Muhlenberg AAUP Walkout over Trustees Tenure Decision Delay

In a protest against their board of trustees’ decision to delay the awarding of tenure to four faculty members, Muhlenberg College’s AAUP chapter held a walkout at their February 13th faculty meeting. The meeting was unable to continue because they could not reach the 78-person quorum. The Chapter criticized the effect of the delay on the professional and personal lives of colleagues as well as on shared governance. In addition, according to the student newspaper, they decried the absence of trustees at the meeting to explain this unusual move: https://muhlenbergweekly.com/news/dozens-exit-faculty-meeting-cite-frustrations-over-tenure-postponement/?link_id=50&can_id=2a5b9ef3c11ea0aa5ba2402396eef947&source=email-weekly-aaup-media-clips-29&email_referrer=email_3109141&email_subject=weekly-aaup-media-clips

Before the walkout, Associate Professor of Political Science Ross Dardani read a statement on behalf of Muhlenberg’s chapter of the AAUP, citing the lack of fairness surrounding the Board of Trustees’ decision to postpone the tenure decisions of four professors, which they said was “unconscionable, unfair to these individuals and erodes trust.”“Our chapter of AAUP made a simple request– that a member of the Board be present today to explain this unprecedented action. As there is no Board representative present, and in the spirit of standing in solidarity with our colleagues, we cannot and will not continue to be present at this meeting,” Dardani read from a statement. “We will boycott the next faculty meeting as well if the Board does not either attend that meeting or rectify the problem and vote on the four cases.” Many of the present faculty exited the room, with more virtual attendees logging off of the Zoom meeting.

Muhlenberg College was in the national news two years ago when it fired Maura Finklestein, an anthropologist thought to be the first tenured professor to lose their job for pro-Palestine speech in the United States. Both the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and a panel of Muhlenberg faculty found that Muhlenberg had violated Finkelstein’s academic freedom. The AAUP has placed the school on its list of censured administrations.