Academic Freedom

The Trump administration has made it their goal to police speech both on and off our campus, and Columbia is all to happy to comply. As scholars and teachers, it’s important that we be able to speak and write freely without fear of reprisal from our employer.

Our articles:

  • Management and Academic Rights (Article 1)

What we’re trying to fix:

  • Current climate: The current university climate prevents us from teaching and researching freely. We have seen graduate students and professors across US universities face termination, discipline, and forced retirement for teaching material well within their areas of expertise, especially related to gender and Palestine. Our colleagues have been doxed for speech and the university has done little to support them or ensure their personal and professional wellbeing. 

  • University oversight: Columbia has contributed to this general climate by proceeding with investigations into student workers for professionally-relevant teaching and research, affecting degree progression, job opportunities, and general health. It has also subjected institutes and departments to (potentially even non-specialist) review based on political agendas. As professors have also noted, it has adopted standards and disciplinary procedures that broadly disallow academic integrity in our work. 

  • Control over teaching: We lack control over the course content that we develop for our teaching. We have also seen a rise in surreptitious recording of instructors used to dox them, and we currently do not have rights to refuse recording of our classes (in cases where not necessary for instructional or accommodations reasons). 

  • Control over research: We have little say in how our research work may be used, and we are also sometimes excluded from consideration as originators of work that we contribute to. In certain cases, our work may be used in ways that we deem damaging to public health and safety, or otherwise unconscionable. 

What we want to win:

  • Academic Freedom

    • The right to teach and research the topics of our choice

    • The right to speak as individuals internally and externally to the university without unreasonable discipline or censorship by our supervisors, the University, or government entities

  • Copyright and Intellectual Property

    • Protections for and greater control over the products of our teaching labor, including the ability to retain control of course content we develop while at Columbia and to refuse recording of our teaching

  • Research Integrity

    • Recognition of student workers as significant contributors or originators of scientific conceptions/inventions

  • Conscientious objection by student worker originators to protect against abuses

Important links:

We aren’t the first union to ask for these protections, and we wouldn’t be the first to win it. Here are just a few contracts won by our siblings at other locals:

  • Wright State AAUP (see Article 5 “Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibilities”)

  • PSC CUNY (see Article 21 “Disciplinary Actions” 21.1d)

  • GEO UMass Amherst (See Article 21 “Professional Rights”)

  • GSU MIT (See Article 17 “Professional Responsibilities and Rights” Section 1)

Our demands are in line with our faculty colleagues across the country. Here are some resources from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) that speak about this more.