On the Friday Margaret Spellings was announced as the next UNC-system president, I was exhausted. I was running on four hours of sleep and hadn’t gotten a full night of rest all week. That week I’d worked several night shifts, dealt with some overwhelming anxiety attacks and turned in a slew of papers.
When I refreshed Twitter on Friday morning to see that Spellings was announced as president of the UNC system, I sighed, put my phone away and went back to writing my paper. Because there wasn’t time to be angry.
My experience isn’t extraordinary. Many students have part-time jobs, a full load of classes and extracurricular commitments. Where does agitating on campus fit into that?
Campus organizing often requires agitating around issues that many are unwilling to talk about or take seriously. It means fighting through a deep bureaucracy and a short collective memory. All of these things are exhausting and often disheartening. And it’s no wonder so many of us find ourselves fatigued.
Those who seek to move UNC in a more conservative direction are counting on students to be too tired to pay attention or put up a fight when they institute harmful policies and appoint leaders. And you know what? They’re right, many students I’ve spoken to expressed feeling too burnt out to organize. I know that this is exactly the reaction that is intended by institutions like the Board of Governors. After all, if students are too tired to form coherent sentences, then they can’t put up much of a fight when regressive new leaders are announced.
A potential response could be to use this knowledge, that people in power want us to be tired, as a way to reenergize. But that only works for so long. You can only “push through” so much exhaustion.
When I saw the news of Spellings’ appointment, I knew she was the wrong choice. Spellings was the secretary of education under George W. Bush, spearheading the creation of the No Child Left Behind program. I grew up under that program, crying in the 4th grade because I was so afraid of taking yet another test. I know she thinks queer people are making a “lifestyle” choice that she won’t comment on. I don’t see her as a leader who values students’ right to a high quality affordable education. I believe that the board’s decision to appoint Margaret Spellings is worthy of protest.
But I couldn’t bring myself to muster an ounce of outrage. That week, all I wanted was to squeeze in as much as sleep as possible. Was making that choice effectively giving them what they wanted? Maybe, but that day I was too tired to care.
