Solidarity @ USC
Starts With You
The American Association of University Professors
at the University of Southern California
USC-AAUP works to advance the rights of USC faculty, particularly pertaining to academic freedom, shared governance, and workplace conditions including economic security.
USC-AAUP is us, USC faculty, united across all ranks and titles. Our chapter is only as strong as our membership. If you do the work of faculty, join us!
Solidarity, respect, and collective power are key principles guiding the work that we do.
USC-AAUP statement on Covid & workplace conditions
August, 2024 — Covid-19 continues to affect faculty and staff working conditions, and student learning conditions. California has experienced a “relentless surge” this summer and while we may hope for a relative lull before winter break, Covid can be expected to affect the entire school year.
Wearing a high-quality mask remains one of the most effective mitigations against Covid spread.
USC-AAUP reminds the campus community that masking in classrooms is more complex than personal choices made by individuals. Keeping high-risk students and employees safely integrated into classrooms is both morally right and legally required per the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).[1] Thus, if anyone in a classroom is high-risk, they are entitled to ask for universal high-quality masking (KN95 or higher) as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA.[2]
USC-AAUP affirms its strong support for instructors to implement mask requirements in their classrooms if they so choose, whether or not they have received formal accommodation requests.[3]
USC-AAUP encourages the campus community to keep in mind collective and cumulative effects of proliferating Covid-19. Even people who were not initially “medically vulnerable” can acquire long-term health burdens due to “Long Covid”; multiple Covid-19 infections carry multiplying risks; and even short-term illness has deleterious effects on goals for collaborative work and individual well-being on our campus. Long Covid is having a significant impact at universities. Academic institutions including USC have the responsibility to proactively and flexibly accommodate students, faculty, and staff afflicted by Long Covid, including reducing risk of reinfection.
USC-AAUP also notes that in some states and municipalities, masks are banned or in danger of being banned.[4] Enforcement of mask bans is subjective and invites unequal treatment, with people of color more likely to mask to protect themselves from Covid and simultaneously more likely to be subjected to surveillance, scrutiny, or law enforcement action. We unequivocally regard mask bans as medically discriminatory and in violation of civil liberties.
Living responsibly with Covid also includes measures individuals cannot take for themselves. In our classrooms and other workspaces on campus, we have no way to gauge whether ventilation is adequate. We urge USC to exercise leadership by installing visible air quality monitors in classrooms and other campus spaces.
USC-AAUP urges the campus community to remain steadfast in protecting one another. It stands strongly behind instructors mandating masking in their classrooms to accommodate health needs. Our pedagogy is hollow without living our commitments to collective safety and to civil liberties.
[1] The Eighth Circuit issued a ruling that allows schools to require classroom masking in order to protect students with disabilities that make them vulnerable to Covid-19. Federal employment law also holds that a medically vulnerable employee has the right to request that co-workers mask in a workplace setting.
[2] USC-AAUP recommends that students notify the Office of Student Accessibility Services and instructors notify the Office of Institutional Accessibility and ADA Compliance in writing of their accommodation requests; but USC-AAUP underscores that instructors can choose to honor these accommodation requests even if made only to the instructor.
[3] The grounds for this are simple:
There is no ethical or non-stigmatizing way to identify whether “medically vulnerable” people are in a given classroom (or whether those in a classroom live or are in close contact with medically vulnerable people)
The World Health Organization recommends masking in crowded or enclosed spaces, and when infections are increasing in a community; high-quality masks (KN95 or higher) provide protection to both the wearer and those around them
Classrooms, unlike some other spaces on our campus and in private life, are not fully elective spaces: enrolled students and instructors cannot opt out if their comfort level with safety precautions is at odds with the status quo
Instructors have the responsibility to offer classroom spaces that are accessible and where access is provided equitably
Instructors also have the responsibility to ensure that safety protocols are in place in instructional spaces
These are matters of academic freedom: freedom to teach in a manner that maximizes freedom to learn is the cornerstone of instructors’ compact with students and the academic community writ large
Accordingly, freedom from ongoing exposure to infectious disease is paramount
Instructors have the implied and stated right to adopt and modify classroom policies as a matter of course. Thus requiring masking in classrooms during a period of heightened infectious disease transmission is a matter of academic freedom that instructors have the freedom to implement, much like policies requiring safety goggles in a bench chemistry class, or any other classroom policy meant to provide fair and equitable access to learning.
