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Higher Education

University Of North Dakota Finds Dozens Of Native American Remains

The University of North Dakota has started the process of returning Native American ancestors and artifacts to their tribal homes. Repatriation is required under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, enacted by Congress in 1990. UND president Andrew Armacost said the university is still investigating why the remains were not previously returned to tribes. He said they were likely collected by university faculty from the 1940s to the 1980s, and it is unclear how the university used the remains. “How and why ancestors and sacred items remain on our campus is a mystery that we will have to answer in the course of our work,” he said. “Our intent of sharing this news today is to apologize to tribal nations across North America.”

ROTC Redux: A Bete Noire Of The Anti-War Movement Is In The News

Fifty years ago, no symbol of university complicity with the military angered more students than the on-campus presence of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). The manpower requirements of the Vietnam era could not be met by conscription, draft-driven enlistments, and the graduating classes of military service academies alone. The Department of Defense also needed commissioned officers trained in DOD-funded Military Science Departments at private and state universities. Anti-ROTC campaigning became a major focus of the campus-based movement against the Vietnam War. Critics demanded everything from stripping ROTC courses of academic credit to, more popularly, kicking the program off campus.

Inside Lockheed Martin’s Sweeping Recruitment On College Campuses

To a casual observer, the Black Hawk and Sikorsky S-76 helicopters may have seemed incongruous landing next to the student union on the University of Connecticut’s pastoral green campus, but this particular Thursday in September 2018 was Lockheed Martin Day, and the aircraft were the main attraction. A small group of students stood nearby, signs in hand, protesting Lockheed’s presence and informing others about a recent massacre. Weeks earlier, 40 children had been killed when a Saudi-led coalition air strike dropped a 500-pound bomb on a school bus in northern Yemen. A CNN investigation found that Lockheed — the world’s largest weapons manufacturer — had sold the precision-guided munition to Saudi Arabia a year prior in a $110 billion arms deal brokered under former President Donald Trump.

Reparations Are Being Discussed But Will Direct Payments Follow?

According to ABC News, during the colonial era the wealth of universities, in the form of endowments and benefactors, was inextricably tied to the slave trade, numerous university presidents owned enslaved people and famous alumni such as John C. Calhoun championed the cause of slavery. Enslaved people were owned by universities and worked on campuses until the abolition of slavery. Now, students at those institutions are organizing efforts to focus on erecting monuments, taxing endowments, PILOT programs, creating divestment campaigns and offering alternative campus tours that highlight the university’s history of slavery. Students are also pushing schools to identify and support descendants of people enslaved by the universities.

UPenn Teamsters Defeat Two-Tier

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Teamsters Local 115 members at the University of Pennsylvania are celebrating a contract victory that eliminates two-tier pay for housekeepers, over the resistance of their own union officials. “In my 31 years here, this is the best contract I’ve seen,” said member Theresa Wible. “We haven’t seen raises like this since the ’80s, and I’ve never seen our union hall this packed.” The 550 campus Teamsters are mostly housekeepers, and 250 of them had been stuck on a permanent bottom tier. The five-year contract, ratified June 29, puts every Teamster at Ivy League UPenn on a progression to top pay. This year the first tier is making $25.12 an hour and the second tier is at $20.90, but by the end of the contract every housekeeper will get $28.68.

How Universities Are Taught To Union-Bust: An Undercover Report

Support for unionization is at an all-time high, with 68% of all Americans and 77% of those ages 18-34 in favor of unions, according to a Gallup poll. While most recent NLRB filings are from Starbucks workers, higher education unions are on the rise as well. Since the NLRB withdrew a proposed rule that would restrict graduate student workers at private universities from unionizing in 2021, there has been an explosion of new activity among that sector, as well as among adjunct faculty. Among undergraduates, the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers won an election earlier this year to expand their bargaining unit to all hourly undergraduate workers on campus. I attended Jackson-Lewis’s webinar designed for university administrators who are worried about unionization on their own campus, to see what they had to say.

Bloomington Faculty Vote In Support Of Graduate Student Employee Union

An electronic vote of all Bloomington faculty has expressed overwhelming support for efforts of the Indiana University graduate student employees to seek union recognition. Between April 13 and the end of the spring semester, graduate student employees at Indiana University Bloomington, organizing with the United Electrical Workers, struck for campus recognition. The strike was temporarily suspended on May 10th for the summer, with plans for broader and deeper participation should the strike resume in the fall. Faculty on the Bloomington campus were galvanized to support graduate employees by the anti-union response by the campus administration which refused any dialogue with representatives of the union, the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition-United Electrical Workers (IGWC-UE). 

