Dear Editor,
I am writing to correct a number of inaccuracies in the Daily article titled "Faculty declines vote on CSL 'justified departure' policy" (Tuesday, March 12) beyond the non sequitur in the headline, since the article emphasizes that the issue has not come to the faculty as a body.
The Arts and Sciences & Engineering Faculty Executive Committee, at its last meeting, discussed whether we should bring the issue of the Committee on Student Life's (CSL) decision to the floor of a faculty meeting because a Daily reporter had asked to talk to the co?chairs of the committee about this. We looked at the AS&E bylaws for both the Executive Committee and the Committee on Student Life, but did not see any basis for us to interfere with the CSL's decision or to bring the issue to the floor of the faculty. However, the Committee did not make a final decision because we did not feel that we had all the relevant information, and I was asked to gather further information about the CSL decision and to seek the advice of university counsel. When I talked to the Daily reporter, I made clear to him that we were still gathering information and that I had not yet received a response from university counsel. Thus, the Daily article is inaccurate in saying: "Members of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee decided not to carry through on a vote on whether to strike down the CSL's 'justified departure' policy."
I followed up the interview by sending the Daily reporter the following summary of the main points I had tried to make:
"(1) The ExCom brings to the floor the faculty issues brought to it by faculty committees or other faculty sources, as stipulated in the bylaws:
'The primary duty of the Executive Committee is to design the agenda of faculty meetings, doing so in the context of a coordinated collection of information from the administration, faculty committees, department chairs and other sources, in order that discussions at faculty meetings adequately reflect faculty concerns and proceed in a well ?informed manner.'
To date, no faculty source has asked us to bring the CSL decision to the floor of the faculty.
(2) The ExCom would not interfere in the operations of a faculty committee unless we were concerned that said committee was violating the bylaws. To date, we have no reason to think that this is the case with CSL."
The Daily article also says:
"Several student groups, including the TCU Senate, have voiced opposition to the CSL's policy and had identified the (AS&E) Faculty Executive Committee as their last recourse to overturn the CSL's decision, according to TCU President Wyatt Cadley."
In fact, the TCU Senate has not asked the Executive Committee to do anything. On Jan. 30 Andrew Nu?±ez, the Senate historian, emailed professor Jeanne Penvenne, a member of the Executive Committee (ExCom), thinking she was ExCom chair (as she was last year), and she forwarded it to the current chairs, Professor Karen Panetta and me. The email announced the two Senate resolutions about the CSL decision, but there was no specific request for action. To my knowledge, the only student who has asked us whether we will take the CSL decision to the entire faculty is the Daily reporter.
If we were asked, we would probably reply (as I indicated above) that our function, as we understand it, is to bring to the floor of the faculty issues that faculty committees, groups or even individual faculty ask us to bring forward. Again, no one has done so. Students have representatives on faculty committees - elected representatives on the Committee on Student Life (where, as I understand it, the decision was unanimous) and representatives selected by the Senate on other committees. If the Senate wants to bring an issue to the faculty, they probably ought to work with student representatives on faculty committees, since those committees are able to bring business to the faculty as a whole through the Executive Committee.
That being said, I personally do not see anything in the bylaws that would allow the faculty to overturn the decision of a committee that is operating within its authority. There has been some confusion about the precise nature of the CSL decision. My understanding of what happened is as follows: After the TCU Judiciary de?recognized the Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) because TCF's restriction on eligibility for leadership in the organization violated the "all comers" policy, TCF appealed that decision to CSL. CSL did not overturn the Judiciary's de?recognition of TCF, rather they acknowledged that the Judiciary had reached a proper decision in light of the TCU Constitution as it then stood. They then went on to make a policy change creating a potential exemption to the "all comers" policy in the case of leadership of a student religious group, and crafting a precise and narrow procedure by which a group can obtain that exemption. When I talked to the Daily reporter I was uncertain about whether the CSL, by its decision to create an exemption to the "non?discrimination policy," had changed the TCU Constitution or a separate set of regulations pertaining to the recognition process. I have now been informed by university counsel as follows:
"I do not view the CSL decision as altering the TCU Constitution, nor creating a separate recognition policy. Instead, I read the decision as an attempt by the CSL not to intrude on the authority of the Judiciary in making initial decisions regarding recognition of student organizations, but at the same time, giving meaning to the role the bylaws require the CSL to play in approving such decisions. As such, the decision takes on the form of interpretive guidance to the Judiciary about what criteria the CSL will and will not approve regarding the recognition of student organizations."
This interpretation is based on the bylaw mandating the following jurisdiction to CSL:
"The criteria used by student government to decide whether or not to recognize student organizations shall be subject to the approval of the committee..."
Finally, it should be said that the agendas for the remaining AS&E faculty meetings this year are very full. At the same time, the decision by the Tufts Christian Fellowship not to seek an exemption to the non?discrimination policy means that the issues in contention are, for the moment, a matter of principle rather than practice. Therefore, in all likelihood the earliest that the faculty could discuss this at an AS&E meeting would be in the fall.
If this all seems quite complicated, that's because it is complicated! The Executive Committee regards the issues brought to the surface by the CSL decision as important and worthy of discussion, and we have neither the power nor the inclination to suppress such discussion. However, we are not the "boss" of faculty committees. We are here to facilitate and support committees in their execution of their mandates and to enable them to bring their business before the faculty. And we do not do the work of the committees; rather, when a matter is brought to our attention, we refer it to the appropriate committee(s).
I hope that this explanation provides both clarification of what has happened to this point and context for understanding the role of the Executive Committee. Sincerely, Steven Hirsch, Associate Professor of Classics Co?Chair of the AS&E Faculty Executive Committee
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