[4] The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, floated the idea of a mask ban in June, shortly before becoming ill with Covid herself. The University of California has banned masks that “conceal identity.”
USC-AAUP letter to the administration regarding the ongoing security measures on campus
August, 2024
Dear President Folt, Provost Guzman, and Vice President Southers,
We return to campus to find University Park walled off to all, save those who work here or have official business. While President Folt’s welcoming letter speaks of the “improved process of accessing campus,” it is only improved if our benchmark is this spring and summer. Compared to the long history of USC, where we placed pride in our integration with the surrounding community, access is severely constricted: by the lines at the “welcome tents,” by the hesitation of guests to come and visit, by the seemingly arbitrary secondary security screenings that those the "welcomers" have profiled are then subjected to.
Accordingly, we would like, in the spirit of open communication, integrity, and accountability, to begin a conversation by asking:
Can you articulate the continuing external threat against which these security measures might protect us?
Can you let us know the criteria for when these restricted-access measures will be lifted? Is there a timeline, or are these measures permanent?
In regard to the tap/swipe stations:
Are data retained after their use to facilitate access to campus?
If data are in any sense retained, is that retention administered by USC or a third party?
If data are gathered, what policies are in place about their use? Are they shared with data brokers? With outside security entities? With law enforcement?
If data are retained, may faculty have access to their own records?
Thank you for your time and attention. We look forward to meeting in person, at your convenience, to discuss these matters.
USC-AAUP Chapter Statement Regarding USC's Militarized Response to Student Protest
May 24, 2024
USC-AAUP condemns President Carol Folt and our administrative leaders’ decision to invite LAPD officers in riot gear and armed with batons, rubber bullet launchers, tear gas and guns (per the Daily Trojan) to our campus today in response to peaceful protest by our students.
Instead of allowing our students to go ahead with their planned events, which today included Yoga and Meditation, Kite-Making, a Kaddish reading with Jewish Voices for Peace, and a Sunset Vigil, all staged in Alumni Park as a "Gaza Solidarity" action, USC administrators chose to turn our campus into a militarized zone. DPS initiated confrontations with student protesters from early this morning at Alumni Park. After 5pm the LAPD issued a mass dispersal order; police in riot gear entered the campus; and dozens were arrested.
We are deeply concerned for all of our students’ well-being and safety. USC students (of many faiths, including many Jews) are challenging the mass slaughter of over 30,000 civilians in Gaza as well as Islamophobia on our campus. Our Muslim students also feel silenced and abandoned.
There can be no business as usual when our campus is occupied by city police who are preventing our students from engaging in a peaceful demonstration of their first amendment rights. The USC administration's choice to quell student protest, on the eve of their graduation, after silencing their commencement speaker is obscene.
By bringing militarized and armed forces onto our campus, and refusing to call them off even with ample evidence of police abuse and endangerment of students, USC administrators have made our entire campus community unsafe. We condemn their choice to suppress and endanger our students in the strongest possible terms.
USC-AAUP Chapter Statement Regarding the Cancellation of 2024 Valedictorian Graduation Speech
April 18, 2024
In light of the USC administration's decision to cancel the commencement speech of 2024 valedictorian Asna Tabassum, USC-AAUP reminds our academic community of the importance of academic freedom. We speak as faculty affirming a principal tenet of our mission: in the words of the USC Faculty Handbook, “Academic freedom is the core value of every great university.”
Either Asna Tabassum deserves to be valedictorian, or not. If not, then rescind her honor. If so, why deny her the ability to speak that has been given every other valedictorian for decades?
