The Justice

Media Credit: Julian Agin-Liebes Prof. William Flesch (ENG), chair of the Faculty Senate, speaks to professors and administrators during last Thursday's faculty meeting.

The Committee on Faculty Rights and Responsibilities will start hearing faculty grievances again after endorsing a joint statement with the Faculty Senate and the University administration at last Thursday's faculty meeting, according to CFRR member Aida Wong (FA).

The statement elaborates upon the roles of the CFRR, the dean and the provost with regard to the Faculty Handbook.

According to the statement, "If the Academic Dean rejects a specific judgment of the CFRR, he or she must give a substantive reason for the rejection, fully and fairly addressing the arguments made by the CFRR in support of its opinion." Grounds for rejecting an opinion of the CFRR cannot be cited as precedent in future cases, according to the statement. The statement also said that "the CFRR interprets the Handbook on behalf of the faculty, and faculty have a right to rely on CFRR's interpretations of Handbook rules and procedures as being the interpretation of the faculty."

"There are going to be some difficult faculty discussions around the [Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee] recommendations, and we did not want this unresolved issue between CFRR and the administration to hang over those discussions," Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe wrote in an e-mail to the Justice. Provost Marty Krauss added that it is important "to have a functioning mechanism for resolving [disputes regarding CARS recommendations] or at least processing them."

The resolution comes two years after a dispute arose between the respective parties over penalties placed on Prof. Donald Hindley (POL) for allegedly making racist remarks. A monitor was placed in Hindley's classroom, and he was also ordered to attend anti-discrimination training. The CFRR deemed the penalties were excessive and should be withdrawn, but Krauss did not follow the CFRR's ruling and said in March 2008 that the CFRR was an "advisory committee, as it says in the [Faculty] Handbook." The CFRR decided to defer hearing faculty grievances untill its role regarding the Faculty Handbook had been clarified as a result of the confusion regarding the roles of the respective parties.

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