Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, the Professional Staff Congress  filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, New York County, challenging the adoption of the controversial Pathways resolution by the CUNY Board of Trustees.

Below is an email fro PSC President, Barbara Bowen, providing the details.

Tony

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Dear Members and Colleagues,

Yesterday afternoon the PSC filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, New York County, challenging the adoption of the Pathways resolution by the CUNY Board of Trustees. I am joined as plaintiff on the suit by Sandi Cooper and Terrence Martell, leaders of the University Faculty Senate. This is the first of two lawsuits against Pathways that the PSC plans to support.   We will also support a lawsuit to be brought by students at a later date, focused on the harm Pathways will do to their education at CUNY. Our press release on the growing opposition to Pathways was issued early this morning.

The lawsuit filed yesterday concentrates on the violation of the settlement agreement reached in 1997 between CUNY, on the one hand, and the PSC and University Faculty Senate on the other. That settlement agreement reaffirmed that the CUNY faculty, through the University Faculty Senate and the college faculty senates and councils, are responsible for the formulation of policy relating to curriculum, the awarding of college credit, the granting of degrees and other academic matters.

The PSC has invested considerable resources in filing the suit, and we will pursue it vigorously. But the most important actions are those you take on campus.

I attended the University Faculty Senate meeting last night, and not a single person spoke in favor of Pathways, yet many felt they had no choice but to vote for its approval. We do have a choice. Faculty and faculty bodies across the University are standing up and registering their opposition to Pathways. Those of us who hold elected faculty governance positions have the freedom—and the responsibility—to vote in ways that we believe are academically and pedagogically sound.

You can stand up for what you believe even if you are not on an elected governance committee. Sign the union petition on Pathways online by noon on Friday, March 23, and your name will appear along with thousands of others in the next Clarion. (Duplicate and ineligible signatures will be eliminated.)

Faculty and staff on every campus are struggling to do what’s right for our students, yet feeling forced to make decisions by the absurd and coercive timeframe for Pathways implementation. There is no justification for rushing a curriculum revision of this magnitude. It’s time for 80th Street to slow down, start again, and respect the role of our elected faculty bodies.

In solidarity,
Barbara Bowen
President, PSC