Fordham Receipts

About

The aim of Fordham Receipts is to spread knowledge about Fordham’s policies, practices, and history and to preserve the institutional memory that is so limited by the average 4-year stay for students. We cannot rely on the institution to be transparent with students, faculty or staff, so we as students must take it upon ourselves to make Fordham a safer and more informed place for everyone.

We encourage contributions of any kind from students and community members.

About

We encourage contributions of any kind from students and community members.

Faculty Struggles

Fordham Faculty Against Torture: 2015-ongoing

Summary: In 2014, an honorary doctoral degree was conferred to John Brennan (former director of the CIA under the Obama administration) revolutionized the use of torture of political prisoners with such techniques as waterboarding, death threats, sleep deprivation and rectal feedings; in 2015, over 100 faculty and students mobilized against this, but Father McShane rejected the call to rescind this degree (as Fordham did for Bill Cosby’s honorary degree in 2015).

On Sept. 4, 2017, Brennan began a two-year stint as a “distinguished fellow for global security” at Fordham University’s Center on National Security at Fordham Law.

Links:

The Intercept. Sept 20, 2017

National Catholic Reporter. May 20, 2015

National Catholic Reporter. April 1, 2015

Adjunct Professor and Contingent Faculty Unionization: 2016 – present

Summary:

Links:

Faculty Healthcare, Benefits and Salary Negotiations: 2016-17

Summary:

Links:

National Catholic Reporter. Aug 7, 2017

Students for Justice in Palestine

In Fall 2015, a group of LC students applied for club status to form Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Hundreds of autonomous SJP chapters exist across US campuses to educate students about the Israeli occupation and human rights injustices facing Palestinians, and to ultimately advocate for their school’s divestment from corporations that fund the occupation.
Fordham administrators delayed SJP’s application process for more than a year. Student members complied in good faith to several edits of the club’s constitution and unprecedented consultation of faculty and student groups. Administration continued to find new obstacles to the approval process even as the student group bent over backwards to meet their already unusual requirements.
After more than a year of delays, Fordham SJP was put up to a vote to USG in November 2016. SJP members were relieved because this is normally the final step in becoming a club. USG approved Fordham SJP to be recognized as a club.
Despite the USG approval, on the last day of the fall semester, Dean Keith Eldredge vetoed the student decision to recognize SJP, and stated that there would be no appeal. Eldredge’s decision was based on claims that SJP was too controversial, too polarizing, and that SJP’s advocacy for the rights of Palestinians was “a barrier to open dialogue”. Along with false claims of antisemitism, these accusations against SJP show that institutions will go to extreme lengths to repress anti-imperialist, anti-racist, pro-Palestinian activism.
Early in the spring 2017 semester, SJP members organized a demonstration against Fordham’s decision. Many Fordham students and faculty attended to show their support, as well as many activists and organizers from the city. Fordham SJP received statements of solidarity from all across the country by students, alumni, anti-imperialist organizations, clergy, and other SJP chapters. It was clear to many that Fordham administration was attempting to repress student activism, and many people who don’t even know about Palestine (which is the whole point of SJP lol) supported merely on the basis of protecting free speech.
Penalization of students – Two students were identified as the organizers of the first rally against the decisions. One of these students had spoken to an administrator about the rally beforehand, taking that as recognition and approval. Over a hundred students, faculty, alumni, and outside supporters attended this rally on campus, and people from all those groups (including Jewish Voice for Peace) spoke about why the decision to ban SJP infringes upon our rights as students and goes against Fordham’s supposed value of advocating for the oppressed. Those students who were identified were required to have disciplinary hearings alone with FCLC Dean Eldredge, behind a closed door with a white noise machine on and without a witness present. Eldredge is the same person who rejected SJP’s approval by United Student Government, met beforehand with an organizer of the protest, lodged the complaint about the protest, heard his own complaint about the protest, held the disciplinary hearings, and determined alone the students’ punishments — each of these pieces of the process without appeal. Students were officially sanctioned many weeks after the action, which was an attempt to scare students out of continuing to organize on behalf of SJP.
Lawsuit – at the end of the Spring 2017 semester, 4 students involved in SJP petitioned the courts of New York to recognize Fordham’s breach of its own policies through viewpoint discrimination and deliberate political censorship and thus overturn their decision to ban SJP.