Student Protests US Support To Israel At Graduation Ceremony

A Palestinian student protested US support for Israel during her graduation ceremony, holding a picture of slain reporter Shireen Abu Akleh and refusing to shake hands with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Nooran A., graduating from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, Washington D.C., raised a Palestinian flag as she walked on stage to receive her certificate, refusing to shake hands with Blinken and telling the US' chief diplomat that the government should cut all support to Israel. Nooran wrote on her Twitter page that Blinken approached her after the commencement and told her "I hear you", as she called for an independent investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Abu Akleh and said accountability for Israel was essential.

Workplace Bullying In Higher Education Is Rampant

Grabbing her hair, the boss held scissor blades an inch from her face. “If you don’t give me any brilliant ideas I’m going to cut your hair off,” he deadpanned. Was this a sick joke? Was he serious? She was alone in his office with him. She was petrified. You might think this assault happened in some notoriously wretched workplace, the kind of abuse that only occurs in sweatshops halfway across the globe. But you would be wrong. This happened to one of us, Liz Adler. Liz was assaulted and threatened by a scissors-wielding professor five years ago in a prestigious laboratory at the University of California San Diego, one of the top research institutions in the country. (Liz is using a pseudonym as she’s still employed at the university where her assailant is a tenured professor.)

It’s Time To Challenge The Corporate University

Bill Readings, a late Université de Montréal professor noted the move towards corporatization of universities in his 1997 study, The University in Ruins. While the 1990s were certainly not the golden age of higher education, there were aspects of them that were palatable compared to the current moment. At that time, tuition was lower and more affordable. Technological incorporation in teaching and internet accessibility had just begun. Google and Wikipedia were nonexistent, and living accommodations for students on college and university campuses were modest. Universities relied on shared governance (faculty participation in the governance of an institution) for decision-making.

Defending The First Amendment

Speaking as a historian, I believe that the work of UFF-UF officers, delegates, volunteers, and allies during the global pandemic will be remembered as among the finest moments of unionism this nation has ever witnessed.  Under duress and constantly bullying by forces outside of our campus, we continued to grow as a union. We also continued to support a plethora of causes that the membership believes are essential to sustaining a democratic society. I believe that UFF’s consistent and public support of academic freedom was a factor in the federal court’s preliminary injunction against UF’s repressive speech policies in January. Our struggles are far from finished. Members of the Florida State Legislature continued their assault on the First Amendment by passing House Bill 7, the so-called “Stop Woke Act.” 

How An Israel Lobby Group Infiltrated US Education

Richmond, Virginia - In 2018, the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights (VCHR) successfully stopped the state from adopting textbook edits made by the Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS), a pro-Israel “educational” institution. The ICS promotes itself as improving the accuracy of K-12 instruction on Judaism and Jewish history in the United States. Yet, backed by the Israel lobby, its strategy appears more in line with advocating a Zionist narrative than enhancing education. Today, ICS boasts that it has helped better public education in all 50 states and impacted 11 million students across the country. With this in mind, MintPress News uncovered how ICS is twisting the truth about Israel in U.S. schools. The Fight In Virginia In January 2018, Virginia activist Jeanne Trabulsi attended a Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) webinar featuring ICS.

Public Universities Need More Democracy, Not More Administrators

The current crisis in higher education leadership is on full display at California State University (CSU) — the nation’s largest four-year public university system. Take the case of former CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro. Castro’s problems began with an underling — Fresno State’s Vice President of Student Affairs Frank Lamas — who was the subject of ongoing sexual harassment complaints and investigations. In 2018, Castro “enthusiastically” nominated his colleague to become the next president of CSU San Marcos. But later, as complaints about his VP’s behavior avalanched, Castro authorized a $260,000 payout and retirement package for the troubled subordinate. The sweetheart deal included a glowing recommendation letter. That’s golden parachute number one.

BDS Fights Heat Up Across Campuses

On April 7 the student government at Ohio State University passed a resolution calling on the school to divest from companies connected to human rights abuses in Palestine. The two companies targeted are Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who provides technology to the Israeli military, and Caterpillar Inc., whose bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes. “The passage of this resolution is merely one milestone on the long journey to the Palestinian people’s eventual triumph,” said the school’s SJP chapter in a statement. “We urge our supporters to remain vigilant and empowered as we take our next steps for accountability.” This victory was short-lived, as the effort was immediately stonewalled.

Rank And File Educators At Temple Issue Statement Against Cops

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Temple University recently announced a new initiative to increase “campus security,” that is, the power of campus police and the extent to which they work with the Philadelphia Police Department. The following is a statement by Rank-and-File Temple (RAFT), the rank-and-file caucus of TAUP (AFT Local 4531). TAUP is the union for teachers, librarians, and other education workers at Temple University.  RAFT has also helped lead the struggle to disaffiliate the union national AFT from all cop unions. Temple says they want more cops for “security.” They already have the biggest, most expensive campus police force in the country. Cops are not the answer.  We say no to TUPD and all police.
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