We are pleased to announce the publication of Volume 10 of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. The journal features recent scholarship on academic freedom and its relation to contemporary crises of austerity, shared governance, tenure, and collective bargaining. This year's contributors draw connections between the multiple frequencies of bullying present on our campuses and the principles and practice of academic freedom and shared governance.

The volume’s eleven essays address a wide range of topics, including the use of discourses of civility and student evaluations of teaching to bully faculty, threats from on and off campus to the academic freedom of faculty of color, and the troubling legacies of historical infringements on academic freedom and shared governance. Follow the links to each article in the table of contents below or access the complete volume at https://www.aaup.org/JAF10.

We are also excited to share a new call for papers, “Academic Freedom on the Managed Campus," for the eleventh volume of the journal, scheduled for publication in September 2020.

—Rachel Ida Buff, Faculty Editor
The Journal of Academic Freedom is supported by funding from the AAUP Foundation.

Table of Contents

Editor's Introduction
By Rachel Ida Buff

Compulsory Civility and the Necessity of (Un)Civil Disobedience
By Judy Rohrer

A Vision for Scholar-Activists of Color
By John Streamas

The Danger of Campus Bans on Bullying
By John K. Wilson

The Weaponization of Student Evaluations of Teaching: Bullying and the Undermining of Academic Freedom
By Jason Rodriguez

Endangered and Vulnerable: The Black Professoriate, Bullying, and the Limits of Academic Freedom
By Lori Latrice Martin, Biko Mandela Gray, and Stephen C. Finley

The Tale of Professor X
By Sherryl Kleinman

Postwar Recovery and Student Academic Freedom in Côte d’Ivoire
By Alfred Babo

"Book Burning" in Japan
By Frank Baldwin

No Sanctuary: Japanese American Internment and the Long Arc of Academic Freedom and Shared Governance
By William Kidder, Judy Sakaki, and Daniel Simmons

Dear Administrators: To Protect Your Faculty from Right-Wing Attacks, Follow the Money
By Isaac Kamola

Speech, Academic Freedom, and Privilege
By John F. Covaleskie

Dear Fellow AAUP Members,

Greetings! My name is Christopher DeWeese. I am a poet, an Associate Professor of English at Wright State University, and a proud AAUP member here.

You may have heard about how last month, over 300 members of our union went on strike for 20 days after the WSU administration imposed a horrible contract on us, a contract that would have undermined the educational mission of our university. Our strike was the second longest strike in US higher ed history, and we were out on the lines through the coldest part of the winter here in Ohio. It was a hard-fought battle, and we won a much better contract than the one that had been imposed (maintaining current workload, retrenchment language, and continuing appointments for Non Tenure-Track faculty) but this came at a cost: each member who was on strike is now out 7.2% of their annual salary, as the Wright State admin refused to grant us back pay for days missed on strike.

I'm writing to you today in the hopes that you might spread the word among your colleagues and your union chapter that we have launched a gofundme in order to help our members recoup some of their missing salary. As our AAUP chapter represents NTT faculty in addition to TT, many of our members who are the most precarious are in extremely difficult financial situations. Any help that you or your colleagues can provide would be much appreciated- every little bit helps!
Here is a link to the fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/aaupwsu-strike-fund

If you would like to read more about our strike, here is a good interview in Jacobin with our strike leader, Professor of History Noeleen McIlvenna: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/02/wright-state-university-strike-noeleen-mcilvenna and here's another interview with a member of our EC, Sirisha Naidu: http://socialistworker.org/2019/01/30/striking-for-the-soul-of-the-university. Finally, here's a piece from the Chronicle: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Now-Comes-the-Hard-Part-/245668

Thank you for considering passing this message along.
All best,
Chris DeWeese

Thank you for all of your support during our recent strike at Wright State. I am writing to ask for some further support. Please bear with me on this somewhat lengthy message.
 
The faculty strike at Wright State ended on February 11, after 20 days. It ended up being the second longest faculty strike at a public university in U.S. history.
 
The administration and Board’s obvious intention was to break our union because we have been the most prominent voice in criticizing the reckless and wasteful spending that led to an almost entirely self-created financial crisis and the most insistent voice in asserting that academics need to become, again, the primary institutional priority.
 
