Barnard College’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to protecting academic freedom, published a statement on Wednesday, September 18, condemning the school’s new community conduct guidelines.
The criticism from the faculty group follows an email blast from the New York City college’s President Laura Rosenbury last week that issued a non-exhaustive list of permitted and prohibited behavior for Barnard community members.
The list of expectations aims to “provide additional clarity and confirmation of the College’s core values of inclusion and continuous learning” by giving examples of actions that would either affirm or breach the school’s community etiquette standards, which stem from its official policies and rules. Behaviors that were considered in violation of these values included tactics used by student protesters at Barnard and its sister school Columbia University during pro-Palestine protests last spring, like displaying signage in residence halls, projecting lights onto school building exteriors, erecting “unauthorized tents … with the intent to remain,” and “unfurling posters, banners, or other items from stairwells, balconies, windows, or other elevated spaces.”
The guidelines also outlined behavioral directives for Barnard employees, specifying that “messaging … supporting a geopolitical viewpoint or perspective while denigrating or remaining silent about an opposing geopolitical viewpoint or perspective” and posting political signs on office doors would go against the college’s community values.
“Designed without community input, issued without warning, and as vast as they are vague — these ‘expectations’ create a pretext for a dangerous infringement on freedom of expression and academic freedom,” the Barnard AAUP statement read. “We reject the legitimacy of these policies and condemn any use of them to discipline community members.”
Arguing that the guidelines “accelerate the President’s ongoing dismantling of faculty governance and revision of college policies,” the statement also cited an April vote in which the chapter’s 102 members unanimously decided “that they did not have confidence in Rosenbury’s ability to serve.”
Just a week after the AAUP vote, Barnard faculty overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence in Rosenbury in a poll conducted by the school’s official body for faculty governance and procedures.
“The Barnard AAUP urges the administration and the Board of Trustees to immediately rescind these policies and to make these community decisions a community matter again,” the missive concluded. AAUP has not yet responded to Hyperallergic‘s request for comment.
In a statement to Hyperallergic, a Barnard spokesperson said, “We share the faculty’s commitment to free speech and academic freedom and to ensuring the College remains a welcoming and inclusive place that fosters students’ learning and development. We look forward to working with faculty, students, and staff to achieve these goals.” Hyperallergic was unable to reach Rosenbury for comment.
Announced in the second week of the semester, the new guidelines are just one component of what has already been a tense year for Barnard. Last semester, massive pro-Palestine student protests consisting of solidarity encampments and building occupations across the street at Columbia were met with mass arrests and academic sentences. On the first day of classes earlier this month, unidentified protesters drenched its famed “Alma Mater” (1903) statue in red paint.
In an email to Hyperallergic, AAUP president Todd Wolfson said the organization “wholeheartedly supports” the Barnard chapter’s position.
“Barnard’s issuance of their ‘Expectations For Community Conduct,’ is an egregious violation of widely accepted principles of shared governance,” Wolfson wrote. “Instead of reevaluating the decision making of the university after last spring’s unanimous no confidence vote, president Rosenbury has doubled down on denying faculty a voice in determining campus policy.”
New Yorker cartoonist and Barnard adjunct professor Liana Finck told Hyperallergic that as a left-wing American Jewish person with family in Israel, “it’s been a beyond emotional time, and also an interior one.” The Israeli military’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and the Occupied West Bank have killed upwards of 41,272 Palestinians since Hamas’s October 7 attack, during which an estimated 695 Israeli civilians were killed and another 251 taken hostage. While Finck is not a member of the AAUP chapter, she said she felt the group’s recent statement was “extremely gracious.”
“Even when I don’t agree completely with some statement or other, I think we are all very well-intentioned and that our goal during this time should be to weather the intensity with our social connections intact,” the cartoonist added.
“I think a lot of us — besides a few bloodthirsty strongmen who should not be in power — want the same thing: peaceful, fair coexistence.”
Editor’s Note, 9/20/2024, 3:32pm EDT: This report was updated with a statement by AAUP president Todd Wolfson.
