USD is a private institution and so is not bound by the First Amendment, but it is required to live up to its promises to abide by the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. USD law professor Tom Smith is being investigated by his university for posting and online comment criticizing the Chinese government on his personal blog. Details are at theFire.org.
We will update this page as more statements come in… Departmental Statements Chicana/o and Central American Studies Faculty Statement Asian American Studies Department Solidarity Statement Statement of Members of the Department of History in Response to Clearing the Encampment, 2 May 2024 Statement of Members of the Department of Classics on the University’s Failure to Protect Student Protestors Statement by Members of the Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Writing Programs in response to the forcible removal of the Student Encampment Statement of Members of the UCLA Department of History Faculty in Response to the Attack on the Encampment on…
This is the third in a series of CUCFA’s FAQ’s about the UAW strike. The first set of FAQs is available here. The second set is available here. Q1: Who will be responsible for the grading when the strike is resolved? A1: If a settlement is reached before the end of the current quarter/semester, your existing ASE may be able to complete the grading, but only if it fits within their contractual workload limits. If a resolution is not reached until the next quarter/semester, an agreement about grading may be part of the settlement between UC and UAW. If not,…
Dear Colleagues, On Thursday, December 1, Senate faculty received a potentially misleading email from the President’s Office of the University of California, titled “Regarding Faculty Rights and Responsibilities,” and signed by Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs Michael Brown. This communication fails to distinguish between being on strike and declining to pick up struck labor. It is the case that the university may dock pay for any faculty on strike, although it is unclear precisely how they would enforce that policy. Faculty pay can only be docked for the period during which they choose to strike, not for…
Dear colleagues, We have entered the second week of the UAW multi-unit strike. CUCFA is inspired by our fellow academic workers represented by UAW, who are fighting to create a UC where everyone can live with dignity in the place they work. We reaffirm our message to President Drake sent on November 11, 2022, with over 1,400 Senate faculty signatures, that urged him to direct his staff to engage in good faith bargaining. We join 100 UC departments, programs, and committees that publicly expressed their support for striking academic workers. They have written letters of solidarity, with some committing not…
The AAUP’s annual Bulletin collects in one place the reports, policy statements, and official AAUP business materials of an academic year—in this case, 2021–22. Most of these documents have already been published on the AAUP website or in Academe, and the parenthetical dates after their titles refer to date of original publication. This year’s Bulletin features a special report on governance, academic freedom, and institutional racism in the UNC system; two academic freedom and tenure investigative reports; a statement on legislative threats to academic freedom; and findings from the 2021–22 Faculty Compensation Survey and the 2022 AAUP Survey of Tenure…
Hank Reichman — professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure — has just published a new book: Understanding Academic Freedom. Hank describes the book: My purpose in writing Understanding was to provide a concise (the book is just 205 pages minus notes and index) and accessible introduction to the concept of academic freedom as practiced and preached in the U.S. (mostly by the AAUP) and an overview of both historic and contemporary challenges to it….