Largely the same Board approved five years of deficit spending that erased more than $130 million in reserves. That spending was almost entirely on non-academic initiatives and enterprises—schemes often driven by cronyism—none of which produced any of the additional revenue streams that were promised. In fact, some of the affiliated entities created to facilitate those schemes are each still costing the university several million dollars every year.
 
In the contract that the administration and Board imposed on January 4, they eliminated our right to bargain over benefits and thus our ability to bargain meaningfully over compensation. They eliminated our MOU on workload, our right of first refusal on summer teaching opportunities, and objective standards for merit increases. They effectively eliminated the possibility of continuing contracts and job security for most of our non-tenure-eligible full-time faculty, and they allowed for unlimited furlough days while asserting that teaching and service would not be disrupted by the furloughs. Worse than all of that was a retrenchment proposal that would have made tenure meaningless, a proposal that they had presented to the fact-finder but left out of the imposed contract. We were certain, however, that if we failed to strike over the imposed contract, that proposal would be on the table when negotiations on the next contract began in spring 2020.
 
In the successor agreement that we reached to end the strike, we rolled back all of these things. We did not get the sort of healthcare plan that we wanted, with more emphasis on premiums than on deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, and we made significant, if contract-limited concessions on summer teaching compensation. We will receive raises in the last two years of the five-year deal, but we will have paid for them several times over by the time we receive them. We said all along that the strike was not about money, and we are, indeed, taking a significant financial hit in the new contract. That said, the accepting the imposed contract would have meant accepting even larger and very open-ended losses in pay.
 
I am writing because our members are taking a further financial hit that we did not anticipate.
 
About two-thirds of our members remained on strike until the strike was ended, and it was very clear that the university was not covering a third to half of the scheduled class sections. On just about every day, there was some announcement about cancelled, suspended, or rescheduled classes, with the creation of a spring B-term supposedly being necessitated by the extended strike. So, when the strike entered the third week, we assumed that the university would need to make up the lost class time and that we would be compensated for a significant part of the pay lost due to the strike.
 
But within a week of the end of the strike, all class sections had simply been put back on the original spring schedule. We do not think that the administration can have it both ways: either a large percentage of our students are not receiving 20% of what they paid for (with all of the obvious implications related to accreditation, professional certifications, and financial aid), or we are being asked to make up the lost time and work without compensation.
 
I am currently collecting documentation of how the lost time and work are being made up, and we plan to file a grievance than will almost certainly go to arbitration.
 
In the meantime, our members are being docked for about 7.5% of their base pay, all of which is being deducted from their last four spring checks.
 
It is extremely important that faculty not be dissuaded from striking out of concern over the financial consequences and that no precedent be set that this is an effective strategy for breaking a strike or a union.
 
So, while we are pursuing the case that will end up in arbitration, we are shifting our Solidarity Fund to a Strike Fund so that we can offset at least some of the lost pay. As the monies are distributed, everyone will receive the same amount, and so our lowest paid members will receive a higher percentage of their lost pay.
 
We have established a GoFundMe account for individual donations, and we are asking that you distribute the link to your members and allied groups. Here is the message on our Facebook page, with the link, which might be used in a communication to your members:
 
On January 22nd, the majority of Bargaining Unit Faculty represented by AAUP-WSU made the choice to go on strike. Not for higher wages but for the protection of the academic mission of the university and our right to negotiate over our terms and conditions of employment. We stood strong for 20 days as the administration drug their feet to the bargaining table. Our  #solidarity prevailed.
 
The end result? A much stronger contract than the one the administration imposed on January 4th with restored protections and the preservation of our legal rights. We call this a win, but it comes at a price.
 
Collectively it cost our striking members over 7% of our annual salary and many will experience financial hardships due to the loss in pay for being on strike.
 
MANY, MANY people {friends, family, and colleagues, both affiliated with Wright State and from afar} have asked how they can help. Therefore, we have created a GoFundMe page to help striking members financially in the wake of #fighting4Wright.
 
