Irwin Yellowitz (City College/CUNY), Chair, Conference Committee A
On Saturday morning, April 3, 2004, there was a panel discussion led
by Irwin Yellowitz, Chair of the New York State Conference-AAUP Committee
A on Academic Freedom and Tenure; Jonathan Knight, Associate Secretary,
national AAUP, and staff member for national Committee A; and Jane
Panek, Chairwoman of national AAUP¹s Committee on Governance.
The panel was entitled "The Impact of Censure in the Current Academic
World." The discussion was timely, in view of the fact that on
Saturday, June 12, the Plenary Session of the national AAUP Meeting
will consider the possibility of censuring Medaille College in Buffalo.
Censure -- the expression of strong disapproval -- is the best known
activity of the AAUP. How effective is censure in meeting its objective
of disciplining institutions that violate AAUP's standards? Does publicizing
the departure from academic norms prevent other administrations from
acting in a similar way? Does it benefit the victims of violations?
The panelists and audience discussed these basic questions, and many
others.
Only a tiny minority of institutions -- 185 -- have been on the censure
list, although the number of complaints that reach national Committee
A on Academic Freedom and Tenure is about 1,000 a year. Each one of
these receives careful attention, and approximately 100 produce contact
with the institution. Four to 6 annually lead to an investigation by
a team of faculty members from outside the institution complained against.
An edited report of the investigation is considered by Committee A,
and this version is sent to the persons and institutions involved for
comment. The report is then printed in AAUP's magazine, Academe, and
finally sent to the Annual Meeting of AAUP, where censure may be decided
upon.
Membership on the censure list should carry a highly negative stigma.
The AAUP uses censure sparingly to identify egregious violations of
its standards. At present, there are 49 institutions on the list of
censured administrations. Censure is a visible sign of failure by those
institutions to follow widely accepted norms.
What are the criteria for an investigation and possible censure? Of
central importance is the "1940 Statement on Academic Freedom
and Tenure," which has been endorsed by the Association of American
Colleges and Universities, and dozens of other academic, professional,
and disciplinary organizations. Also key are related documents that
also appear in the "Redbook" --Policy Documents and Reports
-- the AAUP's updated compendium of sound academic principles and procedures.
Most major colleges and universities accept an academic culture that
includes as major elements academic freedom, tenure to protect academic
freedom, and a system of shared governance. AAUP standards are based
on this same culture.
However, many colleges and universities do not subscribe to this culture,
and they constitute the great majority of the institutions that have
been censured over the years. They feel no shame because they do not
accept AAUP's standards; they suffer no loss because their students
and alumni, some of their faculty members, administrators, and trustees
are unaware or unconcerned about sound academic standards. For such
institutions, censure means little, and things go on as before.
The increase in corporate attitudes in academe only adds to this situation
by weakening respect for AAUP's principles and procedures. Many administrators
today are not drawn from the faculty. They are professional managers
who often lack the basic connection to AAUP's standards that comes
from never having had faculty status. In addition, the increasing substitution
of adjuncts and non-tenure-bearing lines for full-time tenured positions
breaks down the intimate linkage between tenure and academic freedom
that is at the heart of AAUP's standards.
Good governance is key to promoting AAUP's standards and thereby preventing
the failure that the need for censure represents. Accreditation is
a potential means to these ends which requires accrediting teams to
promote AAUP's standards. Unfortunately, it is seldom used. Accrediting
agencies do not consider academic freedom and tenure, and rarely examine
the governance structure of the institution. In a recent case, an accrediting
team visited a university on the censure list, but took no note of
the censure. Where the faculty enjoys a solid governance structure,
issues of governance, academic freedom, and tenure may be stressed
in the self-study reports that underlie the visit of an accrediting
team, and the self-study reports will support AAUP's standards. However,
this happens at the very institutions at which violations of the standards
are least likely to occur. The conundrum is how to reach the institutions
where improvement is most needed, and where faculty organization is
correspondingly weak. In such a situation, self-study reports are unlikely
to support AAUP's principles and procedures, and accrediting agencies
will simply ignore the subject.
Censured Institutions in New York State
Some institutions do come off the censure list. Committee A staff
regularly contact censured institutions to seek the changes needed
to end censure. In many cases, there is no response. In some, there
is success, as exemplified by the case of the City University of New
York. New York University was removed from the list by the Annual Meeting
in 2003.
