Professors and other employees in the California State University system are threatening to strike if system leaders refuse to provide a “desperately needed equity transformation,” which would include “limits to police power” and widespread access to “gender-inclusive restrooms.”
The California Faculty Association—an “anti-racism, social justice union” that represents nearly 30,000 employees of the nation’s largest university system—announced the demands in a Tuesday statement. The union said California State University leaders have “never taken seriously our proposals for [a] desperately needed equity transformation.” As a result, the union said, it has “no other option but to continue to move forward with our plan for a systemwide strike.”
Included in the union’s “equity transformation” are policies aimed at undermining campus police. One section of the union’s contract proposal calls to “ensure the well-being of faculty who have and continue to suffer negative consequences … of overpolicing in the United States” by requiring a union representative to attend all conversations between school employees and campus law enforcement. Campus police must also be unarmed when talking to university staff, the contract says.
Another section of the contract, meanwhile, compels university leaders to provide a “gender-inclusive restroom within five minutes” of every faculty member’s work site and install signs indicating “where the nearest gender-inclusive bathroom is located.” Should a California State University system member fail to comply with the provision, faculty members “may file grievances over health and safety risks and inequities from lack of access to gender-inclusive restrooms.”
h/t Glenn
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