Thank you for your support and encouragement. It has never ceased to amaze us!
 
https://www.gofundme.com/aaupwsu-strike-fund?teamInvite=XrKsR8c1pnknynyIbjLAiLah6mA3qH8B3sGy5OcKrTmq9YUkKavAa6u7n9KmF6Tr&fbclid=IwAR1xQVGNUcNcDu4C2Oe-8j7vXB8jW-XK1uUhvPppMkKn5xh-JQBwBaZ3rNc
 
We are hoping that even modest contributions from individual members, as well as from chapters and conferences, will add up. And, when we get a more precise sense of what the strike has cost our chapter, we plan to supplement the contributions that we receive with funding from our own accounts.
 
If your chapter has already sent us a check during the strike, thank you again on behalf of our leadership and our membership.
 
If you have not and wish to send a check instead of contributing to the GoFundMe account, please make the check out to AAUP-WSU and send it to: Tom Rooney, Treasurer, AAUP-WSU; 113 Medical Sciences Building; Wright State University; Dayton, Ohio 45435.
 
Following this blog post are three documents: a chart comparing the imposed contract to the successor agreement, as well as a letter from CBC Chair Paul Davis and John McNay’s article for Plunderbund, both of which highlight the significance of our strike. Please feel free to post them or to distribute them in any way that you think will be effective.
 
Thanks so much for all of your solidarity and your support,
 
Marty Kich
President, AAUP-WSU

1133 19th Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036
PHONE: 202.737.5900 • FAX: 202.737.5526 • www.aaupcbc.org

February 14, 2019

Marty Kich
Wright State University
AAUP-WSU
113 Medical Sciences
Dayton, OH 45435-0001

Dear Wright State AAUP Chapter,

As the Chairperson of the National AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress I want to thank all of you for the effort you put into your recent strike. All of you must know that this action was not only about the issues at Wright State. You represented every member of the AAUP, and likely symbolized every college educator across this nation. Your fight was everyone’s fight.

I know that the last several weeks and probably the last several months have been extraordinarily difficult, but you stood proud. The passion and fortitude you have shown us is beyond inspiring. When I look back at my time in this office one of the moments that I will remember most will be watching, and even a few times walking with you. The enthusiasm you maintained during your strike, especially in the weather elements you endured was beyond belief.

If you need to know if you were successful read the lyrics of “Teach Your Children” by Crosby, Stills, and Nash. During the time you were not in the classroom many will argue that you were not doing your job and were hurting your students. By carrying out your strike for the principles you – and all AAUP CBC members—fight for, you taught them an important life lesson. You stood strong for the quality of instruction and higher education as a common good. As the strong student support throughout the strike made clear, your principles are ultimately their principles too.

Sincerely,

Paul Davis
CBC Chairperson

plunderbund.com/2019/02/21/wright-state-faculty-successfully-defend-ohio-higher-ed

John McNay

Now that the dust is clearing from the faculty strike at Wright State University in Dayton, let’s to take a look at what happened. A tentative agreement was reached on Feb. 10, 2019.
 
Faculty at WSU went on strike on Jan. 22 and finally settled three weeks later. It was the longest academic strike in Ohio history and apparently the
second longest in the country. The faculty union at Wright State is a chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
As the Wright State faculty continually, and correctly repeated, this strike was not about money. It was about quality of education that would be endangered by allowing a corporate-style administration to have unilateral control over such things as teaching loads and class sizes.

The Wright State administration seemed to think that they had the upper hand going into this struggle. “The actions of one-sixth of our employees will not alter our mission as an institution of higher learning,” WSU President Cheryl Schrader told the Dayton Daily News. She could not have been more wrong. Even though the administration advertised nationally for strike breakers, the fact is that they could not operate the university without the faculty. Schrader’s comment shows the problem with too many of our administrations. Engaged in so many other activities, they lose track of the reason that we have our universities – education. It isn’t building office palaces or playing games or rubbing elbows with the corporate big wigs. It is education.

What precipitated such a struggle? Primarily, it was gross mismanagement on behalf of the Wright State board of trustees and its administration. This crisis has statewide importance because of the actions of the Wright State administration and its board of trustees. Like others in charge of our public institutions of higher education in the state, the WSU leaders have spent more taxpayer money and student tuition on administrative bloat, grandiose construction projects (and in WSU’s context off-campus real estate purchases, including $26 million in Greene County alone), athletic department deficits, and, generally, non-academic initiatives. At WSU, these non-academic initiatives
were supposed to produce additional revenue but instead have cost tens of millions.

