Mark Stansbery had a great letter in the March 7 Readers’ Forum section of the Lantern. In it he lists six areas of transgression he feels warrant a “University Code of Conduct.” His suggestion parallels the recent focus on an expanded and controversial “Student Code of Conduct.”
The aim of both (beyond finger-pointing, vilification and sanctimony–an assortment of tribunals on the horizon) might be “a commitment to social responsibility to the community, its staff and its students.” The administration must not torture cats in cruel experiments. Students must not run-riot after area bars close. Code contention and power posturing from counter-position here might continue, as any number of debates rage.
It is important to note, apart from the debate, the structure of the university insures conflict and cross-purpose are entrenched. This structure, belies whatever code is devised.
Within structure, even under dueling codes of conduct, an administration could manage hearings and discipline in a way that accentuates disproportionate and/or inordinate power. Wielding tax revenue, with longer-than-students tenure, the administrative voice might be louder than the pops and squeaks that result even from top-tier, academic ecstasy. Does it matter that staff and students report to an employer in standard relation?
Stirring conduct problems Stansbery mentions “codes” are supposed to fix, have structural and material roots. Labor is a commodity at Ohio State. Capitalist institutions predominate in society. OSU administration plays the now steady themes of that economic form as if beyond challenge or question. Contracting-out, privatization and dealings with “human capital” are handled with business flair.
Wage labor being the central stranglehold of our day, it is possible that with public money involved, higher education could move beyond emulating the corporate sector in challenging ways. This would mean a positive embrace of staff and student workers rather than the rampant exploitation themes that now parade as efficiency, or get rationalized in the wider culture.
I don’t think the usual public relations bevy of town meetings, committees and forums break the stranglehold. Neither will codes or principles lift flagship higher education to a new day. As long as division between the working and employing class is a pre-set and unspoken part of structure – administrators will wield derived power and revenue as productive advance.
I advocate a union at Ohio State, focused on representation of workers’ interests and accentuating workers’ power. This bumpy ride will require dues to keep the organization democratic and free of administrative control and interference. In exchange for less kneeling before trustees, there may be periods where organized workers decide to withhold their labor to make a point. Why wouldn’t a thinking, free society welcome such expression in the face of misconduct?
As things now stand, HMOs are horning-in on health care decisions. Administrative groups have a similar lock on education. Employers, industry by industry, have harnessed commodified workers. A few are exalted and prized. The majority are drained in the sour conditions of present structure, bargaining singly, with the option to leave.
Over reasoned codes laid as a template over predominate structure, people need solidarity and social force to assure community service. Of themselves, “codes” don’t empower those currently harnessed in the system. Acknowledging structure, a unionized workforce might embrace code enforcement and make top-tier academic experience possible for all.
David L. LesherStaff
