NC-AAUP's Correspondance on Academic Freedom Issue to Erskine Bowles, President of UNC System
Aug. 14, 2008
RE: Citizen complaint regarding The Vagina Monologues
Dear President Bowles:
Several faculty members on campuses in the University of North Carolina System have expressed concern to the North Carolina Conference of the American Association of University Professors as a result of having received an email message, which originated from UNC General Administration, asking them to compile "a list of possibl[y] questionable or offensive activities (including lectures, play, and performances) during the 2007-08 academic year." According to the message, the request was in response to an unidentified citizen complaint about such events.
We have subsequently learned of a complaint from a conservative activist group, Concerned Women for America, which recently submitted a set of 276 "citizen petitions" addressed to Governor Michael Easley, urging him to oppose state funding for The Vagina Monologues and other allegedly "obscene, indecent, pro-homosexual and often anti-Christian programs" on the UNC campuses. The petitioners called upon the governor "to hold university administrators accountable," including the consideration of "the removal of campus leadership" if they did not act appropriately. (See enclosure.)
We believe that this request raises basic issues of academic freedom, and we would therefore urge you to take a forceful stand on behalf of academic freedom principles, should they be further challenged in this way, whether by the governor, by North Carolina citizens, or by activist groups. We also urge you to inform citizens, legislators, and the administrators of all the UNC campuses of your position on academic freedom in public universities as it continues to be misunderstood and attacked by citizens and activist groups.
In its 2007 statement on Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers, the American Association of University Professors took the position that because
academic freedom requires the liberty to learn as well as to teach, colleges and universities should respect the prerogatives of campus organizations to select outside speakers whom they wish to hear. The AAUP articulated this principle in 1967 in its Fifty-third Annual Meeting, when it affirmed “its belief that the freedom to hear is an essential condition of a university community and an inseparable part of academic freedom,” and that “the right to examine issues and seek truth is prejudiced to the extent that the university is open to some but not to others whom members of the university also judge desirable to hear.”
In cases of artistic productions (for example, plays, performances, and art exhibits), we believe that a standard of academic freedom must prevail—even if the artistic production is available to the general public in addition to students and professors.
We hope you agree that the discussion of controversial ideas and issues is entirely appropriate on our state university campuses. Invitations made to outside speakers and events produced and/or organized by students or faculty do not imply approval or endorsement by the institution of the views expressed by the speakers or event participants.
According to the AAUP’s 1990 statement on Academic Freedom and Artistic Expression
Artistic performances and exhibitions in academic institutions encourage artistic creativity, expression, learning, and appreciation. The institutions do not thereby endorse the specific artistic presentations, nor do the presentations necessarily represent the institution. This principle of institutional neutrality does not relieve institutions of general responsibility for maintaining professional and educational standards, but it does mean that institutions are not responsible for the views or the attitudes expressed in specific artistic works any more than they would be for the content of other instruction, scholarly publication, or invited speeches. Correspondingly, those who present artistic work should not represent themselves or their work as speaking for the institution and should otherwise fulfill their educational and professional responsibilities.
That these performances take place with some support from taxpayer dollars does not entitle taxpaying citizens to control those performances or to exercise any veto power over them. Indeed, the university must ensure academic freedom and students’ free speech rights in order to preserve the integrity of the state university system.
The goals of artistic expression, creativity, teaching, and learning can be achieved on our fine UNC campuses only when we resist government restrictions and ideological censorship.
Former UNC President Molly Broad won the AAUP’s prestigious Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom in 2003 in recognition of her outstanding contribution to academic freedom. The Faculty Assembly of the University of North Carolina nominated Dr. Broad because of her resistance to demands to cancel the assigned reading of a book on the Koran for incoming students at the Chapel Hill campus. In her award acceptance speech, President Broad described the role of university administrators in preserving academic freedom, saying:
[A]s leaders entrusted with the oversight and governance of one of the very finest public universities in the nation, we have a clear duty to uphold and passionately defend the right of faculty on every UNC campus to define the curriculum, to examine and to debate ideas, however popular or unpopular those choices might be, and however much the state's nonuniversity leaders may agree or disagree with a specific campus decision.
The historic tenets of academic freedom set forth in the Code still define this university. And they are as important and as relevant today as when they were adopted by the very first Board of Governors. If we allow them to be diminished, we inflict irreparable harm to the academic stature and reputation of the entire university.
Academic freedom helps to ensure that public education achieves the greatest good for the greatest number. The North Carolina Conference of the American Association of University Professors urges you to defend academic freedom and free speech on our campuses, continuing UNC’s great tradition of public education for the public good.
Please let citizens, legislators, and the administrators of all the UNC campuses know your position on academic freedom in public universities. Please know that we are always happy to talk with you about these principles and about other issues facing higher education today. Thank you for considering our concerns.
