The settlement of a NEA-backed lawsuit challenging the University of the District of Columbia's attempt to bar faculty union officers from the University Senate should have a chilling effect nationally on other such attempts to limit faculty union rights, says the Faculty Association there.
The UDC Board of Trustees threw in the towel last month, agreeing to drop a provision in a new university senate charter that excluded union officers. The trustees took the action shortly after a U.S. District Court judge denied a motion by the university to dismiss the case. The judge accepted the union's argument that the ban raised First Amendment concerns.
"If other universities are contemplating similar prohibitions on faculty, they should look forward to being sued and losing," says UDC Faculty Association President Sam Carcione.
The settlement came as some good news during a bleak period for the UDC faculty, recently decimated by the layoff of 125 of its members. The Association has filed suit against the District of Columbia Financial Control Board because it did not follow the seniority and severance pay provisions of the Association contract.
The earlier UDC action banning union officers from the senate had national implications because the university used a statement from the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools---the university's accrediting body---to support its position.
A Middle States evaluation committee report had held: "Union involvement in academic governance . . . confuses the traditional academic governance with union governance. A continued separation of these two groups, as mandated by the Board, is imperative."
The university told the court that it understood this statement to mean that the university could lose its accreditation unless it barred union officers from the senate. But the court didn't buy the argument, saying the report does not mandate the exclusion of the union officers from the senate.
UDC also asked for a summary judgment against the Association because of what it called an inherent conflict of interest when a faculty member participates in both the union and the senate. The judge denied that motion also. The university made the settlement offer after the dismissal of these motions.
"The right to join and actively participate in the affairs of a union is precisely the kind of freedom of association protected by the First Amendment," U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote, upholding the union officers' right of association under the First Amendment.
The NEA Unified Legal Services Program funded the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia because of the importance of the issue to faculty across the country.
"It is a tribute to the NEA that the Association saw the importance of the issue and provided the backing needed to pursue our challenge," University of the District of Columbia Faculty Association President Sam Carcione wrote in a letter to NEA President Bob Chase.
Carcione also noted the support of the NEA's National Council for Higher Education, which voted unanimously at its 1996 annual meeting to recommend that NEA support the UDC Faculty Association challenge.
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