[Vision2020] State Faculty Union Responds to Financial Crisis

[Nick Gier]

Hi Joe,

If WSU has a financial exigency policy or program reduction 
procedures, then it is true that the administration can fire tenured 
faculty members.  If the policies are anything like ours, the target 
must be programs and not faculty.

During the 1981 UI exigency I interviewed all 17 faculty on the 
lay-off list, and in every case we heard the complaint that "dean has 
been wanting to fire me for a long time."  We eventually won our suit 
(over $1 million for 8 faculty members) because we were able to show 
that the ag. dean had ordered $100,000 worth of computer equipment, 
which of course undermined his claim of financial emergency.

Tenure is not a myth.  It's legally solid except for these 
circumstances, and it serves primarily to protect academic freedom so 
that Joe and I can research and teach controversial issues.

Why don't some of you start an AFT chapter? In the late 70s I spent 
an entire spring break signing up about 40 WSU faculty, but the 
Washington AFT officials did not follow up. Granted, AAUP has the 
principles (I was a member for many years) but AFT has the courage 
and resources to fight for those principles.

Hope that you and your department survive.

Nick


"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson  (Thanks for this quote Jennifer!)

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

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