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Brooklyn faculty fight for freedom
Chillier and chillier.
That’s the troubling forecast for academic freedom at Brooklyn College-City University of New York (CUNY) since faculty member Timothy Shortell was criticized in the New York Sun for writing about religious people—and no one from the college came forward to defend him. Instead of championing Shortell’s right to express his views, BC president Christoph Kimmich responded by calling Shortell’s opinion “offensive” and announcing an investigation of the situation. Shortell subsequently stepped down from the department chairmanship to which he had recently been elected.
Shortell’s opinion, written for a nonacademic venue, described religiosity as “annoying—like bad taste,” and characterized religious people as immature “moral retards” who “discriminate, exclude and belittle.”
Shortly after this incident, a second faculty member, Prya Parmar, was criticized by the Sun for an exploration of Ebonics in a literacy education course intended to show new teachers how to address social inequities in the classroom. Students accused her of anti-white racism and also objected to her showing the film “Fahrenheit 9/11” in class.
Professional Staff Congress/AFT members are outraged and, at a meeting prompted by the incidents, some 70 members voted unanimously to support Shortell and Parmar. In an open letter to CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein, PSC president Barbara Bowen insists that Shortell be seated as department chair and that the college issue a public statement supporting academic freedom in Parmar’s case. “Silence on this issue sends the message that ... CUNY will tolerate an atmosphere in which the real work of teaching and learning is impossible,” she writes. “The Professional Staff Congress finds this message unacceptable.”
“There is a feeling [among faculty] that ... the president should have been more forceful from the beginning in defending academic freedom,” says Steve London, PSC vice president and a faculty member at Brooklyn. “Instead, he capitulated to the fear-mongering that was going on.”
“If you are an untenured faculty member trying to be open with your students, and lies are published about what you teach, [you might] think twice about what you teach in your classroom,” says Bowen.
Also troubling, she adds, is the issue of academic freedom for the less privileged students typically found in the city college population. “To be silent in this context is to risk sending the message that academic freedom is not important at a university that serves working-class students, people of color and the poor,” says Bowen. Goldstein “is risking the implication that academic freedom is only for the elite. It’s unforgivable and it’s devastating.”
A broad investigation into academic freedom at CUNY has been launched by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Vermont unions reach settlements
Two academic unions at the Vermont State Colleges came to closure this summer on drawn-out negotiations with the state college administration.
For VSC-United Professionals, the news was all good: The union of 170 professional, technical and administrative employees, represented by AFT’s state affiliate, the United Professions of Vermont, successfully completed its first contract since the union was voted in three years ago. The contract treats all the employees in the unit, spread out at Vermont Technical College and at Johnson, Castle and Lyndon State Colleges, fairly and equitably. At an April 15 membership meeting, those present voted unanimously to approve the contract. The salary package is retroactive to 2003.
The outcome of another battle that made headlines for weeks across the state was not so satisfying. Faculty at the colleges, represented by VSC Faculty Federation/UPV, were fighting to hold onto an early retirement provision that had been in their contract for 30 years (see “Vt. faculty fight for early retirement benefits,” News and Trends, May/June). The provision allows faculty who have taught for 15 years to retire at age 55 with half their pay and half of the amount that VSC contributed to their retirement account for 10 years, plus full medical and dental benefits.
The VSC administration wanted the provision out because of its price tag. Faculty wouldn’t hear of eliminating it because it was a promise the faculty relied upon in deciding to come teach at VSC, where salaries are modest compared to those at similar institutions. The state labor board sided with the administration, recommending the plan be phased out in six years. The state Legislature got involved, trying to force one more round of union/administration talks by attaching a rider to the state budget. The governor said he would veto the whole budget if the provision stayed in.
On June 8, the union stepped aside for the good of the state, agreeing to put the phase-out in the contract. During a news conference at the Montpelier Statehouse, VSCFF vice president Dawn Carleton, a professor at Vermont Technical College acknowledged the realities: “We are trying our very best to be reasonable in an unreasonable situation that has been created by politics and power plays,” she said.
At the same time, the Legislature agreed to take a close look at the way colleges are being run, with special attention to their increasing reliance on part-time faculty.
