Jack Longmate, a part-time English instructor involved in a long-running battle with the faculty union at Olympic College in Washington State, is now challenging that community college’s accreditation based on a claim that it failed to protect him from union retaliation for his dissent from union positions.
In a letter submitted to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, Mr. Longmate argues that Olympic College is violating the commission’s standards dealing with academic freedom because the college failed to act on his complaint that union leaders libeled him, may have conspired to reduce his teaching load, and have otherwise sought to make his life difficult.
Union officials have denied Mr. Longmate’s allegations.
In refusing to take action against union leaders based on Mr. Longmate’s complaint, Olympic College officials have said that his dispute is with the union, which is affiliated with the National Education Association, and that his complaint should be filed with the union and not the college itself.
In his letter to the Northwest Commission, Mr. Longmate argued that the union officials’ actions are in fact a matter of concern for the college, partly because statements against him by the union’s president were circulated to administrators who are not union members. The statements to which he took umbrage were assertions that Mr. Longmate had falsely claimed to be acting on the union’s behalf in organizing a campus event.
Mr. Longmate’s letter also argued that the college erred in investigating his harassment complaint internally, because college officials had a conflict given their interest in maintaining good relations with the tenured faculty members who are the union’s leaders.
Much of the tension between Mr. Longmate and union officials stems from his assertions that the union is inappropriately dominated by tenured and tenure-track faculty members and has negotiated contracts that strongly favor such faculty members over adjuncts in the assignment of work.
Sandra E. Elman, president of the Northwest Commission, on Monday confirmed having received Mr. Longmate’s complaint and said her organization was in the process of reviewing it. She said the commission has no further comment at this time.
The Northwest Commission faced similar pressure from another prominent advocate for adjuncts, Keith Hoeller, to act against colleges in 1997. Mr. Hoeller had argued that Washington State’s community colleges were violating the commission’s standards by relying too heavily on part-timers, but the commission did not act on his complaint, and Mr. Hoeller failed in an effort to enlist U.S. Department of Education officials in forcing the commission’s hand.
In recent months, however, the New Faculty Majority and various other advocates for adjunct faculty members have mounted new efforts to persuade accrediting bodies to make the treatment and working conditions of such faculty members a major concern. Regional accreditors have said they already take the working conditions of adjuncts into account, but they are open to the idea of doing more on that front.
