A major focus of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure this year continued to be the case of Professor Sami Al-Arian at the University of South Florida and related issues having to do with academic freedom since September 11, 2001. The Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis, formed jointly by Committee A and the Committee on Government Relations, has finished a report that will be published in the November-December issue of Academe. It is a comprehensive overview of the many areas of academic life affected by the USA Patriot Act and other measures taken by the Bush administration in the wake of September 11. The report thoroughly reviews the treatment of foreign students and scholars, limits on scientific research and publication, government access to library and bookstore records, and disputes about curriculum, conferences, and invited speakers (usually on topics related to the conflicts in the Middle East). It offers a number of recommendations to the academic community and to faculty interested in protecting academic freedom at moments such as this, when security is the overwhelming concern of the government.
At its own meetings, Committee A also discussed issues that have emerged from the generally contentious climate on college campuses, among them the activities of Campus Watch (www.campus-watch.org), a Web site that has published descriptions of dubious accuracy of courses on the Middle East, which, in its judgment, do not fairly represent or are critical of the Israeli government's position; a statement by college and university presidents on intimidation-free campuses, circulated by the American Jewish Congress, which singled out intolerance aimed at Jewish students without addressing intolerance directed at Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim groups; the debates about boycotts of Israel and divestiture of investments there; and the comments by Harvard's president Lawrence Summers linking criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Committee A agreed that some of these issues should be left to the Special Committee and that others should be monitored to see whether or not they produce cases of actual infringement of academic freedom. One such case, involving a graduate teaching assistant's provocative course description at the University of California, Berkeley, was resolved when Committee A member Robert Post (a professor in the law school there) wrote a letter clarifying the academic freedom issues for the president of the university. Professor Post's letter was published in the May-June issue of Academe; the committee thought it a model of its kind. And lastly, for the moment at least, at its May meeting Committee A authorized the establishment of a subcommittee to look into a new and troubling development: university administrations' carrying out extensive background checks on faculty.
We welcomed James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, as an observer at our May meeting. We expect this will be the first in a series of ongoing and fruitful collaborations that the AAUP's general secretary has organized with the Canadian association. The committee was also pleased to learn that, at the annual meeting, President Molly Corbett Broad of the University of North Carolina would be presented with the Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom. President Broad is its twenty-first recipient.
Judicial Business
No Recommendation of Action
For the first time since 1967, Committee A presented no recommendations to impose censure to the annual meeting. In three cases that had been investigated and reported on—the University of Virginia, East Texas Baptist University, and the University of South Florida—the committee did not recommend that any action be taken. The Council concurred in each of these recommendations. Committee A presented the statements below concerning these cases to the 2003 annual meeting. The annual meeting accepted the Committee A statements regarding the University of Virginia and East Texas Baptist University, but referred the statement on the University of South Florida back to Committee A for reconsideration. The statement thus will be on the committee's agenda next year. The annual meeting approved a separate resolution, as did the Council, condemning the administration of the University of South Florida for its actions against Professor Al-Arian.
University of Virginia
Committee A presented the following statement concerning the University of Virginia to the 2002 annual meeting:
The report of the investigating committee discusses the sanctions-including removal from teaching responsibilities and the freezing of a scheduled salary increase-that the University of Virginia administration imposed on a tenured professor in 1998 and its subsequent dismissal of him on February 8, 1999. The administration charged the professor with misusing grant monies under his control or failing to exercise appropriate control of those funds.
The university's stated policies in 1998-99 were silent with respect to the imposition of sanctions short of dismissal. The policies were also silent concerning a professor's right, before dismissal, to a hearing on the charges before a faculty body. The administration stated that because the charges against the professor dealt with financial irregularities, rather than academic performance, the requirements of due process in this case were satisfied with a post-dismissal hearing as provided under the university's faculty grievance procedure. The procedure stated that the burden of proof rested with the complaining party, which amounted to the professor's having to prove why he should not have been dismissed.
