Why I’m Marching

(Opinion) On Monday morning, I marched in the streets of New Haven with thousands of members of my union and our allies, calling for Yale to begin contract negotiations. Then I put my cap and gown on over my orange union t‑shirt, and went to receive my PhD.

I’m a member and an elected leader of Local 33 – UNITE HERE, the union for graduate teachers at Yale. And I’m a historian of medieval Spain. In my six years at Yale, I’ve worked for my union and I’ve worked for my PhD. I think I’ve earned both.

In February, we voted to form a union in my department and seven others. Local 33 was certified by the federal government as our representative. But Yale has ignored its legal obligation to begin negotiations with us. Instead, the university has sought to create legal delays so it can get its appeal heard by Donald Trump’s appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, likely to be seated this summer. So we’ve spent the last month resisting — with an occupation of a central plaza on campus, petitions, picket lines, marches, acts of civil disobedience, and, at the center of it all, a group of teachers fasting.

Commencement, when we graduate, is the most important symbolic day for the university. We’re part of Yale, and it’s important for us to be visible.

For fifteen years, I’ve worked to be a medieval historian. I decided where to go to college based on where I could best pursue this path. I started studying the six languages I’d need for this work as soon as I got to college at age eighteen.

I knew that Yale would be the best place to go for my PhD. While here for the last six years, I’ve gotten to do exciting, difficult research. In the sources I use — notarial records from 700 years ago — reading every word is a puzzle. The reward, though, is admission to the everyday lives of people, particularly women, in the distant past. Through my research, I’ve learned about how medieval Christians and Jews thought about women’s work. It’s vital to understand this if we want to understand gender today. For example, in one study, a historian proved that the wage gap between women and men was the same in medieval England as today. This finding shatters any idea we have of inevitable advancement for women over time — it shows gender inequality in completely new light.

Now, though, there’s no next step. After I graduate tomorrow, I’ll have nowhere to go. I applied for forty full-time positions for next year, and I didn’t land any — despite what my advisors say is as strong a record as one can hope.

The only thing that’s unusual about my position is that I even got close. Every year, thousands of people across the country finish PhDs and have no stable employment waiting for them. Nearly three-quarters of the college teaching workforce is now working on a short-term or contingent basis.

Yale would cut my wages if I stayed. It’s a strategy that makes me vulnerable to other low-wage employers, and it’s working. Come fall, I’ll join the ranks of short-term, part-time faculty. I’ve lined up two classes to teach at nearby colleges, which will bring in about $9,000 altogether. With luck, I’ll get a third gig.

I’ve loved my time at Yale. I’m proud of the work I’ve done as a researcher, and I think I’ve had a real impact on students I’ve taught. Medieval history is a great subject for students to learn critical thinking in general, because the material always seems both relatable and alien at once. Students come in thinking the Middle Ages were like Game of Thrones, and they have to learn to set aside preconceptions and genuinely struggle to understand the people they’re studying — a tremendously rewarding enterprise for them and for me.

I’ve been preparing for this for years. I’m good at what I do. And I’m being cast aside. For me, Commencement may well spell the end of a career, not the beginning.

Yale, the second-wealthiest university in the world, is hastening academia’s race to the bottom. It’s pushing desperate PhDs into an already-flooded labor market with wage cuts. And although Yale College is set to grow by 15 percent, Yale won’t hire any new permanent faculty. Instead, it’s going to increase everyone’s current workloads and plug the gap with more short-term (“non-ladder”) hires. ​“The majority of additional teaching needs created by the Yale College Expansion will be met by hiring additional faculty into non-ladder ranks,” explains a Yale Faculty Senate report. ​“The Senate is concerned about the additional burden that increased class sizes, student mentoring, and advising duties will place on members of the non-ladder faculty who are already doing work that is not part of their job description and for which they receive no additional compensation, a situation compounded by job insecurity, low recognition, and relatively low salaries.”

With its wealth and status, Yale has more freedom of action than anyone else in this system. Its leaders could decide to stem the tide of insecurity in today’s academia and economy. What if Yale negotiated contracts with its graduate teachers? What if it expanded the ranks of its full-time faculty? What a new beginning that would be, a Commencement worthy of the name. In my blue and my orange, I dud my best to bring that Yale into being. I hope the university will see fit to join me.