LOS ANGELES, CA (June 5, 2024) – On June 3rd, the UCLA Faculty Association (UCLAFA) filed unfair labor practice (ULP) charges against the University of California (UC) to vindicate faculty rights to protest, organize, and exercise academic freedom. The ULP charges the UC for UCLA’s failure to uphold, and their choice to interfere with, faculty’s legally protected rights during and after the recent UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment. This is the fourth organization to file a ULP against the UC in the wake of its actions at UCLA in late April and early May, following charges by UAW, UC-AFT and AFSCME.
The UCLAFA is a voluntary, dues-supported employee organization that represents UCLA faculty on employment and academic freedom issues. It is independent of the University and complementary to the Academic Senate, which engages in shared governance on academic matters. In the ULP charge filed on June 3, UCLAFA details two primary ways in which UCLA interfered with its members’ rights under the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA).
First, UCLA engaged in interference and discrimination by: 1) allowing anti-Palestinian counter-protesters to assault both UCLAFA members and other faculty, alongside our students, and 2) calling on law enforcement to forcibly remove and arrest them between April 30 and May 1. In doing so, UCLA interfered with faculty’s protected right to advocate and organize regarding matters that impact their workplace– including the safety of students, graduate workers, faculty colleagues, and staff who are exercising their right to protest.
Like our students, faculty were brutalized and arrested, in violation of the UC’s own policies of de-escalation and minimal police response to protests. UCLA’s conduct discourages Faculty members from engaging in strikes, pickets, and other activity protected by HEERA, for fear of further violent repression at the University’s behest. This has been further underscored by UC’s newly announced policy of pursuing its own internal discipline against anyone the UC itself chose to have arrested or cited.
Second, UCLA unlawfully interfered with faculty members’ exercise of their protected rights, including the right to academic freedom, by adopting overbroad rules in the aftermath of the attacks and police sweep. On May 16, for example, the university issued an overbroad gag rule prohibiting faculty from discussing the UAW strike or any union-related matter with any employee or student, essentially banning any possibility of engaging these important events as a “teaching moment,” or allowing faculty to provide emotional or intellectual support to struggling students. It also overreached by closing campus activities and staffing the university with dozens of security guards between May 6 and May 10. In doing so, UCLA interfered with employee rights and chilled academic freedom, faculty association, and the right to protest university policies.
The University should be ordered to cease and desist from its unlawful conduct, including interfering with employee rights, discriminating against employees, and arresting faculty for engaging in protected activity. The University should also be ordered to rescind its unlawful rules and policies, and refrain from disciplining or taking any other adverse action against UCLAFA members; any discipline underway should be rescinded and removed from faculty personnel files. The Faculty Association also urges the withdrawal of ongoing and future disciplinary actions against all members of the UCLA Community, including students and staff.
Faculty association executive committee member Anna Markowitz notes, “This ULP is faculty speaking out. What the UC did violated our students’ rights, and it violated ours in tandem. There is no world in which faculty can speak freely if our students cannot do the same. We see that, and we stand in solidarity with UAW, AFT, and AFSCME in demanding redress for the wrong decisions that UC made.”
Meet us on Wednesday, Jun 5 at 3pm at Murphy Hall for a discussion of our ULP charge, held in conjunction with a UAW 4811 rally.
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The full text of the ULP charge can be found below. For press inquiries, contact our Communications Committee at comms@uclafa.org.