The Provost’s statement that “There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement” is technically true: the freedom of speech granted by First Amendment guarantees only that the government will refrain from making prohibitions on speech. But this framing is a diversion from the issues at hand: What we have here is a matter of academic freedom and campus values. As an organization dedicated for more than a century to preserving academic freedom, it is incumbent on the AAUP to challenge this grievously bad decision.
Additionally: framing of this as a security issue is disingenuous at best. If the issue is protecting the valedictorian, there are all manners of threat mitigation available. The DPS is California's largest private security force. It strains credulity that DPS, in coordination with city and state law enforcement if necessary, could not fashion a secure environment where the valedictorian could deliver her remarks.
If the issue is protecting the graduation ceremony from those who would disrupt it, how is removing the valedictorian from the ceremony anything other than caving in to illegitimate threats? We have had controversial speakers in the past. In keeping with our core values, we have — simply and unequivocally — let them speak. But here, we have capitulated to a "heckler's veto" before the fact. Why is the burden of a potential threat placed on the shoulders of the valedictorian rather than those who would disrupt her?
Faculty participated in selecting Tabassum as valedictorian in recognition of not only her high G.P.A. but her remarkable achievements. While it is salutary that the Provost is taking responsibility for the decision to disinvite her from giving the traditional valedictorian speech, the fact that it was made without consulting the bodies nominally involved in academic decisionmaking, the Academic Senate or the Faculty Councils, gives the lie to the notion of 'shared governance.' This was a decision that affects our larger community, done entirely without any notice to or consultation with that community.
It appears that the only input that mattered to the Provost's office came from people who took issue with a link on an Instagram page.
Asna Tabassum has earned the highest academic honor bestowed on an undergraduate student. She has distinguished herself academically and earned highest accolades throughout her tenure at USC. Surely she has earned the standing to address her peers and the campus community.
By casting aside the achievements and USC’s own recognition of such an acclaimed student, the USC administration does not merely create a chilling effect on the academic freedom of the entire USC community. It actively strangles it.
USC's capitulation here plays into the hands of those in Washington and elsewhere, many of them anti-intellectual reactionaries, who are opportunistically, cynically using the banner of "antisemitism-on-campus" as a means to assault higher education in the US and to demonize campus communities that express solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle.
What this surely looks like is less campus security threats than cowardly administrators afraid of facing heat from forces beyond our campus (see this, today) throwing an undergraduate student and indeed the entire USC community under a bus. Their capitulation harms not only our campus community but all of higher education in the U.S. By being honored as the 2024 valedictorian, Asna has been called to speak by USC; let her.
April 26, 2023
Members of the USC community are excited about the appointment of our new provost, Andrew Guzman, who will represent the faculty to the wider campus. As Provost Guzman has the asset of knowing our campus well, it may come as no suprise that in discussions with faculty members, one overwhelming need emerges: true shared governance.
We look forward to engaging with Provost Guzman regarding:
Demonstrable commitment to shared campus governance, including the signficant incorporation of faculty perspectives into decisions that affect the research and teaching mission of the university;
transparency that includes accountability and responsiveness to faculty members' concerns and requests for information, as "faculty are partners in the shared responsibilities of managing the academic enterprise," per the Faculty Handbook;
managing campus resources in a way that demonstrates that research & teaching are the institution's core priorities.
We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with our new provost in service of renewed shared governance as we look ahead to the future of USC.
USC-AAUP Statement to/re Newly Appointed Provost,
Andrew Guzman
Faculty Advocacy
Beginning in 1915, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has advocated for academic freedom, shared governance that prioritizes the voice and decision making power of faculty, and social equality. It helps to define professional ethics in higher education and to set pedagogical standards for teaching and learning that foster a just and equitable society. AAUP centers meaningful faculty and staff participation in decision-making processes and aims to build worker solidarity across campuses in the United States. It represents workers at universities and colleges in labor disputes and fights for economic security through direct advocacy and the creation of labor coalitions.
Working Together
The USC AAUP chapter commits to social justice, the safeguarding of teaching, learning and research, and the strengthening of empowered faculty governance. During these times of intense uncertainty at USC, coupled with the longstanding inequalities plaguing our institution, our chapter believes collective action and mobilization are more important than ever.