Jane Buck, Ph.D.

Remarks for the Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) 
10 June 2006
Washington, DC

    Welcome to the 92nd Annual Meeting of the AAUP. Our theme this year is “The Public Image and the Private Reality of Faculty.” Expanding on that theme, I shall speak briefly on what I perceive to be the public image and private reality of the Association. Six years ago I addressed this body as president-elect, the first from a collective bargaining chapter. Today I address you for the last time as president and still the only collective bargaining president in the history of the Association. What I hope you will take away from my remarks is a profound sense that the distinction between traditional advocacy chapters and unionized chapters is not only irrelevant, but destructively divisive. However we perceive ourselves as an organization and however we ultimately restructure, we are a collective. We exist to serve a noble profession and its highest aspirations for the common good. We are unique in our single-minded defense of the values that have made American higher education the envy of the world. If we permit parochial political concerns and personal ambition to override our commitment to higher purpose, we betray our very essence.
    Shortly after assuming the presidency, I started to list all the categories one might consider relevant in choosing an elected leader or in appointing a committee member. Those most frequently mentioned by other leaders and staff were collective bargaining status, academic discipline, full- or part-time status, geographical location, type of institution, race, gender, and scholarly reputation. It would be foolish to deny that diversity based on these and other variables is both healthy and desirable. In my view, however, loyalty to the Association’s principles and the ability and willingness to work assiduously and effectively to accomplish our goals are overarching considerations. No individual is entitled to a special place at the table because of personal ties or demographic characteristics. And no chapter, conference, or affiliate should lay claim to such entitlement because of the size of its treasury or its ability to deliver votes for a candidate seeking an elective position. At the end of that path is a pool of corruption.
    For the past six years I have heard the Association described as “just another union” by individuals at one end of the spectrum and by those at the opposite end as an irrelevant and ineffectual vestige of a less complicated and more innocent time. There are those inside and outside the organization who view the staff and the elected leadership as either politically naïve obstacles to progress or as fire-breathing radicals who will bring dishonor to a revered institution. The same act is viewed by some as too much, too soon and by others as much too little, much too late.
    In May 2000, just a month before I became president, the AAUP staged the first demonstration in its history at Bennington College. What led to this extraordinary action was the summary dismissal in mid-term of the college's only philosophy professor because he had had the temerity to publicly criticize Bennington’s president, Elizabeth Coleman. Bennington had been on our list of censured administrations since 1995, following the dismissal the previous year of a third of its faculty and the abolition of presumptive tenure. Consequently, imposing censure was not an option.
    Just over a month ago, President-elect Cary Nelson and I became the first AAUP presidents to be arrested in the line of duty. We chose, deliberately and thoughtfully, to perform an act of civil disobedience that we knew would lead to our arrest, aware that there were those among our own ranks who would consider us rash and even undignified. Once again we were impelled by events so egregiously violative of the ethical standards to which a renowned and respected university ordinarily subscribes that dramatic protest seemed not only appropriate but obligatory.
     In March 2000, graduate teaching assistants at New York University, organized as Local 2110 under the aegis of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee-United Auto Workers (GSOC-UAW), became the first graduate employee union at a private university to be certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Building on that victory, graduate students at Columbia, Brown, Tufts, and Penn initiated organizing efforts on their campuses. The NYU administration and the union negotiated a contract that raised stipends by an average 40% and provided health care for the first time to graduate employees. In 2004, the NLRB, reconstituted with a majority of Bush appointees, ruled that graduate employees are primarily students, not workers, and that, therefore, private universities are under no legal obligation to recognize graduate student unions.
    When the collective bargaining agreement expired in the fall of 2005, the NYU administration, cynically disregarding the will of the majority of its graduate employees, refused to bargain a new contract, citing the NLRB decision. It is important to note that the NLRB decision did not forbid recognition of the union; it merely gave the administration that option. In letters to the administration and the press, I argued, as I continue to do, that the only ethically responsible route is to return to the bargaining table.    
