My friend and colleague at West Chester University, John Elmore of the School of Education, sent this letter out to university professors this morning. This concerns legislation that is being introduced to the Pennsylvania State Senate this afternoon by Andrew Dinniman (D-19th district) and Robert "Tommy" Tomlinson (R-6th district) which would allow West Chester to leave the state system of higher education and join the ranks of "state-related" schools like Penn State, Temple University and the University of Pittsburgh. The Dinniman/Tomlinson proposal would have enormous ramifications on APSCUF, the state union of college professors. This educational initiative seems to be politically motivated by West Chester's university president Greg Weisenstein and the PASSHE Board of Governors. Elmore's letter was co-signed by two of his colleagues, Curry Malott and Rob Haworth. Their argument lays out why this legislation is an attack on the principles of democracy.
The Purpose of West Chester University
Over the past forty years, public universities – and the
students and faculty who define them – have been poked, prodded, threatened, starved, and coerced into
capitulating to the redefining of the purpose of public higher education. Here at West Chester
University we have all witnessed the
incessant commodification of our campus, our curricula, and
our students. We have all sat in
meetings where we are told that our students are now
‘customers’, our classrooms are now ‘delivery mechanisms’, our teaching is now a ‘product’, and even our
public university itself is now a ‘brand’. We are told that these transformations are inevitable and
that this is all necessitated by a never-ending economic crisis – “the new normal” – in a country,
paradoxically, overflowing with so much capital investors struggle to find new investment opportunities.
American workers, including professors, are therefore constantly reminded that we shouldn’t let our
idealistic and antiquated perspectives on the value of public education, and the necessity of an educated
citizenry within a democracy, stand in the way of ‘progress’. The latest version of that ‘progress’ is
the proposed ‘opportunity’ for West Chester University to become a ‘state-related’ brand so that we
might realize the real opportunity of selling a more expensive, and therefore more profitable, ‘product’.
We are certain that over the coming weeks and months we will
engage in many debates over this
grand opportunity. We will undoubtedly argue over the
potential effects such a change might have on faculty rights, collective bargaining, our union, our
students, our sister campuses and our campus. These are all valid and critical concerns – even a casual
evaluation of tuition and fee rates at the current state-related institutions offers clear evidence of
what such a change would mean for our students, and thus a betrayal of PASSHE’s historic purpose,
that is, “to provide high quality education at the lowest possible cost.” However, what we
would like to make clear is that what is being proposed here at WCU is not merely a different path to
the same destination. This agenda emanates from a very specific valuation of what we do here
and the very purposes of public education in general. In short, the efforts to privatize
West Chester University are not value-neutral, nor are they unique to West Chester. This movement towards
the privatization of public spaces can be seen in every aspect of contemporary society. Such trends
are typically captured within the term “neoliberalism.”
Neoliberal theory is manifested in both economic policy and
political ideology, which in concert
disperse formidable effects and transformations of the
socio-cultural realities of society. This
neoliberal culture praises entrepreneurialism,
self-reliance, and rugged individualism; equates
unimpeded materialism and the pursuit of self-interest with
human freedom and social justice;
venerates the stockpiling of personal wealth; degrades
collective and public responsibility; and equates any government intervention on behalf of a collective social
welfare as counterproductive to human progress. David Harvey (2005) describes it well:
Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of
political-economic practices that proposes
that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating
individual entrepreneurial freedoms
and skills within an institutional framework characterized
by strong property rights, free
markets, and free trade… there has everywhere been an
emphatic turn towards neoliberalism
in political-economic practices and thinking since the 1970s
(pp.18-19).
Arguing that self-interest and an unfettered free-market are
the best, if not only, path to progress,
equality and a supposedly merit-based version of social
justice, public institutions are viewed through the lens of neoliberalism as, at best, social distractions
and, at worst, antiquated seeds of Bolshevism. For the advocate of neoliberalism,
therefore, anything that operates outside the for-profit model, whether it is a public school, a library, or a post office,
is actually counterproductive to human progress. For a participatory democracy, such a retreat from
all things public means, in effect, a retreat from democracy itself. As Noam Chomsky (2010)
declared, “The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy” (p.75).
History clearly evinces that making visible the
circumstances and power relations undergirding any form of hegemony, by way of the development of a critical
and dialectic lens within the people, has always bee the most fundamental ingredient for
counter-hegemonic struggle. Neoliberal advocates recognize this threat inherent to popular education and, in
maintenance of its agenda, seek to nullify and obliterate any such form of democratic resistance to the
expansion of private power and free market religiosity. Therefore, it should come as no surprise
that the destruction of public education has been a goal of neoliberal advocates wherever and
whenever they have found opportunity to unfurl their flag. When taking such goals into account, the
decades long effort to destroy public education, and offer private, for-profit alternatives -
designed by neoliberal think tanks, funded by right wing political action committees, and championed by
conservative politicians – should come as no surprise. We have witnessed the anti-democratic results
of the neoliberal program for public universities in places like Wisconsin, Michigan and multiple
other public universities across the country and around the globe.
We recognize that the positions we take here will be labeled
by some as idealistic, antiquated, and out of touch - we can live with such scrutiny. We also recognize
that not every faculty member on this campus made a conscious and political decision to be a part
of public education and, therefore, may not have made our same connections between the existence of
public education and the health of participatory democracy. However, we sincerely hope that our
colleagues, regardless of their political orientation, will come to realize that we did not arrive at
this crossroads of our own volition; we were systematically delivered here. The continuous budget cuts,
draconian systems of oversight, marginalization of students and faculty, have all served as
a cattle prod driving us to the point where we might be willing to abandon the promise of public
education and the promise of West Chester University as a public good.
In spite of their fear mongering concerning an inevitable
economic crisis, the values of those who
promote the neoliberal agenda are clear, and we do not share
these destructive values. We believe the question for us as faculty members of West Chester
University is this: Do we believe in the concept of a public good and its critical role within democratic
society - and, if so, what responsibility do we have in defending the public good in which we have been
entrusted? Will we defend public education or will we submit and become the latest example of
its demise?
We should not allow ourselves to be distracted from this
core question.
In Solidarity,
John Elmore, Curry Malott, & Rob Haworth