The investigating committee found that the administration should have given the professor advance notification of each pending action in 1998 and afforded him the opportunity to formulate a response, but that it failed to do so. With respect to the dismissal, the investigating committee rejected the administration's position, supported by a faculty grievance committee, that a post-termination faculty hearing sufficed in this case. The investigating committee found that the administration of the University of Virginia dismissed the professor, terminating payment of salary as of that same day, without having first afforded him basic protections of academic due process as called for in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings, and the Association's Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The investigating committee concluded that the opportunity for a post-dismissal hearing was an unacceptable substitute, particularly so in this case because it would have wrongly required the professor, rather than the administration, to carry the burden of proof.
In November 1999, nine months after he was dismissed, the professor acknowledged in a Virginia court the unauthorized use of a university credit card in his custody linked to a federal grant, and he was thereby required to repay the university $7,000. In fall 2001, when the report of the investigating committee already was in press, the Association learned that the United States Department of Energy had proposed to debar the professor from the award of federal grants, but subsequently decided not to proceed with debarment proceedings. Committee A, however, does not view these developments as mitigating the basic departures from requisite academic due process discussed in the investigating committee's report.
The University of Virginia administration just recently provided the Association with a revised grievance procedure and a new "Procedure for Disciplinary Suspension or Termination of Academic Faculty," formulated this spring after the publication of the investigating committee's report. Each document has been approved by the university's faculty senate and accepted by the administration as official policy. Committee A is pleased to note that the reference to the complainant's having the burden of proof in a case of dismissal has been deleted from the grievance procedure, and that the procedures call for the review of charges, whatever they may be, by a faculty committee before a dismissal is effected. Committee A has, however, identified problems with the new disciplinary procedure when measured against applicable Association-recommended standards. These include concerns relating to the burden of proof in the new dismissal procedure, suspension of a faculty member pending the outcome of a dismissal proceeding, and the right of an accused faculty member to confront and cross-examine witnesses in the course of the hearing. The case of the dismissed professor also requires attention. The committee hopes that these matters can be resolved without undue difficulty, but there simply has not been time and opportunity to initiate discussions of them with the appropriate administrative and faculty officers prior to the annual meeting.
Mindful of the changes in the university's policies to date, but also aware that other significant issues still need to be addressed, Committee A believes that the best course for the prompt achievement of the desired results is to defer Association action until such discussions can be held. Committee A thus withholds any recommendation regarding this case to the 2002 annual meeting but will report again on the University of Virginia to the annual meeting in 2003.
In March 2003, the administration of the University of Virginia provided the staff with the text of revised disciplinary procedures, which had been approved by the university's faculty senate. In addition to the welcome changes identified last year by Committee A, the new procedures provide that the administration will consult with the chair of the faculty senate before suspending a faculty member pending the outcome of a dismissal proceeding, that in such a proceeding the accused faculty member may question witnesses, and that the burden of proof is on the administration to demonstrate adequacy of cause for its proposed action. Committee A believes that these changes in the university's policies should preclude the actions in future cases that characterized the case of concern.
With respect to that case, in October 2002 the subject professor requested that the university's faculty grievance committee examine the "manifest" procedural deficiencies attendant to his dismissal and provide him with a "proper remedy." The committee declined to consider the examination of previous procedures, on grounds that such an examination was beyond its purview, but instead, noting that the university's charges against him had never been reviewed by a faculty body, it offered to consider holding a hearing on the substance of the charges "to be governed" by the committee's policies as subsequently revised. The faculty member chose not to accept the committee's offer. "I do not believe that I can receive justice from any committee," he wrote to the Association's staff, "until the members [of the committee] have the integrity and courage to overcome their fear of angering the [a]dministration."
The dismissed professor's claim for redress cannot be resolved without a hearing on the charges against him. Committee A believes that the grievance committee's offer of a hearing, which the professor declined, was reasonable under the circumstances. In light of these facts regarding the professor's case and of the welcome revisions to the university's procedures, Committee A makes no recommendation to the 2003 annual meeting relating to the administration of the University of Virginia.
