As we mentioned in our previous collective bargaining email update, Article 19 on “conflict of interest/outside activity” remains a point of contention between our union and the Board of Trustees (BOT). Currently, we have language in our contract defining what any reasonable person would consider potential conflicts of interest with outside activity, for example: teaching at another institution, working at another job, and consulting. The BOT, however, wants to expand this concept to include anything and everything faculty do outside of work. This is intrusive and a blatant violation of academic freedom, like an Orwellian nightmare descending upon us.
One of the key intentions behind such a move by the BOT is to stifle faculty’s free speech to critique the University and/or the state government. This might appear hyperbolic, but the University of Florida recently denied three faculty members with particular expertise on voting rights from testifying against Florida’s restrictive new voting laws, as reported by The New York Times. Local and national criticism of UF’s move has been unanimous and swift, accusing UF of denying faculty their First Amendment rights, violating accreditation rules. UFF State President Andrew Gothard has defended the three UF faculty members by stating, “It is absolutely shameful that the University of Florida has chosen this partisan approach to public service in an attempt to sway the outcome of a lawsuit. The United Faculty of Florida will do all that is within our power to protect the First Amendment rights of higher education faculty, students, and staff across the state.”
Recently, UF’s President Fuchs backtracked to allow the faculty members to testify. Aside from a strong response from UFF leadership against Fuch’s, UF’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that limited what constituted outside activity assisted in forcing the University from attacking its faculty. During the Faculty Senate meeting yesterday, Provost Danilowicz mentioned the recent UF scandal and highlighted how our CBA has language protecting faculty’s academic freedom in Article 5. But this could be undermined by the current changes the BOT wants to make within Article 19 and may act as a backdoor to challenge the rights of academic freedom found in Article 5. We cannot allow the FAU administration to insist on changes to Article 19.
An overreaching definition of “conflict of interest” in Article 19 ultimately smothers free speech. That the premiere university in the state has already attempted to restrict faculty’s outside activities, without even bargaining over how these are defined, clearly exposes the intentions behind our BOT’s desire to expand and weaponize Article 19 to suit political interests. As our Provost reminded us during another recent Faculty Senate meeting when asked why we don’t have a mask mandate on campus, the UF President claimed to be powerless over implementing one, therefore, FAU must quickly fall in line. In this, we know that as goes UF, so goes FAU.
In Solidarity,
UFF-FAU Executive Committee