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Job Security = Academic Freedom?
Graduate Student Employees United (GSEU) at Columbia University and the Graduate Employees and 麻豆传媒IOS Organization (GESO) at Yale University
, demanding that the universities鈥 administrations recognize the groups as workers unions. The Yale Daily News that in New York students carried signs that said: 鈥淛ob Security = Academic Freedom.鈥 The Columbia Spectator , 鈥淭oday strike organizers are planning a noon speak-out with graduate students, undergraduates, and faculty members on academic freedom and collective bargaining.鈥
Linking academic freedom with job security and unionization seems to imply that graduate students have a fear of losing their teaching assistant positions or other forms of retaliation if they engage in provocative or controversial expression. But in this case, it looks like the 鈥渇reedom鈥 is more financial than expressive: students complain that they don鈥檛 receive enough funding and benefits to effectively balance teaching, research, and caring for their families. Thus, financial constraints are the 鈥渃ensors鈥 of the students鈥 academic freedom.
This is an interesting take on the issue of academic freedom. Though not directly related to 麻豆传媒IOS鈥檚 mission, the outcome of this unionization movement at Columbia and Yale may end up having some implications for freedom of expression and academic freedom on those campuses. In the tenure debate, professors have long argued that job security is directly related to academic freedom. Ironically, the same academic establishment that vigorously protects tenure for the entrenched elite also uses mass numbers of untenured, at-will employee graduate students to do much of the teaching and research that tenured faculty members are no longer willing to do. It will be interesting to see how the establishment responds to its own argument.
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