East Texas Baptist University
The investigating committee's report deals with action by the administration of East Texas Baptist University to terminate the services of a professor in her eighteenth year of continuous full-time teaching on the faculty. Although the administration's action was in the form of nonrenewal of a one-year appointment, the investigating committee found that the action was tantamount to a dismissal for cause. The investigating committee concluded that the administration acted in violation of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure in dismissing the professor—who had served well beyond any reasonable period of probation—without having afforded her the opportunity for a hearing.
The investigating committee's report goes on to discuss the only reasons known to the committee that relate to cause for the administration's action. These reasons were set forth in a memorandum by the dean that faulted the professor for numerous alleged professional and personal shortcomings and cautioned her not to challenge the memorandum. The investigating committee found that the administration's action was occasioned by its displeasure with the manner of the professor's dissent from the views of other faculty members and of the administration, and that the action was therefore taken for reasons that violated her academic freedom.
Committee A is pleased to note that, shortly after a draft text of the investigating committee's report was sent to the principal parties for comment, the professor reached a satisfactory resolution of her case. Committee A is further pleased to report that the university's Board of Trustees, at its meeting on May 9, approved a revision to the institution's faculty regulations to provide that if any similar situation should arise, the affected faculty member will be afforded a hearing before a faculty committee. The board's action addresses a key procedural issue in the case of concern, and the current administration is committed to improving the climate for academic freedom on the campus. Additional detailed provisions are being further refined in consultation with the Association's staff. In light of these welcome developments, Committee A makes no recommendation to the 2003 annual meeting relating to East Texas Baptist University.
University of South Florida
In September 2001, the administration of the University of South Florida placed the tenured associate professor of computer science whose case was the subject of the AAUP's investigation on leave of absence to ensure his safety. He had been threatened with violence following his interview on a national television show in which he was accused, in the aftermath of September 11, of supporting terrorism. That December, however, the university president notified the professor of her intent to dismiss him. While acknowledging that the professor, who has long championed the Palestinian cause, had the right to speak his mind, her chief charge held him responsible for disruptive activities by others who were intensely hostile to his public remarks. This charge led the AAUP's general secretary to authorize an investigation. The investigating committee visited the university in March 2002 and advised the president, who had not gone beyond issuance of notification of intent to dismiss, that the administration would be ill served if it proceeded with dismissal on the basis of the stated charge. In its subsequent report, the committee concluded that dismissing the professor on the grounds stated would have violated his right to free extramural expression under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
At the time of the investigating committee's March visit, the professor continued to be on paid leave of absence. The administrative officers confirmed that his presence on the campus would no longer pose a threat to safety. The investigating committee, observing that the professor's absence from his campus responsibilities had become an imposed suspension, advised the administration that it had no apparent valid reason for continuing the suspension and that, unless it demonstrated cause for dismissing him, it should allow him to return to his campus responsibilities as soon as possible. Committee A at its meeting in June 2002 issued an interim statement urging reinstatement of the professor to his academic responsibilities no later than the new academic year in August.
Instead, in August the administration brought suit against him, seeking a declaratory judicial judgment that new grounds it wished to propose for dismissing him would be legally permissible. The court rejected the administration's move. The investigating committee's subsequent report concluded that the administration had attempted to circumvent required academic procedures as called for in the 1940 Statement of Principles and the complementary 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings.
The suspension of the professor was allowed to continue well into its second year, with no apparent end in sight. Committee A decided to proceed with the publication of the investigating committee's report, and in mid-February a draft text was sent to the concerned parties at the University of South Florida for their comments. The text concluded that the unconscionably long suspension had become tantamount to a dismissal for cause without affording the professor requisite safeguards of academic due process.
On February 20, a week after the draft text was distributed, federal authorities charged the professor in a fifty-count indictment with criminal conspiracy against the United States through his alleged activities as a key official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (which the Department of State has designated as a terrorist organization). The professor was jailed, denied bond, and remains in custody as preparations for trial go forward.