The Wright State faculty drew a line in the sand and won.
Hopefully, it sends a message to our other corporate-style administrations. The actual timing of the strike was triggered by the board of trustees’ decision to unilaterally impose its contract offer. The vote that came suddenly on Jan. 7 was a surprise but the union was determined. “We can’t trust these folks to be good managers. They have shown themselves incompetent,” Noeleen McIlvenna, a History professor and union contract administrator, said. “I do hope that the community understands that this is a final straw.”

Certainly, what happened at Wright State seems to have been a perfect storm of incompetence. Some of the mismanagement has even been illegal. The ongoing FBI investigation into whether WSU violated work visa laws has so far cost the school more than $2 million. Other boondoggles have included spending more than $4 million (including updates to the Nutter Center) attempting to host the first presidential debate in 2016: Wright State spent more on the debate – that it didn’t host – than Hofstra University spent to host it.

Hard as it is to believe, the former president of Wright State, David Hopkins, under whom most of these blunders were made, had a contract that was certainly irresponsible. For the last years that Hopkins was employed, he was listed among the top 10 highest paid university presidents in the country and for four of those years his taxable compensation was over $1 million. Even today, the president who has overseen the failed negotiations that led to this strike, Cheryl Schrader, is pulling in more than $680,000 in taxable compensation (more than my entire eight-person department at UC Blue Ash).

And, as reported in the Dayton Daily News, there is more:

• An Ohio Inspector General’s investigation concluded in December a report that questioning $1.8 million of the $2.3 million WSU paid to a consultant, a so-called “rainmaker” for grants.
• Wright State University spent $850,000 on a branding effort that included a new logo that was scrapped in mid-2016 amid criticisms that it looked too similar to Rumpke Waste & Recycling.
• Wright State in November paid $1.98 million to settle a complaint brought by the U.S. Department of Education over how the school was handling student aid.

Notice that none of these actions involved actually spending funds directly on the university’s primary mission – instruction and research.

So, it is clear to see how the university created its own financial crisis and that the faculty had nothing to do with this. Shockingly, faculty salaries and benefits make up only 17 percent of Wright State’s budget. Nevertheless, two years ago, when negotiations first began, faculty accepted they were going to have to take a financial hit to help correct the administration’s mistakes. But as negotiations unfolded, it became clear that the administration was not intending to let the budget crisis go to waste. Instead, they aimed to gut the faculty’s contract in what now seems a determined attempt to break the union.

Over the two years of negotiations, the administration agreed to meet only about 10 times. They were reluctant to put anything in writing, and stood by extreme demands. Faculty members had been targeted to make up for these mistakes since 92 full-time faculty positions already had been eliminated. As we often tell our students across the state: “You should ask where your money is going, because it is not going for your education.”

Salary had not been a sticking point because the union agreed early on to no pay increases in this contract given the financial hole the administration had dug. Instead, two other issues have been at the heart of the WSU dispute: workloads and health insurance. Faculty workloads typically are determined by departments based on the academic need for the students. But the WSU administration has proposed to eliminate workload agreements and impose a top-down approach that would have the accountants making decisions in engineering, biology, English, medicine and other disciplines. Wright State faculty insisted on defending quality higher education and research by having expert faculty in the disciplines involved in making these decisions.

Of great importance, the administration wanted to eliminate health insurance as a negotiation topic. The objective in any such proposal is to be able to bar the union from negotiating for compensation. If one cannot negotiate for healthcare, any pay raise one receives can be taken back with a premium increase. This is a union-busting tactic, one that was part of the infamous Senate Bill 5 attack on public employees in 2011, which Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected and repealed, including the people of Dayton and the surrounding counties.

For those who joined the picket line with the Wright State faculty, one was immediately struck by the sense that they must have done this before. It was impressive that so many people stood up and took hands- on leadership roles to make the strike work. It appeared to be a smoothly-running well-oiled machine as picketers braved snow, rain, and bitterly-cold temperatures. And yet, this was a first for everyone involved.