    The NYU administration claims that its decision was based in part on the premise that allowing teaching assistants to have bargaining rights jeopardizes the traditional roles of professor and student, because the TAs will be placed in an adversarial relationship with their faculty mentors. The NYU chapter of AAUP has organized an initiative called Faculty Democracy, and more than 200 faculty members are active participants in that effort and have declared their support for the graduate student employees. It is both disingenuous and risible to assert that the mentoring relationship is harmed by good faith negotiations about salaries, benefits, and access to fair grievance procedures.
    It would appear, rather, that the decision to sever ties with the union was motivated, at best, by expedience over principle. Graduate assistants perform the teaching duties of a professor. They may join AAUP with full voting rights and the right to hold office at every level of the organization. The AAUP's 2000 "Statement on Graduate Students" asserts, in part, that "graduate student assistants, like other campus employees, should have the right to organize to bargain collectively" and "must not suffer retaliation from professors or administrators because of their activity relating to collective bargaining."
    Important as it is to recognize the negative impact on the lives and careers of the NYU graduate students, there is a much larger issue. The exploitation of graduate employees is symptomatic of the ongoing and deepening threat posed to academic freedom and shared governance by the overuse and abuse of contingent academic labor. The latest available figures indicate that in 2003, 65%— almost two-thirds—of the professorate were ineligible for tenure, and an additional 11%, although tenure-eligible, had not yet achieved it. Only 24% of the professorate were both full-time and tenured. To repeat, in 2003, only 24% of the professorate were both full-time and tenured.
    Although the Association responded to this potentially catastrophic phenomenon somewhat late in the game, we did so with a well-crafted statement on contingent appointments that, as is the case with many of our statements, is widely quoted as recommending best practice. And we are unique in our recognition of our contingent part-time colleagues, who hold elective office and positions on many of our standing committees.
    During the past year, AAUP members across the country fought successfully against efforts to include language in federal and state legislation obligating colleges and universities to establish and enforce requirements controlling the scholarly methodologies and perspectives that faculty members can present in their classrooms. So successful were these and other Association initiatives that the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has honored us with an “AAUP Watch.”
    The Association worked energetically to protect academic freedom in other areas as well. We adopted a statement calling attention to political intrusions into government-funded science research. We opposed a call, later withdrawn, from our colleagues in the UK for an academic boycott of Israeli universities. And, in response to an egregious violation of academic freedom, we defended professors whose administration dismissed them for refusing to change grades they had assigned to their students.
    We filed amicus briefs in important cases involving job-related speech among public employees, a secrecy provision of the USA PATRIOT Act, and the exclusion of foreign scholars from the United States. As you might know, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent European Muslim scholar, was invited to speak at last year’s Annual Meeting and was denied a visa to enter the United States. This year Professor Ramadan was again invited and was once again unsuccessful in gaining entrance to this country. Academic freedom is in grave jeopardy when the movement of scholars is restricted on the basis of real or imagined political ties.
    To say that the past six years have been challenging is to indulge in both cliché and pathetic understatement. At the societal level we have witnessed two highly disputed presidential elections, a devastating terror attack, a war that many believe to be mistaken at best, murderous storms, and escalating divisions in the polity. All of these have very serious consequences for the academy and thus for the Association. As we have always done, we have called upon some of our most thoughtful and experienced members to suggest solutions.
    Serving as president, an honor I did not dream of when I joined the Association as a graduate student, has been one of the most daunting and joyful experiences of my life. I end my term tomorrow when I turn over the gavel to Cary Nelson, who, I predict, will be one of the best presidents in our history. Larry Gerber continues as First Vice President and Jeff Butts as Secretary-Treasurer. Estelle Gellman joins them as Second Vice President. I have been privileged to count these four as valued colleagues and friends for many years. All have served in many capacities at every level of the organization. Their dedication to AAUP and its principles is unquestionable, and their judicious approach to our challenges, both internal and external, is worthy of emulation. We have not agreed on every issue, but we have always disagreed with civility and in the spirit of finding solutions that will further our purposes. It is our good fortune that they will lead us for the next two years.
    We are not always right when we speak out, but we are always wrong when we do not.