During the first day of Spring Semester classes, Faculty Senate will meet to discuss two resolutions, one supporting the protection of undocumented immigrants at Ohio University and the other against concealed carry on campus.
“I’ve been asked if Ohio University will be following suit to becoming a sanctuary university,” OU President Roderick McDavis said at December’s Faculty Senate meeting. “I think it is a little premature for us to take a position on that issue.”
Since then, McDavis signed a national statement supporting students protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program protects immigrants who came to the United States before turning 16 and allows them to attend colleges or universities.
“We were very pleased that (McDavis) signed that letter and what’s happening now, there's a group of faculty, one faculty senator and one non-faculty senator circulating a petition among faculty, calling on Faculty Senate to urge the administration to reaffirm its commitment to anti-discrimination against immigrants,” Joe McLaughlin, chair of Faculty Senate, said. “And actually, by circulating it to the faculty, they’ve gotten 150 faculty who’ve signed this.”
That resolution suggests an addition of “immigration status” as a protected category under the university’s harassment policy explicitly to recognize the vulnerabilities and struggles of undocumented or DACA-documented students, faculty and staff at OU.
There is a provision in the faculty handbook that says if more than 10 percent of the faculty who can vote in a Faculty Senate election want to bring the matter in front of the senate, the senate must discuss and vote on it at that meeting. The petition was signed by more than 10 percent of faculty, allowing it to be discussed and voted on.
Loren Lybarger, associate professor of classics and world religions, said he expects discussion to be about what it means to add immigrants to the anti-harassment policy in the faculty handbook and what it means to support students and colleagues, especially those who are Muslim, undocumented or DACA documented, in a meaningful way.
Paul Patton, faculty senator and assistant professor of anthropology and food studies, said the petition will go forward as a resolution to alter university policy on a larger scale.
There could be updates to the faculty handbook language, but the larger goal is to the change the university’s existing policy on non harassment and anti-discrimination, Patton said. The current university policy does not address immigration.
“I think that there’s a lot of changes that can result from this, one of the most important is that the petition calls for an office to help console DACA students,” Patton said.
The other item on Monday night’s agenda is a resolution to establish that Faculty Senate is against concealed carry on campus.
Gov. John Kasich signed a bill into law in December that gives the option for governing bodies at Ohio universities and colleges to decide whether they will change policy from a gun-free zone.
If the trustees decide that they want to have a deliberation about that to make a decision, Faculty Senate is likely going to get involved in whatever information gathering the university decides it needs to do, whether that’s holding an open forum or putting out some kind of survey, McLaughlin said.
“There’s two things I think Faculty Senate can do in a general way and one we intend to do next Monday night, which is to introduce a resolution, and it will come from the executive committee,” McLaughlin said. “(It will be) urging the Board of Trustees not to take any action to permit (concealed) carry.”
Other Faculty Senate committees have not met since 2016, and they are not expected to present at Monday’s meeting, McLaughlin said.