Six days after his arrest, and following consultation with members of his department and of the faculty senate, the university president acted to dismiss him. The administration stated that it based its action on information in the indictment that "confirmed" its belief that the professor had abused his university position by using its name and resources in the furtherance of "improper, non-educational purposes." The chair of Committee A, in an update written for the investigating committee's published report, emphasized that the criminal charges against the professor remain to be proven. The chair stated that the professor had been dismissed without any opportunity to defend himself against the university administration's charges, and that "the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' ought to be observed in our institutions of higher learning no less than it is in our courts."
Committee A condemns the administration's actions against the professor that have been summarized in this statement, up to his indictment on February 20. Committee A does not view the professor's arrest and incarceration as excusing the administration's grave departures from Association-supported standards of academic due process, notably, by continuing to suspend him without demonstrable cause, by suing him to obtain a declaratory judgment to justify the dismissal, and by then dismissing him without affording him a pretermination hearing. These actions resulted in serious professional harm to the professor.
In evaluating this highly complex and disturbing case, however, the committee has had to consider other significant factors. The president of the university, in her published response to the investigating committee's report, acknowledged that a hearing before a committee of faculty peers should precede any dismissal action, that existing policies had no provision for such a hearing, and that no such hearing was afforded to the professor. She reported that a resolution recently approved by the faculty senate calls for a faculty hearing before issuance of notice of actual or intended dismissal, and that the administration has agreed to the resolution's implementation. The president also pointed out that the professor could have a hearing under university procedures for postdismissal grievance and arbitration.
The professor filed a grievance, but he has requested that academic proceedings be deferred pending the outcome of his criminal case. Parties to the criminal case predict, however, that preparation for trial and the trial itself are likely to take years. Committee A thus recognizes that academic proceedings in the professor's case, assured by the administration and held in abeyance at the professor's request, are most unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future.
Committee A believes there to be no reasonable remedial action that it can request the administration to take at this time despite the harms suffered by the professor. Because of these unique circumstances, the committee makes no recommendation to the 2003 annual meeting regarding the University of South Florida.
Removal of Censure
In four cases, staff discussions with new administrations at institutions on the censure list led to recommendations for removal of the censure. The committee adopted the statements below concerning these cases. The Council concurred in the committee's recommendations, and the censures were removed by vote of the 2003 annual meeting.
Virginia Community College System
Censure was voted by the 1975 annual meeting following a published report on actions by the chancellor and governing board to abolish any further granting of tenure in the twenty-three colleges comprising the Virginia Community College System. The report found that the actions had been taken without the faculty's previous knowledge and contrary to the faculty's expressed wishes.
The system's official policies in recent years have included provisions for academic due process that did not exist when the censure was imposed, but the policies lacked explicit protections that accrue with indefinite tenure following a probationary period. A year ago, however, the current chancellor charged a committee of college presidents in the system with working in cooperation with the Association's staff to develop provisions ensuring these protections. This past February the committee approved AAUP-recommended provisions which include a statement that indefinite retention, after six years of full-time faculty service, is presumed unless the administration demonstrates cause for termination in an appropriate hearing. The approved provisions also include previously absent safeguards against faculty layoffs and a stronger statement on academic freedom. The provisions were approved unanimously at a meeting later that month of all the presidents of the Virginia community colleges, and in March, with the concurrence of the chancellor, the governing board voted to adopt them. Once the Virginia Community College System has been advised that these changes meet the Association's concerns, the system's policies will be revised accordingly.
No recent complaints from faculty members in the system alleging departures from AAUP-supported standards have come to the Association's attention. Individual letters were sent to each AAUP member in the system, reporting on the changes in the policies and inviting comments on potential removal of censure. No reservations from them about doing so have been conveyed. The AAUP's Virginia conference has endorsed removing the censure.
Committee A recommends to the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting that the Virginia Community College System be removed from the Association's list of censured administrations.
