[Fdu] York U senator to President Lenton: Settle or resign

[Cynthia Wright]

Following the President's Remarks in today's Senate meeting, I delivered 
the following personal statement.

Ricardo


*Statement to Senate - Senator Ricardo Grinspun**
*

President Lenton, I rise today to ask that either you commit to making a 
meaningfully improved offer to CUPE 3903 in order to end the strike 
immediately or, failing that, offer your resignation, since you will 
have failed the academic mandate of this institution. Your letting down 
of the community of faculty, staff, students and their families will be 
beyond repair, unless we settle this strike now. If you are not able to 
take the necessary steps, it is time for you to step down and allow us 
to move on with the fundamental work of our university: To advance 
knowledge and scholarly work through a vibrant community of students and 
faculty – working together – for the betterment of our minds, lives and 
society.

The managerial and leadership approach that defines your administration 
is unsustainable and detrimental to the common good that characterizes a 
healthy university. Your uncompromising and unnecessarily aggressive 
approach displayed throughout the CUPE 3903 strike is profoundly 
inimical to the university as a public trust and the values espoused in 
our mission statement, such as collegial governance and academic 
freedom. The hardball approach to both governance and labour relations 
contradicts York’s publicly stated espousal of social justice, and the 
social justice-engaged research that defines so much of our university. 
Unfortunately, your actions confirm the concerns expressed by the 900 
full time faculty who responded to the YUFA poll in November 2016, of 
whom only 11% supported your candidacy to be President of York.

The university is paying a very heavy price for your appointment. Your 
intransigent actions during the labour dispute, and the complete 
disregard of the impact on York’s academic reputation, speak clear. The 
community feels shocked and helpless in the face of your categorical 
refusal to bargain, your reckless brinkmanship, regardless of the cost 
for students, academic standing and our reputation. While pursuing a 
scorched earth approach to labour negotiations in the hope of crippling 
the union representing graduate students and contract faculty at York, 
you have hurt the lives of tens of thousands of students and brought 
disarray to our university.

Because of your refusal to bargain and your disdain for York’s students, 
the winter semester is threatened, and you have eroded academic 
integrity beyond recognition by proposed accommodations on a broad 
scale. Now your administration has announced the imminent cancellation 
of summer semesters. This announcement once again usurps the authority 
of Senate and Senate Executive to make decisions on class suspension due 
to a labour disruption. The Senate Executive Committee, on which you 
sit, has managed remediation in full deference to this administrative 
approach. It has created chaos and dysfunction within York, intensified 
the anxiety and stress of students, faculty and staff, and undermined 
the faith of the public in our university.

No amount of money poured into public relations or private security can 
obscure this reality. You now wear this reality.

President Lenton, speaking on behalf of thousands of faculty, staff and 
students, please know your actions so far do not have our confidence. 
Unless you move to settle this strike, we call for your resignation.

-


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