Contingent Faculty for Equity Group Issues “Alternate Vision for the College for All Act of 2021”

by P.D. Lesko

A group calling itself Contingent Faculty for Equality has published an “Alternate Vision for the College for All Act of 2021.” It is a “One-Tier Model of Faculty Employment.” Among the almost 50 people who publicly signed the Alternate Vision are some of the most respected contingent faculty activists in the U.S., including Jack Longmate, Keith Hoeller, Ana M. Fores Tamayo, Maria L. Plochocki, David Milroy and Lydia Snow.

The Alternate Vision statement was published in response to an unsigned Vision Platform released at the end of a July 2021 labor summit at which around 300 representatives from 75 higher education labor groups came together virtually to hammer out a plan that addresses challenges that face “the U.S. Higher Education System.” That Platform unreservedly supports the College for All Act of 2021 and alleges that adjunct faculty are a “threat” to higher education. The July 2021 Vision Platform states that the goal of the group’s work is “building a movement that transforms higher education.” According to a summit participant, “the 300+ academic workers in attendance–including student workers, postdocs, staff, and adjunct, contingent, and tenure faculty–joined together to create a bold, unified vision for higher education that prioritizes people and the common good over profit and prestige.” AdjunctNation wrote about the meeting and the group’s Platform here.

Jack Longmate, a long-time adjunct activist, published an op-ed in response: “Proposed ‘College for All’ Would Be a Disaster For Adjunct Professors.” Longmate also helped craft and signed the Alternate Vision for the College for All Act of 2021.

The Alternate Vision identifies the main problem with the College for All Act of 2021, as “the systematic exploitation of contingent professors.” The College for All Act incorrectly “defines the faculty labor problem as the decreasing number of tenured professors and the solution as creating more full-time tenure-track professors,” states the Alternate Vision statement.

Higher education labor unions and, indeed, a group of academics who call themselves, Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education, have suggested that the College For All Act’s goal to increase the full-time professorate from 30 percent of those employed within U.S. colleges and universities to 75 percent, would benefit adjunct faculty.

Adjunct activists disagree.

The Alternate Vision states: “The prospect of more new tenure-track positions makes supporting the College for All Act irresistible for many contingent instructors: within five years of enactment, 75 percent of the instruction is to be delivered by tenured or tenure-track instruction and current non-tenured instructors shall be granted “priority” to fill those new teaching positions. But mathematically only a small portion of current contingent instructors will be offered new tenure-track jobs. Under the College for All Act, the remaining 25 percent of the courses will continue to be taught by non-tenure-track instructors, while the new tenure-track positions will be created by taking courses and income from current contingent instructors.”

The Alternate Vision would provide all adjunct faculty with pay equity, due process and benefits for those who teach at least half time.

In April of 2021, The College for All Act was introduced in the House by U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) and in the Senate by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The Act was immediately referred to the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, and in addition to the Committees on the Budget, and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Read the legislative text of the Bill here.