California’s Legislature Classifies State’s Adjuncts as Exempt Professionals—Here’s What That Means

California classified adjunct faculty members at colleges and universities as professional employees who are exempt from state wage and hour laws under a bill signed Sept. 9 by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). The legislation will prevent a number of private institutions from asking adjuncts to fill out time cards to avoid violating labor law on overtime.

Over the past several years, California colleges and universities have chosen to settle faculty overtime violation lawsuits filed by a California law firm. Last year, Stanford University settled for nearly $900,000 in a class-action suit filed on behalf of instructors in its continuing studies program. Attorney’s fees amounted to one-third of the settlement. The adjuncts each received $1,417. Public institutions in California are protected from the wage-hour suits and this legislation now extends the same protection to the state’s private colleges and universities.

The Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, a bill sponsor, argued that it “provides statutory consistency for adjunct faculty wages” and “provides a baseline compensation for adjunct faculty and allows our institutions to continue treating adjunct faculty as exempt employees.” Association officials, in supporting the legislation, referred to the wage-hour lawsuits: “While adjunct faculty are regularly treated as exempt employees,” the association said, “recently several of our institutions have been forced to convert adjunct faculty to hourly, nonexempt employees in response to litigation stemming from ambiguity in the Labor Code.”

The legislation “is the only means by which institutions can comply with Labor Code and prevent additional lawsuits, which are resulting in six- or seven-figure financial losses,” said association officials.

The measure (A.B. 736), which took effect Sept. 9, put in place rules that include a duties test and salary requirements for the classification to be met. Under the rules, adjunct faculty members must:

• be primarily engaged in an occupation that is commonly recognized as a learned or artistic profession,

• customarily and regularly exercise discretion and independent judgment about the performance of their duties, and

• receive a monthly salary that is at least twice the state minimum wage for at least 40 hours a week.

Alternatively, such instructors must receive for preparatory work, classroom or laboratory time, reading time and office hours, and other related work at least $117 in 2020, $126 in 2021, $135 in 2022, and an inflation-adjusted amount in subsequent years.

Employees are to be separately compensated for noncourse-related work for the employer.

The measure aims to transform qualifying part-time faculty members from hourly workers into salaried workers with a threshold minimum salary.