New York University
A published report concerning a faculty member in the School of Medicine led to the placement of New York University on the Association's censure list by the 1990 annual meeting. The report found that the medical school's administration had ignored the university's regulations by retaining the faculty member beyond the maximum probationary period without having recognized his attainment of tenure or having promoted him in rank. It found that the administration took fourteen months to inform him that his promotion, on which his dean had congratulated him, had actually not been approved. It found further that the administration had not responded adequately to the faculty member's assertion that he was denied promotion because of considerations that violated his academic freedom.
A year ago a new administration in the School of Medicine expressed interest in resolving the case that occasioned the censure. A resolution fully satisfactory to the faculty member was achieved last fall. The settlement included official recognition by New York University that the decision to deny him promotion and tenure was wrong, with the correct decision now placed on record retroactively. The School of Medicine has adopted procedures that should preclude any such case in the future. Moreover, the School of Medicine has adopted commendable provisions, previously nonexistent, for a collegial faculty role in evaluating and mentoring candidates for promotion and tenure.
A case elsewhere in the university that concerned the Association, involving denial of tenure, was resolved several months ago. A more recent case at another school in the university, involving the suspension of a professor, ceased to be of immediate concern when the administration rescinded the suspension upon the Association's recommendation. The Association's staff is unaware of any other current cases at the university that require its attention. The AAUP chapter at New York University has informed the staff that it does not know of any obstacles to censure removal, and that it would welcome action on the matter without further consideration or delay. The officers of the AAUP's New York State conference have been informed of the prospective action, and they, too, have been supportive.
Committee A recommends to the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting that New York University be removed from the Association's list of censured administrations.
University of Central Arkansas
The Association's 2000 Annual Meeting imposed censure on the University of Central Arkansas administration. The investigating committee's report dealt with the case of a tenured professor who was abruptly dismissed without affordance of academic due process as called for in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the university's own stated policies. The report goes on to discuss the case of a professor in her thirteenth year of service who was denied tenure and deprived of faculty status, although retained in a staff position. The report found that the administration's decision to deny her tenure was made well after any reasonable period of probation and, because it was motivated to a significant degree by the high proportion of tenured faculty within her department, that the decision was in disregard of the Association's statement On the Imposition of Tenure Quotas.
The report also dealt with the cases of two lecturers who in March of their eighth year on the faculty were notified that they would not be retained for a ninth year. The report found that the administration acted at odds with applicable Association-supported standards in not reappointing the lecturers after they had served beyond the maximum period allowed for probation, in not stating reasons for releasing them, in providing no opportunity for appeal, and in issuing late notification.
Finally, the report dealt with a policy adopted by the administration and the governing board allowing faculty members to forgo the possibility of tenure in exchange for a higher salary. It found that this policy illustrated a lack of appreciation for basic principles of academic freedom and tenure.
Soon after the investigating committee's report was published, the dismissed professor, who had initiated litigation, reached agreement on a financial settlement with the administration and the board. The president of the university whose actions led to the Association's censure left office in December 2001. After an interim administration, the new president took office this past October. He announced promptly that two of his top priorities were winning the trust of the faculty and achieving removal of the AAUP censure. A university committee, with membership from the faculty senate and the AAUP chapter, set to work in close consultation with the Association's staff to formulate revisions in the official policies to bring them into conformity with essential AAUP-supported standards. Remaining issues of redress were also reviewed. The committee's report was issued in April and approved successively by the AAUP chapter and the senate. A few weeks later, the president of the university wrote to inform the Association that the Board of Trustees, meeting on May 9, approved all the policy changes the committee had recommended, including rescission of the policy on relinquishing tenure in return for a larger salary.
The president also reported board-supported action to grant faculty tenure to the professor who had been denied it in her thirteenth year and to provide financial compensation to the two lecturers.
A member of the AAUP's Council visited the university a few weeks ago as the Association's representative. In a letter supporting censure removal, she has stated that she observed "a sense of great positive energy on the campus."
