Justice, Fairness, and Other Argot

Code and colleagues invoke procedural regularities that are usually followed; neither code nor colleagues even pretend to substantive justice.


In unintentionally droll remarks in a recent meeting of the Faculty Senate, a senator wondered why the Faculty Code enjoyed its high status and why senators would not consider the possibility that the Professional Standards Committee [PSC] in 2003-2004 acted in a quest for a fairness or justice higher than the code. The minutes of that meeting did not record eye-rolling or snickering.

What would make such a “higher law” argument risible? Well, other than the desperation of the argument and its tacit admission that the PSC rode roughshod over the code, what's so funny?

Perhaps appeals to justice’s trumping the code [and, hence, our contracts with the University] are laughable because, even in theory, substantive justice is so seldom a concern. In practice, evaluatiors avoid violating any procedure in a manner that cannot be hidden from the Faculty Advancement Committee [FAC] or a hearing board. Both in theory and in practice, faculty evaluation at most aspires to procedural sufficiency [and often attains it]. Minimal procedural sufficiency keeps us out of courts. Polishing procedural appearances a bit more secures faculty quiescence.

Concerns for actual fairness? That’s rich!

Maybe false negatives [evaluees who merit tenure or promotion but do not obtain tenure or promotion] and false positives [evaluees who get promoted or tenured despite their not meeting standards or criteria] make the senator's remarks ludicrous. Such substantive injustices do not concern most faculty most of the time because most colleagues most of the time do not know the victims of injustice well or do not know in detail what happened or fear admitting that the system errs. Indeed, many of our colleagues work devilishly hard not to learn what was done to this or that unfortunate.

A Power Committee in headlong pursuit of substantive justice mowing down procedures? Hey! That could happen! Alright, except for the part about substantive justice, that could happen.

References to the following of procedures largely exhaust the responsibilities of evaluators and may exceed the capacities of many. Such folks, when appointed to the Professional Standards Committee, suddenly become avatars of substantive fairness fit to overrule the code they claim to interpret?

Stop the routine, senator! You’re killing us!

Committees that often cannot read and apply simple directives are to be trusted to overrule the code that is subsumed in our faculty contracts? Why not? We have the ever-vigilant Faculty Senate to correct such committees should they stray – unless of course those very committees decide that transcendent exigencies demand that senators be snowed or stonewalled or senators shirk their responsibility to oversee committees. But – hell! – what are the odds that something like that could happen? OK, but what are the odds that something like that could happen again?


Next – “Kaleidoscope of Questions” – A single tenure case exposed questions about the feasance of a hearing board, the Faculty Senate, and the Power Committees.