BARNARD AAUP STATEMENT ON “EXPECTATIONS FOR COMMUNITY CONDUCT”
Barnard AAUP condemns in the strongest possible terms the new “Barnard College Expectations for Community Conduct” issued on September 11, 2024. Designed without community input, issued without warning, and as vast as they are vague–these “expectations” create a pretext for a dangerous infringement on freedom of expression and academic freedom. We reject the legitimacy of these policies and condemn any use of them to discipline community members.
Not only do these ad hoc policies contravene the college’s mission to facilitate intellectual risk-taking, but they accelerate the President’s ongoing dismantling of faculty governance and revision of college policies. As a result, faculty find that the votes they take are non-binding and faculty input on committees inconsequential. Despite a No Confidence Vote in the President and repeated attempts by faculty groups to work collectively to foster shared decision-making, faculty and academic staff find themselves working in conditions that they increasingly have no say in. Barnard College has a long and proud institutional history, built by a community whose expertise in, and practice of, shared governance, academic freedom, and freedom of expression has been central to its success. The Barnard AAUP urges the administration and the Board of Trustees to immediately rescind these policies and to make these community decisions a community matter again.