[Marxism] Adjuncts and academic freedom

[Louis Proyect]

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i06/06a00102.htm

 From the issue dated October 3, 2008
Adjuncts Fight Back Over Academic Freedom

By ROBIN WILSON

Steven Bitterman was on his way to teach a course in Western 
civilization at Southwestern Community College last fall when his car 
slipped off the road. By the time he got back on the road, Mr. 
Bitterman's clothes were muddy, so he returned home to clean up. That's 
where he got a telephone call from one of the college's vice presidents, 
saying he had been fired.

Three students, the vice president told Mr. Bitterman, were offended 
because he had told his class that people could more easily appreciate 
the biblical story of Adam and Eve if they considered it a myth.

"She said the students and their parents had threatened to sue the 
school, and sue me, and she said: 'We don't want that to happen, do 
we?'" said Mr. Bitterman, who had been an adjunct professor at the Iowa 
college since 2001. "She told me I was supposed to teach history, not 
religion, and that my services would no longer be needed."

Several adjunct and full-time professors who work off the tenure track 
have been fired after saying something, as Mr. Bitterman did, that 
offended students or administrators. The instructors argue that their 
words would have been protected by academic freedom if they had had 
tenure. But because they don't, colleges can fire them on the spot or 
simply not renew their contracts�without even telling them why.

In most cases, the instructors say they have no way to fight back short 
of engaging in an expensive legal battle. But that may be changing.

A handful of instructors are challenging colleges with help from unions 
and advocacy groups. The American Humanist Association, which supports 
nontheism, backed Mr. Bitterman in his charge that Southwestern had 
unfairly terminated him. Last month the association helped him secure a 
$20,000 settlement. (Patrick Smith, a lawyer for Southwestern, said the 
college settled merely to avoid litigation and "denies it did anything 
improper" in firing Mr. Bitterman.)

The American Association of University Professors is also paying more 
attention to the academic freedom of professors who work off the tenure 
track. Such instructors now make up nearly 70 percent of the nation's 
professoriate.

The instructors who have been fired typically have been terminated after 
discussing hot-button issues: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 
religion, and homosexuality, for example. Gary Rhoades, who will take 
over as general secretary of the AAUP in January, says it is dangerous 
not to extend academic freedom to instructors. "We're compromising the 
quality of a college education," he adds, "if we're saying to a large 
portion of the academic work force: Don't offend anyone."

New Protections?

The AAUP's 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure 
says professors should be free to discuss pertinent subjects in the 
classroom and to comment critically on a university's operations without 
being punished. Academic freedom has always been closely tied to tenure, 
which until recently protected the overwhelming number of professors.

But as the number of fulland part-time instructors off the tenure track 
has grown, the AAUP has tried to steer universities into explicitly 
extending academic freedom to them as well.

In 2006, the association published a set of procedures it said 
universities should follow when terminating or simply not rehiring 
instructors. Universities, the procedures say, should tell instructors 
why they were not rehired and give them a formal opportunity to appeal 
the decision. At its meeting last June, the AAUP censured the University 
of New Haven for dismissing an adjunct professor who students said 
graded too harshly and was insensitive to their concerns. The university 
failed to investigate the students' complaints, said the AAUP, or to 
give the adjunct instructor access to its grievance procedures. "We'll 
be pursuing more of these cases," says Cary Nelson, the association's 
president. "We need to ramp up our commitment."

Few institutions, however, appear to follow the AAUP's recommended 
procedures. University administrators who spoke to The Chronicle would 
not talk about the details of why particular adjuncts had been fired, 
citing the privacy of personnel matters. But some said that they do 
observe the principle of academic freedom for adjuncts, and that there 
frequently is more to the story of why particular instructors are shown 
the door. Some are unpopular with students and colleagues, while still 
others perform poorly in the classroom. Most work on short-term 
contracts, administrators point out, with no expectation of renewal.

Terri Ginsburg, however, says North Carolina State University led her to 
believe she would be considered for a tenure-track opening if she came 
to the campus last year for a full-time, nine-month position in its 
cinema-studies program. Not only did the university fail to consider her 
for the tenure-track job, she says, but it also did not reappoint her at 
all. Administrators and faculty members, she said, did not approve of 
her pro-Palestinian views — which she made clear when introducing the 
screening of a Palestinian-made film in a Middle Eastern film series she 
was hired to curate.

When Ms. Ginsburg tried to file a formal grievance shortly after leaving 
the university, complaining that campus administrators declined to 
rehire her because they disagreed with her views, the university's 
chancellor said she had no right to a hearing because she was no longer 
an employee, she says.

A group called the National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical 
Thinking in Academia — which also supported Norman G. Finkelstein, a 
DePaul University professor who was denied tenure in June 2007 after 
making controversial statements about the Holocaust — has collected a 
petition with 700 signatures in Ms. Ginsburg's support. "We are hoping 
to get 1,000," says Steve Macek, an associate professor of speech 
communication at North Central College, who along with Ms. Ginsburg is a 
member of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies.

Larry A. Nielsen, North Carolina State's provost, said he could not 
comment on Ms. Ginsburg's allegations because they are part of "an 
active case." Ms Ginsburg has asked the university's Board of Trustees 
to hear an appeal, and she is considering filing a lawsuit.

'Freedoms Do Not Exist'

June Sheldon, an adjunct professor of biology, did file suit in July 
against the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, claiming that 
San Jose City College violated her academic freedom. The college fired 
her last February following a student's complaint that in a class on 
heredity, Ms. Sheldon cited a German study that showed environmental 
factors might contribute to male homosexuality.

After the student complained, a dean at San Jose investigated the 
validity of Ms. Sheldon's statement by asking other biology professors 
at the college whether they agreed that environmental factors had 
anything to do with homosexual behavior. The lawsuit says the dean 
determined that Ms. Sheldon had taught "misinformation as science," and 
the college terminated her.

Both the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Alliance 
Defense Fund — a conservative group that was founded by Christian 
leaders — have supported Ms. Sheldon. "The cornerstone of public higher 
education is the freedom of professors to discuss competing theories and 
ideas in the classroom," says the lawsuit the defense fund filed on Ms. 
Sheldon's behalf. "Unfortunately, at San Jose/Evergreen Community 
College District these freedoms do not exist."

The college referred The Chronicle to its lawyer, who did not return 
telephone calls.

While more adjunct instructors are challenging universities with the 
help of advocacy organizations, many others just try to move on with 
their lives after they are fired.

Teresa Knudsen taught English at Spokane Community College for 17 years, 
until she co-wrote an opinion article in a local newspaper in 2005 that 
said universities don't treat adjuncts well. Her department chairman, 
she said, called her in to his office and told her she had "offended" 
people at the college and said: "There are limits and consequences to 
freedom of speech." The following semester, Ms. Knudsen says, she simply 
was no longer on her department's teaching schedule.

Since then, she has worked at a day-care center and as an administrative 
assistant, and she only recently paid a lawyer to pursue a complaint 
against the community college, which she says violated her freedom of 
speech.

"When push comes to shove, we do not have academic freedom," Ms. Knudsen 
says. "We can be fired for what we say or what we teach."