An Editor’s Note
I don’t know when I began being paranoid about job security. I’d like to think it was working for newspaper editor John R. Starr from 1985 to his retirement in 1992, because if you just read his caustic columns, who could blame me.
It’s likely to be my nature, from childhood. After a few successes and too many failures I may have a handle on this trait and usually can manage it or turn it to advantage, staying on good terms with the boss and crucially the boss’s boss.
Within hours of the horrific Sept. 10, 2025, slaying of MAGA strategizer Charlie Kirk, a handful of public- and private-sector employees who posted to social media anything but reverence to the man or anger at the assassination were disciplined by their employers including firing. This happened in Arkansas as well as the entire nation, even Hollywood.
A workaday employee for decades, I am shocked at how people acted surprised.
The aftermath, starting hours after the shooting, demonstrates the power of the supporters of the 47th president and his plans. Employment pressure is proving to be a key MAGA weapon in the Deconstruction Era.
Fortunately and not surprisingly as a large, research-focused, liberal arts, land-grant public university, the University of Arkansas applauds free expression with reasonable limits on campus political activity. “The U of A respects the right of all employees to engage in political activity” is the public line. University policies seek to avoid the appearance that it endorses any candidate or position by, for example, forbidding employees to wear UA logo apparel when they politick even on their own time.
The Local 965 website’s Frequently Asked Questions lists those policies.
As the house paranoiac, I’d like to warn union members and all colleagues that this is not the year to test those policies. Those may not be cited if one gets gonged: If someone above us gets uncomfortable, there always is another issue to write us up on instead.
A shout-out to those who might think I’m only addressing the left side of the national ledger. Nope. MAGA aims to create massive change quickly. That means the future you voted for is not going to be that predictable and may cause you hard pain.
If individual expression won’t change the world but may force you into recalculating your household essential and nonessential expenses due to paychecks stopping, what’s left? May I suggest union membership?
I checked: We — from Local 965 to the Arkansas Education Association to the National Education Association — may not have detailed plans as we only have hypotheticals on what could happen. We’ll have your back though; that’s what unions do for members.
Have ideas or derring-do? Join us. Come to our meetings — the fourth Thursday of each month, 5:30 at the Fayetteville Foghorn’s — or email your thoughts to uarkansas965@gmail.com.
Writing this is not keeping my head down. Last week I trashed a couple things off my office wall that were borderline political. Are my world map, a flyer of a top comic’s appearance here and a set of Buddhist prayer flags political? They’re still up.
Silence will doom us. Within your own circle where kindness must rule if you like having friends, holding your tongue often is advisable. Living in the world, silence isn’t golden, it is piss yellow.
©2025 Ben S. Pollock
This column, now slightly revised, first was published in the September 2025 newsletter of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965, of which Ben Pollock is vice president.