Committee A recommends to the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting that the University of Central Arkansas be removed from the Association's list of censured administrations.
Southwestern Adventist University
The administration of Southwestern Adventist University was placed on censure by the 1985 annual meeting. Censure followed an investigating committee's report on the president's dismissal of a professor without having provided adequate reasons and without having afforded basic safeguards of academic due process. The committee concluded that the dismissal case reflected an inadequate commitment by the administration to generally accepted principles of academic tenure for all postprobationary faculty members.
The president who dismissed the professor left office shortly afterward. The professor stated at the time, and now in retirement has reaffirmed, that she has no interest in any redress for herself but wishes only to see improved conditions at the institution she was forced to leave. Successive presidents balked at recommendations from the Association's staff that the protections of tenure be extended to the handful of senior faculty members who were serving on renewable term appointments. They stated that those faculty members lacked academic credentials currently required for tenure and that the dismissal was an aberration attributable to the president then in office.
This spring, a new president of Southwestern Adventist University informed the Association that he wished to do what was necessary to bring the censure to an end. The staff proposed the adoption of a policy, and provided specific language, to ensure continuing appointments for all full-time faculty members retained beyond five years unless the administration demonstrates cause for discontinuance in a hearing before faculty peers. The president told the staff that severe financial problems the year before he took office had led to the elimination of two faculty positions. The staff accordingly proposed the adoption of additional policy, again providing specific language, to require the administration, in the event of financial exigency, to explore all reasonable alternatives before terminating full-time faculty positions and to consult with appropriate faculty before any reduction of positions. A few weeks later, the president notified the Association's staff that the recommended language had been adopted in full and will be printed in the next edition of the faculty handbook.
The AAUP chapter president at a nearby university, serving as the Association's representative, visited Southwestern Adventist University late in May and met with administrative officers and members of the faculty. He has reported that the current climate for academic freedom seems quite positive, and he strongly supports removing the censure. The president of the AAUP's Texas conference has been informed of the possibility of action on the censure and has expressed no concerns.
Committee A recommends to the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting that Southwestern Adventist University be removed from the Association's list of censured administrations.
Legislative Business
At its November meeting, Committee A discussed a revised draft of a report, College and University Academic and Professional Appointments, prepared by the Association's Committee on Academic Professionals. We agreed that the revisions were largely responsive to concerns we had expressed about an earlier draft text, and that view was conveyed to the Council. The report was further revised by the Council at its meeting on November 9, 2002, and then adopted as Association policy. The final text was published in the March-April 2003 issue of Academe. In November, and again in May, the committee discussed a draft report on contingent faculty appointments prepared by a joint subcommittee of Committee A and the Committee on Part-Time and Non-Tenure-Track Appointments. In May, we recommended that, with revisions, the draft text be published for comment in Academe.
At its May meeting, too, the committee authorized publication of the following statement on an issue of academic freedom.
Academic Freedom and Rejection of Research Funds from Tobacco Corporations
Committee A was informed by its staff that some university administrations have banned acceptance of research funds from tobacco corporations, and that at least one funding agency will not award a grant to an applicant at an institution that is currently receiving funds from a tobacco corporation. Supporters of these bans assert that tobacco companies have a long history of manipulating scientific research about the dangers of smoking and of harassing faculty researchers and their institutions through aggressive legal tactics. They maintain that this conduct sets tobacco companies apart from other corporations, and they have urged that accepting research money from the tobacco industry should be prohibited out of hand.
