No silence for faculty

In a press release sent out this morning, a letter signed by over thirty Columbia and Barnard faculty members calls for a review of the Rules of Protest. The letter is addressed to the Senate Rules Committee, and declares the faculty members’ support for a student petition put forth by Brennon Mendez (CC ‘17) and Abby Porter (CC ‘17). The letter also states the faculty members’ worries that the rules are too vague and may infringe on the basic due process rights of students.

Press Release:

Over thirty Columbia and Barnard faculty members have signed an open letter of support for a student petition to open the Rules of Protest to review, following widespread student concerns. The faculty letter was sent to the full Rules Committee this morning, followed by the submission of the list of petition signatories. For the first time since the 1980s, the Rules are being considered for review, and students have expressed a strong desire for substantial changes over the course of three town halls. The petition, written by Brennon Mendez (CC ‘17) and Abby Porter (CC ‘17), reads that “the Rules are anachronistic, vague, and dangerous to free speech on campus—but the Committee has yet to commit to making any changes at all.”

In addition to the faculty who signed a letter of support, several faculty members also directly signed the student petition, including Christine Philliou, Rashid Khalidi, Keith Moxey, and Cindy Gorn. The letter reads:

To the members of the Senate Rules Committee:

The undersigned, faculty members at Columbia and Barnard, have followed carefully the ongoing discussions about revising the Rules of University Conduct. We urge the Senate Rules Committee to move forward with revision. We share the concerns voiced in the statement, signed by numerous students, about flaws in the current rules and procedures. They are excessively vague in defining the boundary between permissible and impermissible activities, they specify a far-too-narrow range of sanctions, resulting in the possibility of excessive punishments for minor infractions, and their definition of violations is too rigid and does not sufficiently differentiate between minor and substantial disruptions of University activities. We also worry that punishments under Dean’s Discipline may deprive students of basic due process rights.

We urge your committee, and the full Senate, to revise the rules to eliminate these problems so as to ensure the existence of a robust culture of free expression on campus.

Sincerely,

Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Art History, Barnard
Peter Bearman, Cole Professor in the Social Sciences
Courtney Bender, Professor of Religion
Richard Billows, Professor of History
Elizabeth Blackmar, Professor of History
John D. Collins, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Victoria DeGrazia, Moore Collegiate Professor of History
Ann Douglas, Parr Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature
Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History
Lynn Garafola, Professore of Dance, Barnard College
William V. Harris, William R. Shepherd Professor of History
Martha Howell, Miriam Champion Professor of History
Shamus Kahn, Professor of Sociology
Alice Kessler-Harris, R. Gordon Hoxie Professor of History
Bruce Levin, Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health
Natasha Lightfoot, Assistant Professor of History
Mahmood Mamdami, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government MESAAS, International
Affairs, and Anthropology
Gregory Mann, Professor of HistoryMary McLeod, Professor of Architecture
Cristia Mercer, Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy
Gregory M. Pfulgfelder, Associate Professor, EALAC and History
Wayne Proudfoot, Professor, Department of Religion
Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities
David K. Rosner, Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman
School of Public Health and Department of History
Susan Riemer Sacks, Professor of Psychology, Barnard
Nan A. Rothschild, Director of Admissions, Museum Studies Program
James Schamus, Professor of Professional Practice in Film, School of the Arts
Anders Stephanson, Andrew and Virginia Rudd Family Foundation Professor of History
Kendall Thomas, Nash Professor of Law
Gray Tuttle, Leila Hadley Luce Associate Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies
Carol Vance, Professor of Anthropology
Paige West, Professor of Anthropology, Barnard
William A. Zajc, Professor of Physics

Students, faculty, and alumni have come together to call for a review of the Rules. Both the petition and the faculty letter of support remain open, and concerned students and faculty members can continue to sign the petition at: http://bit.ly/1A5Utc7 or reach out directly to Brennon Mendez (brennonmendez@gmail.com) and Abby Porter (amporter38@gmail.com).