Unions on Campus

USF employs over 7,000 people - nearly 6,000 full-time - and that doesn't count people working for private subcontractors or working in OPS (Other Personnel Services). If you are a USF employee, you may be represented by a union.

The United Faculty of Florida (UFF) represents regular faculty (tenured and tenure-track professors at all ranks, and multi-year contracted instructors) and non-teaching faculty (computer technicians, counselors, librarians, etc.), except for employees of the Medical School. UFF also represents departmental chairs, associate or vice chairs, program directors, etc., in the Colleges of Arts & Sciences and Education. Unfortunately, there is no union representation for adjuncts.

The Graduate Assistants' United (GAU), a chapter of the UFF, represents non-Medical Graduate and Research Assistants. Phone 4-2428.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a fellow affiliate of the AFL-CIO, represents the University Support Personnel System (USPS) employees. Contact Kevin Frenzel at 4-5611.

The other two unions are more specialized.

The Florida Police Benevolent Association (FPBA) represents campus police officers. See http://www.flpba.org/; contact Derrick Dial.

The Florida Nurse's Association (FNA) represents professional health care employees, excluding faculty. See http://www.floridanurse.- org/.

For the contracts negotiated by these unions, see http://www.borfl.org/ohr, while the site lasts.

Academic Freedom at USF

by Greg McColm

Last year, in a class covering confrontational art, students were exposed to a provocative photograph. The photograph was of a black man having sex with a white woman. It was a commentary on the sexual aspect of white racism. This was mainstream confrontational art, but still something many college students haven't seen.

One student complained to her father, who complained to the Administration. Whereupon the Administration should have told her father that this was part of the course: indeed, the lesson of that day's class was confrontational art.

Actually, the Administration panicked, tried to reassign the photographer, got public protests, panicked again, and then tried to soothe hurt feelings with $ 25,000. Then they blamed the state for the panic, and reasserted their dedication to ... academic freedom.

Here is the sad truth about administrators. Most have good intentions and try their best: few are possessed by a malignant desire to lock faculty in cages and censor their scribblings. Alas, they are easily frightened by the baying of wolves or even the hooting of owls, and may throw over faculty, staff, money, even students, at the first murmer of pursuit. This is why Academic Freedom is so important. It protects academics who might be thrown over. And it gives something statesmanlike for jittery administrators to say when wolves and owls ask them, ``why can't you just shut `em up?''

The case for Academic Freedom seems so self-evident, it must be in the Constitution somewhere. But it isn't. A long history of abuses - extending into this century with summary dismissals for teaching evolution or preaching left-wing economics - led to a doctrine that academics, like judges, need some kind of political independence.

The problem is that Academic Freedom is only doctrine, not law. And judges (who don't seem to see themselves as being comparable to academics) aren't buying it. They certainly haven't bought any connection between academic freedom and the First Amendment.

Consider one recent case. One assumption most of us make is that we can collect data for analysis. The State of Virginia passed a statute prohibiting state employees from viewing sexually explicit material on computers owned or leased by the state. This limits internet access for a number of academics (and, the plaintiffs in Urofsky v. Gilmore complained, their students). But the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled - get this - that Academic Freedom was something that universities, not academics, had. So only the universities could complain - and they did not. (The court was following up on a similar ruling, Boring v. Buncombe Board of Education, that a High School drama teacher could be punished for selecting a play that the Administration didn't like - or more precisely, that parents complained to the spineless Administration about.)

This case is not unique. In Brown v. Armenti, the 3rd Circuit held that a university administration may punish a professor for refusing to change a grade. The court held that teaching classes and assigning grades is something that institutions are responsible for, and hence those institutions can dictate how it is done.

You may have seen the scene in Creator when a site reviewer smiles and tells the movie villain, ``people do research, not institutions.'' That is not the opinion of the institutions, nor, apparently, of the courts.

Another thing to notice is that these are not examples of administrative malice; they are examples of administrative spinelessness. USF (or, according to our Administration, the State of Florida) caved in to an angry parent and a fear of a runaway jury. Professor Urofsky and his colleagues sued to overturn a state law that the University itself should have fought. Ms. Boring's play received complaints from angry parents. And as for Brown, well, a squeaky student gets the grease. Few creatures are more dangerous than frightened administrators, and in the aftermath of Education Commissioner Charlie Crist's public tantrum about the play Corpus Christi, performed at FAU last Spring, we do see the potential for administrative panic in Florida.

In fair weather, administrators and politicians proclaim their adherence to the principles of Academic Freedom. We recently beheld Governor Bush doing just that before the assembled Boards of Trustees. But when the weather turns dark, when there is a specific publication, speech, play,syllabus, grade, etc., to protect, the politicians take flight, the Administration waves its white flags, and it is up to us, the faculty, to do the dirty work of protecting our university, our colleagues, our students, and ourselves.

At USF, our best protection is Section 5.2 of the Contract:

Consistent with the exercise of academic responsibility

[described in Section 5.3], employees shall have the

freedom to present and discuss their own academic

subjects ... and to select instructional materials and

determine grades in accordance with university ...

policies. Objective ... exposition ..., including the

acknowledgement of a variety of scholarly opinions, is

the duty of every such employee. Employees shall also

be free to engage in scholarly and creative activity and

publish the results ... .

Courts tend to be relatively respectful of contracts, and that is why our contract is so important in protecting our academic freedoms.

The contract is not a gift. It did not appear by magic and it does not maintain itself. It is the result of decades of negotiation between your union and the university governors. And the price of having a contract is eternal vigilance.

New Contracts

By now, you should have received a blue booklet containing the 2001-2003 contract. If you have not received one, contact Roy Weatherford at 4-5635.

UFF/USF Chapter Meetings

The Chapter meets every Friday payday during lunch time at FAO 100 - N (actually, FAO 170 for the rest of this semester). Sandwiches & soda are free. Come and join the movement.