Committee A rejects the rationale underlying this position. To be sure, in a 1992 statement, An Issue of Academic Freedom in Refusing Outside Funding for Faculty Research, the committee cited several legitimate reasons for an administration to disapprove of a funding source, for example, because the external agency was insisting on too large a commitment of the university's resources to the research project, because there was a history of the agency's failure to honor its commitments, or because the agency insisted on preconditions or restrictions regarding the research that violated academic freedom.1
A very different situation obtains, however, when a university objects to a funding agency because of its corporate behavior. As a practical matter, the distinction between degrees of corporate misdeeds is too uncertain to sustain a clear, consistent, and principled policy for determining which research funds to accept and which to reject. An institution which seeks to distinguish between and among different kinds of offensive corporate behavior presumes that it is competent to distinguish impermissible corporate wrongdoing from wrongful behavior that is acceptable. A university which starts down this path will find it difficult to resist demands that research bans should be imposed on other funding agencies that are seen as reckless or supportive of repellent programs. If the initiative in calling for these bans on the funding of faculty research comes from the faculty itself, our concerns about the restraints on academic freedom are not thereby lessened. A university at which the research is conducted should not be identified with the views and behavior of the tobacco industry because faculty members accept its funding, just as the university should not be identified as necessarily endorsing the content of the researcher's work.
Denying a faculty member the opportunity to receive research funding for such reasons would curtail that individual's academic freedom no less than if the university acted directly to halt research that it considers unpalatable. Also inconsistent with academic freedom in Committee A's judgment is a policy under which a funding agency conditions acceptance of its money on the university's rejecting funds from tobacco corporations. What a university on its own initiative should not proscribe lest it infringe on freedom of research, it also should not proscribe because of pressure from a funding agency.
In Conclusion
This has been a demanding year for Committee A and we have, as usual, relied on the impressive work of the Washington office staff to help us in our deliberations, and to remind us of precedents and of the legal pitfalls we might face. As pressure is exerted to curb free expression in the name of national security, academic freedom has become a threatened national resource. The challenge for us is to protect and strengthen this vital resource. It is a challenge that Committee A, with its dedicated and thoughtful membership, together with the Association more generally, is working hard to meet.
JOAN WALLACH SCOTT(History), Institute for Advanced Studies, chair
1. Academe: Bulletin of the AAUP (September-October 1992): 49. Back to text.
Cases Settled Through Staff Mediation
The work of Committee A's staff in bringing cases to a sound resolution is illustrated in the four 2002-03 accounts that follow. Nearly twenty such cases were closed during this past academic year after having been resolved through mediation by the staff.
A Faculty Member at a Large Public University in the Southwest
A faculty member at a large public university in the Southwest was notified in the summer that the position he held was likely to be changed and that after the coming academic year someone else might well be selected to fill it. The title of his position was faculty research associate, because of the particular budget line that funded it, and in annual appointment letters it had been defined as "temporary," with its continuance conditioned on the availability of funding. For over a decade, however, he had not functioned as a research associate but had served as a full-time teacher of courses carrying academic credit.
The faculty member turned for assistance to the Association's staff, which pointed out to the administration that his work seemed indistinguishable from that of others who perform similarly and who are recognized as falling under the system of probation and tenure. The staff noted further that "temporary" had lost any real meaning when applied to service in excess of a decade and that the faculty member, having been retained as a full-time teacher well beyond any reasonable period of probation, should receive tenure's protections upon being confronted with the involuntary termination of his services. It urged the administration to recognize that the length and nature of the faculty member's services made him no longer subject to release simply at the discretion of those with administrative responsibilities.
The university's administrative officers indicated that the concerns conveyed by the Association's staff would be considered as plans for the position were being formulated. In the spring, they gave the faculty member reason to expect retention beyond that academic year. In the early summer, they issued him an appointment at the rank of lecturer for the first year of a three-year cycle of teaching appointments, with future such cycles possible indefinitely thereafter.
An Adjunct Instructor at a Small Private College in the Northeast
An adjunct instructor at a small private college in the Northeast who was completing his eleventh semester of teaching at the institution was notified orally in the late fall that he would not be offered any teaching in the spring semester. Prior to receiving notification, he had been listed in the college's published schedule of classes to teach a course. The course was in fact to be offered but had been reassigned to another faculty member. When the instructor's internal appeal of the decision proved unavailing, he sought the Association's assistance. After reviewing the documents he had provided, the staff wrote to the administration. Citing the Association's report The Status of Part-Time Faculty, which provides that "part-time faculty who have been employed for six or more terms, or consecutively for three or more terms, should receive at least a full term's notice of nonreappointment," the staff pointed out that the administration's action was inconsistent with recommended practice. It urged corrective action.
