Show me what community looks like! This is what community looks like! Show me what community looks like! This is what community looks like! Who are we? USD! Who are we? USD! What’s outrageous? Faculty wages! What’s outrageous? Faculty wages! President Harris, you can’t hide. Even the pope is on our side! President Harris, you can’t hide. Even the pope is on our side!
Non-tenure track (NTT) in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego are on strike for the second day this week. Today I accepted the invitation to speak at their rally, and I’m sharing my speech here. On the picket line yesterday, I carried a homemade sign with a picture of Pope Francis and a quote from him about the dignity of work. Today I carried that sign in the morning, took a break from the picket line to see the white smoke and coverage of the new pope’s appearance, and returned with another homemade sign (hastily thrown together, I’ll admit). I hope that my remarks speak to faculty, students, and administration in a meaningful way during this important time of negotiations between NTT union representatives and USD. I was not the only speaker who invoked the popes, and it felt particularly meaningful on such an eventful Catholic news day.
I’m proud to work at the University of San Diego. We are a contemporary Catholic university. We confront humanity’s urgent challenges by fostering peace, working for justice, and leading with love.
That’s why I’m here today – to talk about what it means to work for justice and to lead with love.
You see, being a Catholic university means that we have a rich tradition of thinking about what justice and love look like.
For over one hundred years, authoritative Catholic teachings have supported workers and advocated for labor rights – rights such as the right to unionize, the right to safe working conditions, and the right to a just wage.
Here at USD, these rights are more aspirational than realized. I’m here today because I think that all faculty, tenure line and non tenure line, should be fairly compensated for their work.
I am here because all faculty should have access to the materials, support, and office space they need to teach students well. I’m here because I support the right of my non tenure track colleagues to collective bargaining.
Academic Excellence is the first of our CORE VALUES– and students rightly expect excellence of their faculty. But all across higher education today – including at Catholic universities—administrators are making decisions that undermine academic excellence in their institutions. When a class of faculty experience economic precarity, it is harder for them to devote their energies to excellence in teaching. And this is not meant as an insult to my NTT colleagues – who are doing an amazing job in the situations in which we find ourselves. Rather, I want to suggest that if academic excellence really is central to our mission, we need a structural response at the university. We need to be sure that all faculty are well supported. Some of you may know that 43% of THRS courses on campus this spring are taught by faculty who are not on the tenure track. These courses are essential to the core curriculum and our students deserve to be taught by faculty members who are not experiencing the precarity of job instability and poverty-level wages.
I am someone with privilege – as someone who benefits from tenure, I have greater job protections and greater job security. This helps me to be a better teacher. I can focus more of my energies on my students’ needs and on research that furthers my discipline. I have stable access to my university office and email. I can participate in the governance structures of USD. I am here today because I think that all faculty should have the support that I enjoy in my role at the university.
You certainly don’t have to be Catholic to find a home at USD. But one of the distinct aspects of the USD identity is the mission rooted in Catholic social teachings. These teachings talk about the dignity of work and of workers – a basic principle in Catholic ethics is that human labor cannot be treated as a commodity because that denies human dignity and reduces the worker to the status of a “thing.” In the Second Vatican Council, the bishops explained their support for human rights including the right to food, clothing, and shelter; the right to education, to employment, and to activity in accord with one’s conscience, as well as freedom of religion…. Popes of the last 50 years have continued this tradition of advocacy for workers. John Paul II said that work is for the person, not the person for work. John Paul II said that labor unions are a “mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice, for the rights of working people.” Benedict XVI talked about the church’s consistent support for labor unions. Francis explicitly critiqued the gig economy, exploitation of contingent workers, and wage theft. Pope Francis warned against what he called a “throwaway culture” – where we treat people as disposable. The University of San Diego should not treat workers as disposable. And our new pope has taken the name Leo. This is important. Some of you may know that the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum, was promulgated by Leo XIII in 1891. There, in the context of the Industrial Revolution, Leo XIII advocated for just wages. “To make one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud anyone of wages that are his due is a crime which cries to the avenging anger of heaven.” (RN 20). I look forward to seeing what Leo XIV will do to carry forward this tradition of solidarity, social justice, and worker rights.
To really live up to our mission, USD employment policies need to align with these papal teachings about worker justice. I think that to live up to USD’s Catholic identity, we shouldn’t only look at things like Mass schedules, saint statues on campus, or the THRS course in the core curriculum. Sure, those are important, but that’s not the only way we live our Catholic identity. We also need to scrutinize our budgets. We need to ask hard questions about why we tolerate a two-tier faculty system that perpetuates inequality right here on our campus.
That’s why we are here today.
One final note – lately my research has focused on reproductive justice. It is a hot topic in today’s world, in the church and politically. But I want to suggest here – especially to those parents, students, and faculty who describe themselves as pro-life – that support for workers is a pro-life justice issue. It isn’t fair that some faculty have parental leave and others don’t. Or that some have group health insurance for their families and others don’t. If my kid is sick and I have to cancel class to take them to the doctor, I don’t worry about losing my job. But some of your faculty members do have this worry. At USD we talk about a culture of care. But it is time to actually live that out.
I’m grateful for the courage, integrity, and energy of NTT faculty who have led this movement. I’m grateful for my students who continue to ask thoughtful questions about what it means to seek justice and lead with love in this particular political moment. And I thank you all for coming out today in support of the hard working NTT faculty who deserve justice at USD.
