feel bad about where the discussions are taking place. But from where I sit right now, having traveled extensively this year, it all just sounds so exhausting and angering. Hypertension runs in the family; I worry landing in that mess might give me a heart attack!

If I had a graduate student on the market, I would most certainly go. That's the decision rule for me: students, and my responsibility to them. Fortunately, I have no students "on the market" or needing of networking. I understand a great many of people do, and will be in attendance for that reason. And I do not pass judgment on anyone who crosses the picket line at all. Our students rely on the convention to advance their careers, network, and find dutiful employment. They're in a horrible catch-22, and I think we need to be supportive of them, to attend panels with them, to attend parties and network with them.

Finally, if any students are reading this, I want to underscore a statement: no one will judge you if you go into the Manchester Hyatt. Seriously, no one is going to give you a hard time, because those who have gone before you understand why you are there and the challenge of the situation. A few students have approached me in the last couple of weeks seeking my thoughts on this; there's a lot of anxiety among our grads here about what they should do, if they should be crossing a picket line for a job, and so on. I've tried to assure them that no one would give them a hard time. And if anyone does do that, they should be taken out to the back . . . .

I support the boycott of NCA and am behind it. Nevertheless, I want to make it clear such support should not impact our graduate students, who need to be able to go into the hotel for panels and job interviews. This also means some of us post-student types will need to go into the hotel to support our students. To me, this means you should not guilt-trip anyone going into the hotel; we should assume people entering and exiting the hotel are students, or are supporting students, or have a good reason to be there.

If anyone gives a student shit for going into the hotel because of the boycott, they risk hypocrisy: like gay, lesbian, bisexual, and the transgendered, students are not afforded basic rights at many institutions (e.g., decent health care). Like Hyatt laborers who are forced to clean too many rooms a day, students are often forced to teach too many courses a semester. To harass a graduate student at the conference is not only to be a total jerk, but is also to fail to understand the basic things the protest is really about: treating people fairly and humanely.