Public Relations
In September 2009, tenured faculty members represented by the OU chapter of the AAUP went on strike. Issues of contention included the University claiming ownership of professors' copyrights and patents and refusing to allow faculty input into matters of class size and curricula, reduction of health benefits, and a three-year freeze of salaries (particularly since the university president, Gary Russi, had just received a $100,000 raise). The University Board of Trustees maintained that the strike was illegal and filed a lawsuit against the Oakland AAUP. After a week's strike, the faculty and administration came to a tentative agreement on a three-year contract, which was implemented.
In January, 2012, student Joseph Corlett was suspended for a year from Oakland University after the Student Conduct Hearing Committee allowed his "Daybook" assignment in his English 380 Advanced Critical Writing class to be used against him despite written warnings from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that the assignment was constitutionally protected speech. Professor Pamela Mitzelfeld brought Unlawful Individual Activities charges against Corlett after reading his "Hot for Teacher" essay in his Daybook. In addition, Corlett is "persona non grata" (person not wanted) on campus, must undergo psychological counseling before readmittance, and will remain on probation as long as he is enrolled.
Read more about this topic: Oakland University
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“Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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