The fight to reinstate contingent faculty activist Georgette Fleischer continues. Fleischer was let go after 17 years of teaching and service at Barnard College. LAWCHA’s contingent faculty committee called for support and messages this summer. We do so again. We encourage you to write the Barnard president and reach out to Barnard alums in your networks of contacts, asking that they weigh in on this important case.
Professor Fleischer’s reinstatement is being held up by the Barnard administration’s unreasonable insistence that the case be heard by a specific arbitrator who is unable to begin hearing the case until late April 2018. The contingent faculty union at Barnard, BCF-UAW Local 2110, made multiple requests that the case be reassigned to an arbitrator who can hear the case now.
The administration’s transparent tactic of stalling directly harms an underpaid adjunct professor. Such intentional delays pose a real danger for contingent faculty, exploiting their already precarious positions. This tactic betrays both the tenets of fairness in professional matters and the respect for the newly formed contingent faculty union that should be expected from Barnard administrators.
Fleischer’s reinstatement has gained support from leaders and members of many faculty unions, contingent faculty unions, and graduate students unions, as well as professional associations. On the ongoing effort to reappoint Professor Fleischer and on Barnard’s recently organized contingent faculty union, see BCF-UAW Local 2110’s Facebook Page and BCFUAW.com.
Please add your voice in support of the Professor Fleischer’s reappointment and expedited arbitration. Also, please ask Barnard alums to join in. Messages should go to Barnard’s President Sian Beilock (presidentsoffice@barnard.edu; beilock@barnard.edu). Send copies to Jolyne Caruso-Fitzgerald, Barnard Board of Trustees chair (jolyne@alberleen.com), Maida Rosenstein, BCF-UAW 2110 president (maidarosenstein@2110uaw.org), and Georgette Fleischer (georgette.fleischer@verizon.net).
