(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2017)
Faculty discipline is much in the air these days. Like unruly toddlers in need of management and correction (by others who have unilaterally assigned themselves the role of "adults in the room"), faculty appear to have lost all sense of decorum, of self control and of a sense of humility in the face of the superior knowledge and power of those who have been placed above them in the hierarchy of university administrative structures. Not only might this be offensive to the administrator classes that increasingly view themselves as a class apart--and above--the masses of (presumably) fungible teaching and research staff, but it disturbs the good order of an institution that increasingly indulges the myth that knowledge is a commodity that can be neatly packaged and inserted into students like a vaccine through an antiseptic process of dissemination that ensures the optimum extraction of funds from students and its retention by the "institution."
What makes the current crop of misconduct and discipline provisions more interesting--and substantially more threatening to the good order of academic freedom (and tenure) are several trends that have become more evident in the last decade. These touch on movements toward vesting administrators with an increasing large scope of discretion in managing behaviors without any mechanism for protecting against abuse of discretion, the use of broadly worded policies as a screen behind which faculty activity could be determined to be disruptive, the construction of an accusatory system that imposes substantial burdens on faculty, and the bifurcaiton of obligation that would see faculty burdened with ethical and behavior responsibilities for which administrators are exempt.
The first is the trend toward the adoption of codes and policies (ethics policies, core values, etc.) that, though they might have started as statements of broadly worded aspirational objectives have now become mandatory conditions of employment (and the basis of discipline) for faculty. The problem with this trend is that most of these statements are worded so broadly that they are virtually impossible to apply without interpretive guidance, or perversely, create substantial areas of permissible exercise of discretion by administrators with no real mechanism for controlling abuse of discretion. This trajectory indeed amplifies the related trend to increasingly vest administrators with broader areas of discretionary decision making in which there is virtually no mechanism for protection against abuse of discretion (e.g.,
b Abuse of Discretion at the University: A Construction Built One Act at a Time).
The second is the trend toward the use of civility as a means of controlling not merely behavior but the production and dissemination of knowledge. That is, the use of broadly worded obligation to maintain "respectful workplaces and educational environment" as a means to permit administrators, with impunity, to discipline virtually any conduct or research initiative. There is perversity here, of course. These conduct codes and movement toward civility and respect were imposed as aspirational goals for very good reason. And reasonably applied to quite specific conduct they can serve an important purpose. But that is the problem; administrators much more concerned about the scope of their discretionary authority than with the resolution of specific problem for which rules and principles may be brought to bear have tended to indulge in broad principle with no real constraining language. There is generally nothing in the disciplinary codes that offer any sort of burden on administrators to show that their actions do not adversely affect or target expressions of academic freedom, nor are there any mechanism that otherwise constrain discretion (that, in any case can always be cleverly at times reshaped to suggest meritorious grounds other than irritation about what it is that a faculty members teaches or her research).
The third is the trampling of procedural protections and fairness in the rush toward the imposition of a disciplinary state within the university. There are a few key elements of this trend. The first increases the burden on faculty to defend against disciplinary procedure. The second is the move toward ensuring that officials performing executive functions within a department are also those charged with the roles of investigating and judging claims. This touches on everything from exercising discretion in pursuing claims to a broad freedom to determine the extent and sufficiency of evidence and a fairly free hand in indulging in interpretation of "facts" without constraint. In the usual case, investigations can bring in the full administrative machinery of the university--from human resources to general counsel. Faculty are merely informed and permitted to respond to whatever it is that is made available to them. Once a decision is made faculty are lefty to the often slow moving and jurisdictionally constrained processes of Faculty Rights and Responsibility mechanisms. In many of these codes as well there is a unilateral authority in administration to take interim measures--leaves of absences and the like, without any opportunity to challenge the measures.
The fourth is the tendency to use these "misconduct regimes" to (perhaps inadvertently; but does actual intent matter?) to further the de-professionalization of the professorate. Misconduct codes can bring the discipline of the assembly line to the activity of teaching as well as to that of research. We have begun to see its effects in assessment. Assessment has been targeted for years on productivity rather than value. Now it is also possible to turn to these codes to undermine faculty control of their teaching and their research. Some of the now mandatory aspirational codes and policies can be used to challenge the propriety of knowledge production and dissemination which is deemed to threaten , defame, insult or demean its targets, in which these allegations are subjectively driven and the acquiescence with which shifts power over knowledge from its producers to its consumers (and the administrators that add no real value to either). These are issues that deserve deep and engaged discussion and consideration--yet there is never any--just administrative ukases over which the fig leaf of a few selected faculty may be placed.
The fifth follows from the fourth. De-professionalization is particularly marked where disciplinary regimes in its substance or procedures) are made to apply to one class of employee with a specific waiver of their application to others. Many disciplinary regimes apply only to faculty,. They do not apply to administrators. Where administrators are brought within disciplinary regimes, both the scope of coverage and the control of discipline tends to be opaque. There is no accountability. The signalling is clear--line workers require close supervision through the elaboration of disciplinary systems. Managers are professionals--their conduct is embedded in principles of broad discretion.
The sixth, there is hardly ever any meaningful faculty engagement with the increasingly byzantine set of codes, rules, regulations, measures, directives, monitoring, surveillance, reporting, and expectations that now make up the universe of rules that may be deployed at the convenience of administrators to discipline offending faculty. The usual method of imposition involves determinations made within the inner sanctums of central administrative sub units--human resources, faculty affairs, etc.--that are generated from out of incessant benchmarking or derived from conclaves of administrators at those levels sharing their cultures and effectuating tighter cultural socialization among their members. These are then formulated at those levels--or more likely the formulations are guided by those administrators as they manage the proceedings of "blue ribbon" committees (mostly of administrators with a dollop of selected faculty). Once completed, the disciplinary rules are effectively unalterable. And in this state they are dutifully sent to the institutional voices of the faculty (its Senate of Faculty Organization) for "review" and "comment". These reviews will be graciously received with accolades to the close cooperation of the "stakeholders" in this enterprise. And the policy now rolled out as the work of faculty themselves.
And the seventh is perhaps the most pernicious. Disciplinary standards might be effective enough and of value to the university when, after close engagement, they result in the development of a set of clearly understood objective standards. But the move toward disciplinary codes is tied to a move toward the imposition of subjective standards as well. The effect is to produce what are standards in form only. Here the university is in danger of moving away from fairness based governance to the sort of arbitrary "rule by people through law"regime that evokes something quite different: what, after all, might "respectful," or "civil,"mean. "“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”" (Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson), Through the Looking-Glass, chapter 6, p. 205 (1934)).
