We write to remind you of your rights as faculty that are protected under the State of California’s Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA). At a time when free speech, assembly activity, and academic freedom are being threatened across the UC system and in other universities across the country, it is critical that we are all aware of the rights that we are able to exercise under HEERA and the U.S. Constitution.
Last spring, UC-Berkeley campus administrators circulated communications to chill our exercise of academic freedom and to restrict our rights to engage in protected concerted activity. Several of these communications warned faculty that they could be disciplined for violating the faculty code of conduct, including by purportedly “indoctrinating” students or teaching coursework outside the scope of their course material. Others provided guidance marked “confidential,” instructing faculty to not communicate with other university employees about a possible UAW strike.
These instructions and guidance were at the center of an historic Unfair Labor Practice charge filed two weeks ago, in which the BFA joined CUCFA, the UCLA Faculty Association, the UC San Diego Faculty Association, the UC Irvine Faculty Association, the UC Santa Cruz Faculty Association, the UC Davis Faculty Association, and the UC San Francisco Faculty Association in a filing against the Regents of the University of California. In that charge, we collectively allege that the Regents interfered with the exercise of rights that are guaranteed to us under HEERA, and discriminated against faculty for exercising protected rights. The filing, which CUCFA has summarized in more detail, includes three sets of charges: 1) the University threatened to discipline faculty for violating the code of conduct if they exercise academic freedom in a way that does not align with the University’s position on the war on Gaza, 2) the University put at risk and punished faculty who participated in and supported the student encampments, and 3) the University issued overbroad guidance prohibiting faculty from speaking to other campus employees about strike activity, regardless of our supervisory relationship with those employees.
We have previously shared our disagreement with campus’s overly broad definition of “political advocacy” in its (asymmetrical) efforts to constrain academic freedom and free speech on the subject of Palestine and the widening war on Gaza and Lebanon. We remind faculty that under HEERA and the U.S. Constitution, faculty have the right to teach about Palestine, including perspectives critical of the state of Israel. This includes the right to encourage and enable students to learn about Palestine by encouraging and enabling optional attendance at public events, talks, or speeches that may expose students to diverse and critical perspectives on current affairs.
Here is a link to AFT’s FAQs on Campus Free Speech/Academic Freedom: Protests. These are meant to provide general guidance and should not be read as offering specific legal advice.
Zoé Hamstead, Alastair Iles, Roshanak Kheshti, and Paul Fine, co-BFA chairs.