Welcome to the December issue of the AAUP Government Relations Newsletter. If anything is happening in your state that you wish to share with other members and the national staff, please e-mail Nicole Byrd, government relations associate, for inclusion in the next newsletter. If you wish to sign up to receive the newsletter directly every month, please e-mail Nicole or call (202) 737-5900, ext. 142. Current and past newsletter issues are also available.
Federal Update
The House Committee on Education & Labor marked up its Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill (HR 4137) (.pdf), passing it unanimously out of committee on November 15. Though a slim chance remains that the bill will go to the full floor before the holiday recess, most likely it will be brought to the floor after the New Year. For a list of amendments accepted during markup, read this and this.
President Bush vetoed an appropriations bill for education and healthcare on November 13. On November 15, the House failed to gather enough votes to override the veto. Two hundred twenty-six Democrats and fifty-one Republicans voted to pass the bill, falling short of the required two-thirds majority.
AAUP sent a letter (.pdf) to the Senate outlining concerns with HR 1955, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act 2007" (.pdf). The bill, which passed the House with over 400 members in favor and is currently in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, aims to study the causes of radicalization with the intention of neutralizing domestic threats of violence. However, some of the language is overly broad and there is insufficient statement of protecting civil liberties. For details, see the “Action of the Month” section below.
AAUP drafted a brief questionnaire about higher education for the 2008 presidential candidates, to be delivered to each candidate’s campaign headquarters the first week of December. The responses we receive will be made available on our Web site in January.
Legislator Profile of the Month: Senator Michael Enzi
Senator Enzi (R-WY) is the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). Now serving his tenth year in the Senate, the Senator has been a member of the committee since he was first elected. He founded the congressional caucus on rural education to help make sure that the needs of small communities are covered in federal education legislation. When the Senate passed its HEA reauthorization last summer, Enzi emphasized provisions forbidding loan company incentives to financial aid workers on campuses. He also feels strongly about students’ right to privacy and has voiced concern over the Dept. of Education’s proposal to collect individual student tracking data in a national database.
Note from the Government Relations Committee chair, Gerry Turkel
I had the pleasure of participating in the Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC) “New Leaders Training” session on Government Relations on November 29 at the AAUP national office. This government relations session paralleled the training that was conducted at the October Assembly of State Conferences (ASC) meeting. As Nicole Byrd, John Curtis and I presented the Government Relations committee’s charge and its ongoing and planned projects and discussed issues facing our profession at the national, state and local levels, two things stood out for me. First, the faculty and staff members attending the session were intensely engaged and knowledgeable about the problems of contingent faculty, access to higher education, and the fight for academic freedom. I learned a great deal during the session from these “new leaders.” Second, and closely related, I was struck by the variety of local conditions affecting their campuses and the different political, legal and organizational environments that shape the possibilities for action for chapters in different states. While our commitments to academic freedom, representing our members and our profession, and organizing faculty are deeply shared, the ways in which these commitments are realized take different forms in different contexts. We all have a great deal to learn from one another about the politics of higher education.
The committee is in the process of finalizing two actions that we should all be aware of and build on at our campuses and in our states. First, we wrote a letter expressing our views on HR 1955, the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007” to Senator Joseph Lieberman in his capacity as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. While we support the bill’s general goal of understanding the root causes of radicalization, we are troubled by its vague definitions and lack of distinction between studying violent action and ideology and active advocacy. Please read the letter and the bill and contact your Representatives and Senators to express your concerns
The committee also wrote a questionnaire on issues in higher education that has been sent to the 2008 presidential candidates. The questionnaire focuses on core concerns and legislative priorities that have been developed by the Government Relations Committee and by other committees within the AAUP. This questionnaire could well be adapted for Senate and House candidates in future races. By circulating this questionnaire and presenting the responses we receive from candidates, we will be able to heighten the saliency of higher education as a political issue as the 2008 campaigns proceed.
Featured Articles
*Note: The Chronicle of Higher Education has a series of articles on the 2008 presidential candidates. We encourage AAUP members to read them all. *
“House Panel Backs Higher Ed. Bill.” Inside Higher Ed. 11/16/07
“Cost of College a Bipartisan Concern.” Inside Higher Ed. 11/12/07
“Professors and Politics (Again).” Inside Higher Ed. 11/14/07
Nationwide
Wisconsin’s senate has a bill addressing affirmative action in government hiring and contracting, including the University of Wisconsin System. Under WI SB 265 (.pdf) race or ethnicity may not be considered for anyone applying for admission to a state institution, or applying for grants or loans, if that person is not a U.S. citizen.
New Jersey’s bill NJ AB 4462 would require institutions of higher education to make mental health care services available for students, and for the establishment of a hotline to make students aware of their options.
In Missouri, the so-called “Intellectual Diversity” bill named for student complainant Emily Brooker has been reintroduced. Jane Cunningham, the sponsor of last year’s failed attempt, has reintroduced the bill under number MO HB 1315.
Action of the Month
Use the AAUP letter outlining our concerns regarding HR 1955 either as a model or to send as is to your legislators. For a brief summary, please read the links included in the “Federal Update” section above, and check out the AAUP Government Relations webpage.