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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>A little organizing work outside Sept 11. Please
forward to appropriate lists</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>.-- Nathan</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=6><STRONG><EM><U>News
Release</U></EM></STRONG></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT size=4>New York University Charged with
Illegal Workplace Retaliation Before National Labor Board for Denial of
Tenure</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P><STRONG><U>Monday, October 1, 2001</U></STRONG></P>
<P>From the United Auto Workers, Local 2110, the American Association of
University Professors, Jobs with Justice, and Scholars, Artists and Writers for
Social Justice</P>
<P>contact: Nathan Newman, Eisner & Hubbard, P.C.
<BR> (212) 473-8700, ext. 13 <A
href="mailto:nathan@eisner-hubbard.com">nathan@eisner-hubbard.com</A><BR>
Press documents archived at <A
href="http://www.eisner-hubbard.com/westheimer/">http://www.eisner-hubbard.com/westheimer/</A></P>
<P>New York University today faced charges before the National Labor Relations
Board of illegal workplace retaliation in its denial of tenure to Joel
Westheimer, assistant professor of education at NYU. Dr. Westheimer filed
charges that he was denied tenure by Dean of Education Ann Marcus, despite
unanimous backing by his department and by outside experts, in retaliation for
his testimony in fall 1999 before the National Labor Relations Board. That
original case led to NYU being ordered, after years of resistance, to bargain
with graduate student employees who had sought to unionize.</P>
<P>Faculty and labor leaders, including representatives of the American
Association of University Professors, the United Auto Workers, Scholars, Artists
and Writers for Social Justice, Jobs with Justice, and NYU's graduate student
organizing committee (GSOC), gathered on Monday, October 1 in support of Dr.
Westheimer and to denounce the chilling effect such a retaliation has on the
rights of all employees. "If people cannot testify freely before the National
Labor Relations Board without fear of retaliation", said Julie Kushner,
Sub-regional director of UAW's Region PA, "our whole system of workers rights
and the authority of the Board to enforce those rights is destroyed." </P>
<P>Ann Lieberman, a former President of the <FONT face=Times>American
Educational Research Association (AERA), </FONT>was an outside reviewer brought
in by NYU to evaluate Dr. Westheimer for the tenure process. She wrote in her
review that he would be given tenure "<FONT face=Times>without any doubt</FONT>"
at any of the top education schools, including her own top-ranked Teachers
College program at Columbia University. She considered his book <I>Among
Schoolchildren "</I><FONT face=Times>to be one of the most significant pieces of
research on professional communities to be published in the last decade.</FONT>"
</P>
<P>Dr. Lieberman has been joined in this opinion by 27 distinguished senior
scholars in the field of education, including 5 past presidents of the AERA, who
have expressed similar praise of his work and alarm at the threat to academic
freedom from denial of tenure based on political activities. As well, 63 NYU
faculty have denounced the process that denied Dr. Westheimer tenure,
emphasizing Dr. Westheimer's teaching, service to the community and research
that have made him one of the outstanding scholars in his field.</P>
<P>Notably, the university shared that opinion, as documented in the charges
filed with the NLRB today, until Dr. Westheimer became the only untenured
professor to testify against NYU in September 1999. Before his testimony he
received four NYU awards, including the 1997 Griffiths Research Award, awarded
to only one person annually for the best research in the School of Education.
Additionally, in 1997, Dean Marcus herself nominated him for the national
Millman Award for Education Research, awarded. annually to one recipient
nationwide considered the best among new scholars. When he won the award, Dean
Marcus wrote in university publications, "This award underscores the
significance of his work as a scholar." After his 1998 mid-year evaluation, Dean
Marcus wrote Dr. Westheimer personally that "I hope you have realized how
important your work is to your department and our school." </P>
<P>"Then," notes attorney Dean Hubbard, whose firm has been retained by the
United Auto Workers to represent Dr. Westheimer in his case, "Prof. Westheimer
testified on the opposite side from Dean Marcus in the NYU graduate student
unionization case and the retaliation began." According to charges filed by Dr.
Westheimer, this retaliation took a number of forms leading up to the denial of
tenure:</P>
<UL>
<LI>
<DIV align=justify>Dean Marcus, who in the past had been warm and friendly,
thereafter became personally hostile, refused to speak to him, and for the
first time began criticizing his work. </DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV align=justify>The head of the department's faculty review committee told
Dr. Westheimer of concerns that he was not a "team player" and that he should
go along with "the direction of the Department and the School."</DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV align=justify>In Dr. Westheimer's 2000 review, his department chair for
the first time reduced his rating from "exceptional", which he had received in
all previous years, down to mere "merit" which resulted in a significantly
lower pay increase than in previous years. </DIV></LI>
<LI>
<DIV align=justify>The Dean and department chair imposed, in addition to Dr.
Westheimer's academic duties, a new administrative workload that was far
larger than that put on other faculty.</DIV></LI></UL>
<P>By the time he was denied tenure, Dr. Westheimer notes, it was clear that, in
ignoring the unanimous recommendation for tenure by his department committee and
by seven external referees of national repute chosen by NYU itself, the
administration of the Education School was retaliating against him for his
testimony. </P>
<P>"We see this retaliation against Prof. Westheimer," argues NYU GSOC
bargaining committee member David Sherman, a Ph.D. student in English, "as the
same kind of retaliation and resistance to fair labor conditions that NYU has
imposed on workers across the university. When people feel they cannot speak out
for fear of losing their jobs, the most precious value of the university, its
academic freedom, is lost."</P>
<P> -- end --</P></FONT>
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