Sincerely,
Martha McCaughey, President,
North Carolina American Association of University Professors
On Behalf of the NC-AAUP Executive Committee
Steve Wing, Vice President
Cat Warren, Past President
Jerry Pubantz, Treasurer
Janet Land, Secretary
Puri Martinez, Member-at-Large, Public Universities
Kent Blevins, Member-at-Large, Private Universities
cc: Harold Martin
AAUP Report: Freedom in the Classroom
The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure affirms that "teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject." In recent years these understandings have become controversial. Private groups have sought to regulate classroom instruction, advocating the adoption of statutes that would prohibit teachers from challenging deeply held student beliefs or that would require professors to maintain "diversity" or "balance" in their teaching.....Read More
A BETTER BARGAIN FOR STATE EMPLOYEES
by Michael Schwalbe
Assoc. Prof. of Sociology, NCSU
May 29, 2007 (originally appeared in Raleigh News & Observer)
William Faulkner’s line about the past—it’s not dead; in fact,
it’s not even past—aptly applies to North Carolina General Statute
§95-98, which bans collective bargaining by public employees. A
vestige of a bygone era, this law remains a force in the present, to
neither our credit nor benefit.
NCGS §95-98 grew out of efforts to stop the Teamsters from
organizing police and transportation workers in Charlotte in the late
1950s. Even after city officials thwarted this organizing effort,
two Mecklenburg legislators, Reps. Frank Snepp Jr. and Ernest Hicks,
wanted a law that would quash public sector organizing across the state.
Snepp and Hicks drafted a bill that would make it illegal for
public employees to join unions and for any unit of government in
North Carolina to engage in collective bargaining. Their bill was
backed by legislators beholden to textile bosses who feared that
unionized police would be less willing to put down strikes by textile
workers.
Some legislators criticized the bill for being too broad, saying
it should apply only to police. One legislator noted the anti-labor
hand of the textile industry behind the bill. But, with only minor
changes, the bill passed both houses of the General Assembly and
became law in June 1959. It has not gone unchallenged. In 1969,
public employees in Charlotte sued the city in federal district
court, charging that NCGS §95-98 was unconstitutional. A three-judge
panel ruled in /Atkins vs. the City of Charlotte/ that it was indeed
unconstitutional to forbid public employees from joining unions. But
the court upheld the ban on collective bargaining.
In 1974, the law was challenged again in federal district court
in the case of /Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Unit of North Carolina
Association of Educators vs. Phillips/. Plaintiffs argued that NCGS
§95-98 violated public employees’ First Amendment right to freedom of
association. The court agreed in Phillips that the law impeded
employee organizing, but ruled that it was not unconstitutional for
government units to refuse to bargain collectively with employees,
because public employees were not entitled to special access to
government policy makers. A third challenge came in December
2005, when the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of
America and its North Carolina affiliate, UE 150, filed a complaint
with the International Labor Organization (ILO), a branch of the
United Nations. The complaint alleged that NCGS §95-98 violates
international labor law conventions to which the U.S. is a party, and
that it also violates international human rights standards.
Last month the ILO upheld the complaint. The ILO’s investigating
committee found that NCGS §95-98 violates basic principles of freedom
of association by frustrating the main objective of employee
organizing: to bargain collectively about wages, benefits, and local
conditions of employment.
The courts erred in the /Atkins/ and /Phillips/ cases, according
to the ILO, by failing to distinguish between government as employer
and government as policy maker. Public employees must be free, the
ILO decision said, to negotiate with government in its role as
employer. The report thus called for repeal of NCGS §95-98 and the
creation of a framework for public sector collective bargaining in
North Carolina. We now have compelling reasons to put NCGS
§95-98 behind us.
There is, first, the matter of principle. Being able to organize
and bargain collectively with one’s employer are basic human rights,
as stressed by the ILO decision. A law that infringes on these
rights is also an affront to American principles of justice and
fairness. There are practical reasons, too. Workers in states
with public sector unions earn about 5-8% more than comparable
workers in states without collective bargaining. Yes, this can mean
a higher wage bill in some cases. But it also means better lives for
public workers at the low end of the pay scale. And putting more
money in the pockets of workers is one of the best ways to create an
economy-boosting multiplier effect.
Collective bargaining can also save money. Research on the
effects of public sector collective bargaining shows that it reduces
training costs by reducing turnover, reduces corruption in government
by making people accountable to contractually defined rules, and
reduces the costs of handling complaints arising from bias and
discrimination.
Several bills to repeal NCGS §95-98 are now being considered in
the legislature. Of these, HB1583, sponsored by Wake County Rep. Dan
Blue, best hits the mark. HB1583 would scrap NCGS §95-98 and give
local units of government the option of using collective bargaining
if they so desire.
A product of a less than shining moment in North Carolina’s
history, NCGS §95-98 is overdue for repeal. It’s a law that
tarnishes the image of our state and denies the rights of over
500,000 North Carolinians who are public employees. The past may be
ever with us, but in the case of NCGS §95-98 we can nullify its power
to haunt the present.
A column from NC-AAUP President Cat Warren (Dec. 8, 2006, News & Observer):
Some Donations Ask Too Much of Universities
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