Some things they did very well that helped with the victory:

• Higher education faculty from all over the state showed their solidarity in various ways. Faculty from AAUP chapters at University of Cincinnati, Kent State, Bowling Green, Akron, Cincinnati State, Miami, Ohio State, and others walked the picket line and showed their support in other ways – donating food or coffee and social media posts. Kent and Akron even did a virtual picket from their universities. AAUP national and state staff and representatives were on hand as well helping to support in any way they could. Some days there were hundreds of picketers.
• They formed over the months and years before strong ties with the broader labor movement, some of the connections going back to SB 5 days. Even with the extremely bitter weather picketers faced, one found on the picket line day after day, Ironworkers, school teachers (both OFT and OEA), electrical workers, other public employee unions, as well as other member unions of the AFL-CIO.
• They made good use of their political contacts. Many politicians offered support. Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley came to strike headquarters to speak to the faculty. Both she and Sen. Sherrod Brown sent letters to the board and administration expressing the same sentiment. Brown wrote, for example: “I urge you to reconsider your approach to these negotiations, specifically the hard line you have taken with the Wright State faculty.” Even area Republican legislators sent a letter encouraging a return to negotiations, something the faculty were eager to do and the administration refused. The Democratic caucuses in both the state House and Senate sent letters to the administration that were supportive of the faculty and calling for the administration to return to negotiations.
• The faculty had amazing support from the students. They had sit- ins outside administration offices. They picketed with faculty. They had very active social media platforms on Twitter and Facebook defending the faculty.
• With the help of the Ohio Conference, WSU faculty held a press conference that drew media, politicians, and a surprise and welcome visit by the new Chancellor of Higher Education, Randy Gardner, who spoke to the over 100 faculty, students, and allies. Gardner was on the phone a great deal in the final week or so of the strike with both sides encouraging a return to serious negotiations.

In the end, after finally agreeing to the use of a federal mediator, the administration gave up on a series of bad proposals, including unilateral control of workload and merit pay and unlimited furloughs. About insurance, the new contract will include a clause guaranteeing the faculty’s right to negotiate over healthcare although the union did agree to go into the same insurance plan as the other employees at Wright State. Because they negotiated for two years, they have essentially agreed to two contracts, one will complete the year left on this term, and then another three-year contract which provides for small raises in 2022 and 2023, the last two years of the second contract – at that point faculty will have gone five years without an overall pay increase.

There are going to be a lot of wounds to heal going forward. We agree with the sentiments of Chancellor Gardner:

‘The first people I thought about last night when I heard the news of the agreement were the students I met with Friday at the Statehouse,” Gardner said. “I’m hopeful that their plans and goals for the future – and those of thousands of others as well – are restored.”

You can be sure that the Wright State faculty will be working to restore those futures. As WSU-AAUP Chapter President Marty Kich said “I am sure all our members are glad to be going back to the classroom where we hope things will return to normal for our students as soon as possible.”
—–
 
John McNay is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, and author of “Collective Bargaining and the Battle of Ohio: The Defeat of Senate Bill 5 and the Struggle to Defend the Middle Class”

 

Duration
Contract imposed January 4
Expiration on June 30, 2020.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
Technically, there will be two CBAs: first expires June 30, 2020; second expires June 30, 2023. For practical purposes, this will amount to a single CBA expiring on June 30, 2023.

Workload
Contract imposed January 4
Our workload agreements were nullified, leaving the admin/board with unlimited rights to assign workloads to faculty in any way they wanted.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
Our workload agreements stand as they are. Likewise, the workload article in the CBA itself will be unchanged from the 2014-2017 CBA.


Merit Pay
Contract imposed January 4
Merit pay could have been given to any BUFM with a
2.0 overall annual evaluation score, a standard met by nearly all BUFMs. Otherwise, whether a BUFM got merit pay or not, and if so how much, would have been totally controlled by chairs and deans.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
The merit pay system in the 2014-2017 CBA remains intact. Annual evaluation scores – obtained by comparison of one’s performance to criteria in bylaws – determine merit raises, not the whim of administrators.

