By MARTY LEVINE
Pitt’s American Association of University Professors chapter — allowed to lapse at the start of the recent successful campaign to unionize faculty — is being revived again to advocate for faculty not covered by the union, and for faculty facing issues that are not the union’s primary focus.
Michael Goodhart, political science faculty member in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, is one of about three dozen faculty involved in the renewed effort. He says reviving the AAUP chapter was inspired first, but hardly exclusively, by observing spring 2024 Palestinian human rights protests and how “the University's response was, in the view of many of us, surprisingly and unnecessarily repressive towards students.”
Overall, the need to advocate for academic freedom has become more urgent since the start of this year, Goodhart said. As an AAUP advocacy chapter (as opposed to AAUP’s other option, a union chapter), its core issues will be academic freedom and free speech, he added. These also include “the rights of people with expertise in a field to speak and teach in that field without constraint,” as well as cuts to federal grants when the study subject is disfavored by Washington for ideological reasons.
To restart, an AAUP chapter needs to hold organizational meetings — which have begun — as well as formulate bylaws and elect officers.
Pitt has had an AAUP chapter since the 1930s, and it has gone dormant at least once before. Historically, there has been much overlap between its members and those on Faculty Assembly, the University Senate and its committees.
Most recently, it has pushed for greater faculty input into salary policies and decisions to eliminate academic programs, and pointed out lapses in shared governance and faculty members’ ability to take primary responsibility for curricula.
Goodhart says he and others also have joined with a union effort to keep an eye on academic freedom issues here.
The AAUP chapter — not yet official again — is planning to hold events for faculty on this topic and others over the summer.
“People are confused with what it is and how it works,” Goodhart said. “Academic freedom does not give a chemist the right to rant on about the election for five minutes at the beginning of class” — although if a current war involved chemical weapons, for instance, “a chemist might have something important to say on the topic.”
A political science professor, of course, could speak about the election during multiple classes, he noted.
“Many of us who were involved with efforts to renew this chapter were involved in the union,” Goodhart said. “We view this as another tool” to focus faculty on important issues affecting their lives.
“This is a way to make sure we are not losing sight of this important academic freedom question.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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