Whereas on September 26, 2022, the Rutgers administration announced, effective October 1, that “face coverings will no longer be required in indoor teaching spaces and libraries.”
Whereas Rutgers University employs approximately 22,000-plus faculty and staff, as well as hundreds of graduate teaching assistants to teach approximately 70,000-plus students, all with varying levels of risk for complications associated with COVID-19;
Whereas Rutgers University employees began the fall 2022 semester with the protections of the masking policy in place;
Whereas updated federal data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that, on average, more than 350 U.S. deaths related to COVID-19 are still reported each day. From September 15–22, 2022, just one week, the U.S. reported nearly 2,500 COVID-related deaths. The CDC states that 225,000 people in the U.S. have been lost to the virus since the start of 2022;
Whereas in June 2022, the Rutgers University administration set a policy for the fall 2022 semester that “face coverings continue to be required in all indoor teaching spaces, libraries, and clinical settings,” and stated, “Compliance is mandatory. For faculty, staff, and students who have received an exemption from the university’s COVID-19 vaccination requirements, the use of face coverings is still required in all public spaces, including offices, research labs, housing, and conference rooms. All members of the community should have a face covering in their possession at all times on campus”;
Whereas undergraduate and graduate students have had their hybrid or remote course options significantly curtailed; and whereas faculty and staff have had their hybrid or remote work options significantly curtailed;
Whereas an equitable and inclusive community must entail safe working and learning conditions; and whereas the right to a safe workplace is not an aspirational right, but a contractual one;
Whereas all students, faculty, staff, and community members—and particularly those who are immunocompromised—are at elevated risk of contracting COVID-19 and of suffering serious complications and possibly death from this change in policy;
Resolved, that the Executive Council of Rutgers University AAUP-AFT demands the following:
- Since faculty made decisions about teaching in person this semester in reliance of Rutgers’ mandatory masking masking policy for Fall 2022, the Rutgers administration must empower and support all teaching faculty who retain and implement mandatory masking for all students in their classroom;
- The Rutgers administration must ensure that all general purpose classrooms across the university have a supply of masks for students who arrive without one, and continue to support units like Digital Classroom Services, who are already tasked with regularly replenishing the mask supply as needed;
- The administration must permit exclusion of Fall 2022 semester teaching evaluations from tenure, promotion, reappointment, and performance evaluations, upon request, in anticipation of potential backlash for enforcing mandatory masking in their classroom(s);
- The administration must provide the option for online or remote teaching for spring 2023 and future semesters for all faculty on the basis of their household risk related to COVID-19;
- The administration must respect and honor the privacy of employees by not requiring that teaching faculty disclose medical or health-related information in order to request online-only or remote instruction for the spring 2023 semester, and future semesters on the basis of their household risk related to COVID-19;
- The administration must continue to mandate face covering in all libraries and clinical settings;
- The administration must establish a process within the Offices of Disability Services to allow for students to anonymously and confidentially request mandatory masking in their learning spaces, in which Letters of Accommodation (or similar) may serve as the basis for faculty requiring masking in their classrooms.
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