 
NTE Promotion and Job Security
Contract imposed January 4
Continuing appointments (i.e., good job security) would have been awarded only to those who had been promoted to the highest available rank (Senior Lecturer or Clinical Assistant Professor) and had served at least nine years. For most NTEs, those two requirements would have made a continuing appointment impossible without twelve years of service.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
Continuing appointments remain as they were in the 2014-2017 CBA, except that one additional year of service (seven years altogether) will be permitted for fixed-term appointments. This change will only apply to NTE faculty who sign an initial offer letter after April 1, 2019; so, no change applies to current NTEs. Even with the change, our CBA provides the best-in-the-US job security for NTE faculty.


Health Care
Contract imposed January 4
The imposed contract gave the admin/board total control over our health care benefits. De facto we would have ceded our legal right to negotiate health care benefits, and the admin/board could have worsened the plans as much as they wanted, as often as they wanted, restricted only by law.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
Specific CBA language will ensure our ongoing right to negotiate health care.
 
Effective April 1, 2019, BUFMs will have the same health care plans as those that were available to other employees on January 1, 2019; these plans cannot be changed through December 31, 2020. The admin/board will continue to provide two medical plans.
 
After December 31, 2020, cumulative increases through June 30, 2023 in monthly premiums and out-of-pocket maximums will be limited to 35%.

 
Furloughs
Contract imposed January 4
Furloughs, a.k.a. Cost Savings Days, could have been assigned provided other WSU employees were furloughed, but otherwise restricted only by the University’s general furlough policy – which can be changed instantly and arbitrarily by the admin/board. Furloughs notwithstanding, BUFMs’ work responsibilities would not have been lessened at all.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
The number of furlough days will be limited to at most one day per semester.

 
Summer Teaching
Contract imposed January 4
BUFMs’ summer teaching rights were totally eliminated. Summer teaching would have been controlled completely by chairs and deans, so (for example) all summer teaching could have been given to adjuncts.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
BUFMs’ summer teaching rights remain as they are in the 2014-2017 CBA. However, the pay rate drops from 1/36th of the academic year base salary per credit hour taught to 1/45th in summers of 2019 and 2020, 1/44th in 2021, 1/43rd in in 2022, and 1/42nd in 2023.

 
Raises
Contract imposed January 4
Promotion raises and minimum salaries remained as they were in the 2014-2017 CBA. Otherwise, there would have been no raises for the 1 ½ year duration of the contract (through June 30, 2020.

Tentative CBA obtained by negotiations February 10
For the academic year 2021-2022: 2 ½ % across the board and 3% increase in minimum salary scales; for the academic year 2022-2023: 2 ½ % across the board, 1% merit, and 4% increase in minimum  salary scales. Promotion raises remain as they are in the 2014-2017 CBA.


About Retrenchment: even in the contract imposed on January 4, the admin/board agreed to keep the provisions in the 2014-2017 CBA. However, had we accepted the January 4 imposition, it is very likely that the board/admin would have gone after retrenchment again in the next round of negotiations, which would have been started less than a year from now.

Please write Governor Gavin Newsom, Speaker of the Assembly, Anthony Rendon, and your local state legislators. Urge them to reject the task force proposal (see letter below) and preserve the "comprehensive study of American history and government" as the basis for a robust American Institutions requirement in the California State University.

In addition, please call the chair of the California Assembly Higher Education Committee, Jose Medina (916) 319-2061. His secretary will answer the phone and keep track of calls on the GE issue. If a committee member is from your district, call them too. They are as follows:

Steven S. Choi (916) 319-2068
Dr. Joaquin Arambula (916) 319-2031
Richard Bloom (916) 319-2050
Jesse Gabriel (916) 319-2045
Jacqui Irwin (916) 319-2044
Kevin Kiley (916) 319-2006
Mark Levine (916) 319-2010
Evan Low (916) 319-2028
Jim Patterson (916) 319-2023
Miguel Santiago (916) 319-2053
Shirley N. Weber (916) 319-2079

And:  If you are comfortable, here are some social media accounts for providing feedback:

Twitter and Facebook:  
https://twitter.com/calstate
https://www.facebook.com/calstate

With appreciation,
Bridget Ford



Dr. Bridget Ford
Professor of History
California State University, East Bay

American History and Civic Education stand at a crossroads in California.

