BY AARON BARLOW

There’s a short piece on Inside Higher Ed today that says the Long Island University at Brooklyn administration will lock out faculty members starting at midnight “unless the faculty union immediately ratifies a contract and that it has lined up new faculty members to teach.”

This is all sorts of crazy.

One being Orwellian: “The university says its action will assure stability for students.” Disruption is stability. Right.

Another being the neoliberal shibboleth that faculty are merely plugs for filling classroom holes; one is pretty much the same as the next.

And those are just for starters.

LIU faculty are represented by the Long Island University Faculty Federation. Writing on its website, Emily Drabinski says, “This unprecedented, hostile action by the administration was taken while the faculty union… continued to negotiate its contract in good faith.” On her own website, Drabinsky claims that the proposed action “is equal parts enraging, terrifying, and sad. It feels like a betrayal, really, and worse than thing felt when we went on strike five years ago. Faculty have a contentious relationship with administration at my campus, and the relationship keeps getting worse.”

That last verges on understatement, given the administration’s proposed plan.

Perhaps the threatening salient is not the negotiation but an upcoming no-confidence vote concerning LIU President Kimberly Cline. However, trying to look beyond the craziness of the administration’s bizarre proposition, union President Jessica Rosenberg stated, “We will not be intimidated by a lockout that is unprecedented in LIU history, and will continue to bargain in good faith.”

The LIU website contains no mention that I could find of the proposed lockout. Check the LIUFF website and its Facebook page for updates.