THE ST. JOHN'S DISPUTE

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

We were most pleased to see the editorial in the February 11th issue of the CRIMSON on the dispute at St. John's University. For the most part it rightfully characterized the dismissal of 31 professors well before the end of the semester, without charges or hearings as an affront to the academic community.

In our view your editorial was off base in its consideration of the propriety of unions in educational disputes. Your first ground for opposition to teacher unions is weak indeed, for it rests on the fact that a body of labor relations machinery institutionalized in law has not touched for the most part educational and non-profit institutions such as St. John's. The labor movement which is now surrounded by laws with respect to its activity in industry and business, had to struggle for decades before laws were passed. It is a mark of backwardness that the educational sons such as music, drama, engineering have acquired.

More worthy of consideration is your other basis of op-profession does not have the protection that other profesposition to teacher unions--namely that teaching deals with people as against things and that the haggling inherent in labor relations would damage the human product. The teacher unions in the public schools and colleges have in the first place transformed teachers who really were treated as things into human beings proud of rights and abilities to make contributions to teaching. They have, an a result of this, become more creative teachers and found that their students respected them for standing up for justice and making the teachers have some control over the profession which they practice.

At St. John's, what would have happened had there been no union to protest this crime? 31 wounded academic victims would slink off in ineffective silence. To be sure, the A.A.U.P. would conduct an investigation; if the committee then recommended censure it would go before the annual meeting in April; then it might appear in the AAUP BULLETIN on the list of censured institutions. This is the "sanction" which the AAUP imposes. Our strike, a defensive action against a "lockout" of union learers active in the forefront of educational reform at St. John's has aroused the entire academic, labor and intellectual world. It has made teaching and being a student at St. John's acts of shame.

The United Federation of College Teachers, a local of the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO), has not sought union recognition or collective bargaining in this dispute. It has, and continues to seek, mediation, reinstatement of the 31 pending fair hearings, no reprisals against strikers, and the right of the union to meet on campus and distribute its materials as any other faculty association. Dr. Israel Kugler, President   Rev. Peter O'Reilly Chairman   S. John's Chapter