To: Academic Senate Faculty
Dear Colleagues:
On the eve of Chancellor Block’s congressional testimony, we write to affirm our core values as UCLA faculty. Faculty watching the hearing likely will confront issues related to discrimination, academic freedom, free speech and first amendment rights, and faculty disciplinary processes at UCLA.
The University of California has long asserted that academic freedom, freedom of speech and first amendment rights are fundamental to achieving our academic mission. The Academic Personnel Manual (APM) states:
“The University of California is committed to upholding and preserving principles of academic freedom. These principles reflect the University’s fundamental mission, which is to discover knowledge and to disseminate it to its students and to society at large. The principles of academic freedom protect freedom of inquiry and research, freedom of teaching, and freedom of expression and publication. These freedoms enable the University to advance knowledge and to transmit it effectively to its students and to the public.”[APM-10]
The Board of Regents, per bylaw 40.1, have entrusted the Academic Senate to “ensure[] the quality of instruction, research and public service at the University and protect[] academic freedom.” This responsibility is enshrined in the APM:
“Academic freedom requires that teaching and scholarship be assessed by reference to the professional standards that sustain the University’s pursuit and achievement of knowledge. The substance and nature of these standards properly lie within the expertise and authority of the faculty as a body.”[APM-10]
Academic freedom and free speech sit alongside anti-discrimination as fundamental tenets of the University of California. As the University of California Anti-Discrimination policy states, "Discrimination and Harassment pose a serious threat to the University’s mission, values, and reputation. As such, the University is committed to creating and maintaining a community where all individuals can work and learn together in an inclusive environment."
The Faculty Code of Conduct “sets forth the responsibility of the University to maintain conditions and rights supportive of the faculty’s pursuit of the University’s central functions” and “elaborates standards of professional conduct” into ethical principles and types of (un)acceptable conduct. The intent of the Faculty Code of Conduct is “to protect academic freedom, to help preserve the highest standards of teaching and scholarship, and to advance the mission of the University as an institution of higher learning.” It specifies the right of faculty “to be judged by one’s colleagues, in accordance with fair procedures and due process, in matters of promotion, tenure, and discipline, solely on the basis of the faculty members’ professional qualifications and professional conduct.”
At UCLA, the Academic Senate advises on academic personnel matters, including grievances by faculty and charges against faculty, via the judicial committees. The Faculty Code of Conduct states that “[n]o disciplinary sanction for professional misconduct shall be imposed until after the faculty member has had an opportunity for a hearing before the Divisional Committee on Privilege and Tenure, subsequent to a filing of a charge by the appropriate administrative officer, as described in Academic Senate Bylaw 336” (APM-015 III-A-2).
Shared governance is a bedrock of the University of California, codified by the UC Regents in 1920. UCLA’s consultative decision making and shared governance reinforce that faculty are at the heart of the academic enterprise of teaching, research and public service. In our most challenging times, it is crucial that we lean in to our long-held UC values as well as the practices and processes of shared governance that have stood the test of time and allowed us to become the #1 public university.
Sincerely,
Andrea M. Kasko
Chair, Academic Senate
Kathy Bawn
Vice Chair/Chair Elect, UCLA Academic Senate
Jessica Cattelino
Immediate Past Chair, UCLA Academic Senate
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