Upon receipt of the letter, the college's dean of academic affairs telephoned the staff for guidance on an appropriate resolution of the matter. Several days later, the dean wrote that the administration would be willing to pay the instructor the money he would have received for teaching the course. The instructor, informing the staff that he was accepting the administration's offer, expressed thanks for the Association's mediative efforts in bringing it about.
A Faculty Member in his Third Year of Service
A faculty member in his third year of service at one of the colleges of a large municipal university in the East was a candidate for reappointment and for an early decision on promotion and tenure. That year, he became involved in a dispute with senior members of his department over a search for a new member, over speakers at a teach-in, and over issues of course prerequisites and workload. The high quality of the faculty member's accomplishments in scholarship, teaching, and service was acknowledged by all, yet the department's evaluating committee, its chair, and a collegewide committee of chairs recommended against his candidacy, referring to lack of collegiality as grounds for their position.
At the faculty member's request, the Association's staff wrote to the president of the college and the chancellor of the university, calling their attention to the Association's statement On Collegiality as a Criterion for Faculty Evaluation with its admonition against citing "collegiality" as a category separate from the traditional three areas of faculty performance. By the time the case reached the college president's desk, it had become widely publicized in the academic community, with others joining in the call for adherence to the Association's policy document and its conclusion that an alleged "absence of collegiality ought never, by itself, to constitute a basis for nonreappointment, denial of tenure, or dismissal for cause." The president of the college granted the faculty member reappointment but allowed the recommendation against promotion and tenure to stand. A few months later, however, the chancellor of the university, after obtaining the advice of an independent faculty committee, acted with the concurrence of the Board of Trustees to overturn the negative recommendation and approve the faculty member's candidacy for promotion and tenure.
A Senior Professor at an Independent Middle Atlantic Research University
A senior professor at an independent Middle Atlantic research universitywas engaged in a bitter dispute with the dean of his school over whether he would retire and, if so, under what terms. With a mutually acceptable resolution apparently not in sight, the dean wrote to the professor. After asserting that it was to his advantage to retire rather than suffer dismissal for cause, her letter gave him three working days to agree to retire. His not doing so, the letter continued, would result in his suspension from the faculty effective at 5 P.M. on the third day and in the initiation of dismissal proceedings. The dean's letter prohibited the professor, among other things, "from harassing any member of the faculty, administration, or any employee or student of the university at any location."
Learning of the content of the dean's letter only a few hours before the suspension was to go into effect, a member of the Association's staff tried unsuccessfully to reach the dean and the university president by telephone. He then sent each of them an e-mail message, urging that the suspension be deferred until he had opportunity to talk with them about the Association's concerns. A senior vice president of the university, acting on behalf of the president who was out of town, called back early the next morning. The Association's staff member explained to him that he was in no position to address the merits of the administration's case for dismissing the professor, but that the basis for suspension pending the result of a hearing on dismissal, a threat of immediate harm, was not readily apparent. The staff member stated that the abruptness of imposing the suspension was troubling, as was the extremely broad scope of what the professor was suspended from doing. Moreover, the staff member pointed out, suspending the professor from the faculty did not seem necessary in seeking his dismissal if he cannot be induced to retire.
The senior vice president assured the staff member that the Association's position on the suspension would be given careful consideration. Forty-eight hours later, he telephoned the staff member to acquaint him with the content of a memorandum to be sent from the dean to the professor rescinding the suspension effective immediately, but with a warning that a failure to adhere to certain expectations of conduct would result in a recommendation to the university president to approve reinstatement of the suspension. The staff member advised the senior vice president that the warning seemed fair enough under the circumstances, and the memorandum rescinding the suspension was delivered to the professor that same day.