CUNY was censured in 1977 because of a retrenchment policy that resulted
from the financial crisis of the 1970s. It was removed from censure
in 1983. In 1981, the Professional Staff Congress, the union of CUNY's
faculty and staff, entered into an affiliation with the AAUP, and made
the removal of censure a major demand on the administration. At the
time, two successive chancellors of CUNY were fortunately receptive
to ending the censure. These factors led to new retrenchment guidelines
and the end of the censure. In most cases, major institutions that
come on to the censure list are ultimately removed because the specific
violations that led to censure are remedied, often when a new set of
administrators comes into place. Since major institutions basically
share in the academic culture that underlies AAUP's standards, deviation
is subject to correction. Such is not the case for the many colleges
and universities outside the academic culture and the resulting AAUP
standards.
At present, there are four institutions from New York on the list of
censured administrations. A fifth, Medaille College, has been investigated
(see other items on this web site - ed.), and its case will come before
the AAUP's Annual Meeting, where a decision about censure will be made.
Discussion at the Spring Conference Meeting
Panelist Knight, in his April 3, 2004, remarks, said that if censure
represented a failure of institutions to observe AAUP principles, it
also represented a failure on the AAUP's part to resolve a case and
advance the standards and welfare of the profession. The criteria for
having an investigation were serious departures from the 1940 principles
and positions derived from them. Censure should be kept special. The
criteria for censure were:
> What has the individual suffered? A resignation is worth looking into.
> What can the academic community learn from the case? Potential faculty
members will want to know the reasons for the censure. Other institutions
may be leery of hiring administrators involved in the events leading up to
censure. Professional organizations can and do publish lists of censured institutions.
The removal of censure is a sign of success, said Knight. To get off
the censure list, an institution must improve censurable conditions
on campus and make amends to the individual, although the cost to the
individual cannot be fully repaid.
Professor Panek said that on behalf of national Committee A on Academic
Freedom and Tenure, she had served on a joint subcommittee with Larry
Gerber (Auburn University) of the national Committee on Governance
looking for ways to make clear what a deliberate process can accomplish.
How do we get people to know what AAUP principles are? She mentioned
connecting handbook policies to AAUP standards and handling of Middle
States evaluators in such a way as to suggest that the faculty is perceived
as united and to be taken seriously. "Vigilance is tiring."
In the discussion which followed the presentation by panelists Knight
and Panek, Patricia Bentley (State University of New York College/Plattsburgh)
spoke of the censure of SUNY, which has continued since 1978. As at
CUNY, the issue was the retrenchments that flowed from the fiscal crisis
of the 1970's. Bentley argued that censure of a central administration
in a multi-campus system should not apply to the individual colleges
and universities within it. Jonathan Knight responded that the retrenchment
policies that led to censure were applied to the whole of SUNY, and
that unlike CUNY's, they have not been changed to meet AAUP's standards.
Thus SUNY remains censured. It is one of the few major institutions
to remain on the censure list for decades.
The Conference discussion also elicited mention of another complexity
of the censure process. It is possible that a union contract, even
one entered into by one of AAUP's own unions, may contain language
that violates AAUP's standards. This was true at Temple University,
which was censured in the 1980's; it also applies to SUNY, where the
faculty and staff union, United University Professions, with which
the AAUP enjoys a relationship, has such a contractual provision (Article
35, dealing with retrenchment). This is not true for the contract between
the Professional Staff Congress and CUNY. On the other hand, union
contract provisions may differ from the AAUP's, but they often represent
a much more effective means to protect the membership. Unions are reluctant
to scrap contractual language that works and that was often hard-won,
in favor of AAUP provisions that were formulated in a non-union environment
and may be less effective. This is a complicated and sticky area, in
which problems can be resolved, but only through much effort.
AAUP's standards continue to have significant support in academe. The
alternative of unionization has been slowed by the U.S. Supreme Court's
Yeshiva decision of 1981, which stalled organizing in the private colleges
and universities; by a negative political climate in many states; and
by the reluctance of some faculty members to accept unions. Censure
has its weaknesses, but also its successes. For all its problems, censure
will remain.
John D. Diehl
Editor, New York Academe
jdiehl1@twcny.rr.com
last update: June 7, 2004
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