Recent actions by the California State University, the nation’s largest university system, threaten to erode History and civic education for millions of Californians, potentially diminishing the reputation of the CSU, weakening public trust in higher education, and imperiling our state’s future.

Last summer, a surprise Executive Order by CSU Chancellor, Timothy White, gutted the teaching of World History and Western Civilization for tens of thousands of CSU students. At a campus like San Diego State University, near the US-Mexico border, the order means that students will no longer be required, or even encouraged, to study the history of any place outside the US.

This week, the CSU rolled out a similar plan for American History.

Working behind closed doors and skirting open meeting laws for nearly two years, a CSU “task force on general education” has prepared a plan to eviscerate the state’s requirement in “American Institutions,” which has been the backbone of US history and civic education in California for almost 60 years. In short strokes, the proposal cuts the requirement for civic education by half and severs what’s left from the study of history. Imagine a course on Environmental Regulation as the substitute for U.S. History and Government. If the proposal is
implemented, no CSU students will be required to study the history of any nation, including their own.

The consequences of this radical disruption of the most rigorous and successful civic education program in California’s public institutions should not be underestimated. For six decades, CSU American Institutions coursework has been an unsung hero of our state’s complex democracy, evolving to meet the needs of each era, and providing millions of Californians with the tools to
function as effective citizens.
Rather than celebrate this achievement, CSU leaders characterize it as an obsolete chore for students and an obstacle to speedier bachelor’s degrees, without any data whatsoever backing such claims. But easing graduation by reducing requirements is a solution unfit for the world’s most creative economy and a threat to its democracy.

As in so many areas of American life, California has been a leader in civic education. The 1961 mandate of the CSU requires that campuses “provide for comprehensive study of United States history and government including the historical development of American institutions and ideals.” The goal of this “American Institutions” requirement “is to ensure that students acquire knowledge and skills that will… enable them to contribute to that society as responsible and constructive citizens.”
This is an especially fitting role for the CSU. Its twenty-three campuses deliver affordable access to higher education for nearly 500,000 students. One third are first generation college students. Nearly 5 percent are veterans. Half are students of color. They are Californians from every walk of life who have a dream to rise and contribute to their society.

Make no mistake, the erosion of “American Institutions” at the CSU will affect civic education statewide, including most immediately, the 2.1 million students in California Community Colleges whose curricula articulate with CSU mandates.
Today, more than ever, these students need college-level training in American history and democracy.

Across the CSU, History courses convey context, experience and practice in democracy. They offer training in building evidence-based arguments. They analyze the origins of the Constitution. They explain turning points in our path toward ‘a more perfect union,’ and they model it, for historical study resembles closely what we do as members of a deliberative democracy, which is to sort out valid statements from spurious claims, identifying credible evidence and acting upon it. In an age when the internet has changed how Americans know the
past, history provides students with the skills to discern what is true and false and to practice the consensus-building habits necessary to a diverse democracy.

CSU students value this training. San Jose State students report that their study of history “make[s] us all informed citizens.” In “learn[ing] to see current events with more curiosity and insight,” students enjoy a newfound ability “to reflect on what we can do to improve society.” At CSU East Bay, students describe a sense of empowerment: “I feel that I can confidently participate in debates about politics and current events with greater understanding now,” explains one undergraduate. A Fresno State student felt pride in studying the sacrifices Americans made for democracy: “It makes you see how far America has come and see what America has overcome, so it makes you more of a patriot.”

American history and civic education is important in another critical respect: students’ bottom line. American Institutions courses sharpen skills that employers demand in today’s marketplace:
communication, critical thinking, analysis, collaborative problem-solving, and more.

History and civic education remain as important to the mission of the California State University today as at our founding. These courses boost students’ success in college and the job market. They furnish perspectives and practice in effective citizenship that are the bedrock of democracy. In light of the challenges we face as a society, history has seldom mattered more.

Bridget Ford, Professor of History, CSU East Bay
Brad Jones, Professor of History, CSU Fresno
Andrew Wiese, Professor and Chair of History, San Diego State University
The writers are members of the Council on History and American Institutions, a coalition of CSU professors of history.