We don’t usually ask you to do three different things in the same email. But the threats to higher education are such that we all need to do a little more. There are three important steps you can take this week to defend our profession and the future of higher ed across the country, in New York City, and at NYU:
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STAND UP — This Wednesday, February 19, at 4:00 pm, rally with colleagues across NYC in Washington Square Park to Defend Public Research Funding, part of a National Day of Action for academic workers.
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TURN OUT — This Thursday, February 20, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm, join our next bargaining session.
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SIGN ON — Right now, sign the petition to demand strong contractual guarantees of academic freedom.
Since Inauguration Day, we’ve seen attacks by the federal government on privacy, free speech, and research funding. Politicians and tech executives are telling faculty across the country what we can research and what we can protest, and they’re threatening to tell us what we can teach. Attacks on federal research funding, the politicization of the funding that remains, and the threats to deport our students and colleagues are existential attacks on a free and diverse academy.
To protect our profession, our students, and NYU’s mission, we need a contract that guarantees our academic freedom. We demand the freedom to teach our subjects as our professionalism and expertise dictate, to engage in our scholarly, artistic, and professional practices governed by peer review, and to participate in society as full members, without risk of being punished by our bosses if we have inconvenient political, religious, or other beliefs.
Sign on to tell the NYU administration:
Now more than ever we need strong contractual guarantees of academic freedom throughout our first contract.
Protections of academic freedom are built into many of the contract articles the Bargaining Committee has proposed. But the Bargaining Committee can’t do it alone. We have to show the administration negotiators that we all, together, are demanding our full academic freedom. Sign the petition to send our elected Bargaining Committee to the table with a strong mandate to deliver guarantees throughout the contract of everyone’s academic freedom.
On Thursday morning, our elected Bargaining Committee will meet the administration’s team for another bargaining session. Don’t let them go alone. Turn out to observe in person or by Zoom to show the administration we’re serious about demanding our freedom to teach, our students’ freedom to learn, and all of our freedom to participate in society according to our expertise and conscience. Turn out to show them that we all must come together to defend our profession and the academy.
This fight for academic freedom will take all of us. Stand up, turn out, and sign on.
In solidarity,
Contract Faculty United – UAW
Organizing Committee