BY HANK REICHMAN

Yesterday, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court in a narrow 5-4 ruling capped a week of outrageous decisions by declaring agency fee payments by non-union members unconstitutional in the public sector.  The ruling, which overturned a unanimous 1977 decision supported by such conservative luminaries as William Rehnquist, Lewis Powell, and Warren Burger, makes little logical or legal sense, running counter to the justices’ own recent case law governing public employee speech.  If proof were still needed that the court majority is more concerned with the raw exercise of political power than with legal principle, this decision alone should be adequate.  As Associate Justice Elena Kagan put it in her blistering dissent, the Janus decision has “weaponized the First Amendment” against working people.  (On the First Amendment implications of the case see my earlier post, “Janus, Agency Fees, and the First Amendment.”)

A weapon indeed, but by no means necessarily a lethal one.  There can be no denying that Janus has dealt a blow to public employee union finances and, specifically, to the finances of the AAUP.  But the decision also poses a challenge: Are we willing to stand up for our collective rights?  Are we willing to foot the bill ourselves?  As the AAUP put it in a statement issued yesterday:

our fight as AAUP members to have a positive impact on our colleges and universities, to strengthen public higher education, and to protect academic freedom is not over.  Together, we will continue to fight for our students, our campuses, and our communities.  We will continue to say, loudly and clearly, that strong universities and well-educated citizens are essential to our survival as a democracy.  That’s why our work as educators, union members, and advocates has never been more important than it is now.

But the AAUP cannot do it alone.  Our funding comes overwhelmingly from member dues.  And we punch well above our weight class owing to the activism and dedication of so many of those members.  In short, we are only as strong as our numbers permit.  Therefore, now is the time for more faculty members everywhere to step up and enter the fray.  Here are some things you should do.

JOIN THE AAUP! For those faculty members in the public sector fortunate enough to work under a collective bargaining agreement, Janus creates a “free rider” problem — non-members can now reap the benefits of contractual protections without paying their fair share of the cost of representing them.  But, in a sense, the AAUP has had its own “free rider” problem for over a hundred years.  Eighty percent of U.S. faculty members are not entitled to bargain collectively under the law, yet by developing and enforcing standards and policies for the entire profession the AAUP has represented them all.  When we investigate severe violations of academic freedom or governance standards we don’t do so only for our members.  Serve our members we must and will always do, but we would not be the AAUP if we didn’t stand up for our entire profession and for our hallowed principles and the common good.  So, if you teach or conduct research in higher education and you’re not yet a member of the AAUP, you’re already a kind of free rider.  But you don’t have to be.  You can pay your fair share — and become more involved with the defense of academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education as a common good essential to democracy — simply by joining the AAUP.  Go here now to begin the process: https://www.aaup.org/membership/join

RECRUIT NEW MEMBERS!  If you’re already an AAUP member, thank you!  But how about doing a little organizing?  At present outside of AAUP chapters with collective bargaining rights, fewer than 10,000 faculty members are part of the AAUP, what we commonly call advocacy members.  Given that there are literally millions who are eligible it shouldn’t be too difficult to recruit more — if only everyone worked a bit at it.  So here’s a challenge to all members reading this post: this summer why not try to recruit 5 colleagues to join the AAUP?   If every member did that, we could probably negate the entire cost of the losses in agency fee created by Janus.  I’m sure you can find people willing and able to step up in your department, on your campus, in your disciplinary associations, or among your friends.  Don’t be shy.  And if they want to know more about what we do and why it’s so important, direct them to the “One Faculty, One Resistance” website here: https://onefacultyoneresistance.org/

SUPPORT THE AAUP FOUNDATION!  An important way that AAUP members and supporters from outside the faculty can increase their support of our work is by donating to the AAUP Foundation.  Through its Academic Freedom Fund the Foundation provides critical financial support to faculty colleagues whose academic freedom has been attacked, as well as to the AAUP itself to cover the costs of academic freedom investigations, publications, and other critical activities.  Later today I will make a Janus-response donation to the AAUP Foundation of $750, split equally between the Academic Freedom Fund, the Contingent Faculty Fund, and the general fund, which helps cover the expense of maintaining the Foundation.  Won’t you join me?  To learn more about the Foundation and make a donation go to https://www.aaupfoundation.org/

As the old labor adage has it, “Don’t mourn, organize!”  Now more than ever, it’s time to step up.