There is this passage from Camus’s The Rebel that I taught to my students a couple of years ago and has stuck with me ever since. Talking about rebellion against The Absurd, Camus says that “the logic of the rebel is to want to serve justice so as not to add to the injustice of the human condition, to insist on plain language so as not to increase the universal falsehood, and to wager, in spite of human misery, for happiness.”
I’m a philosophy grad student at Temple University. Our graduate student union, TUGSA, has been negotiating with the administration for over a year without a contract and, due to the administration’s refusal to provide us with a wage and benefits that will allow us to live in the city where we study, teach, and research, we’ve been on strike for over a month now (to learn more about the strike, click here). Our relationship with the administration shares similarities with “the confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world” that Camus says gives rise to The Absurd. Nonetheless, these trying times have brought out the true spirit of our philosophical community and taught us an important lesson in trust and solidarity between faculty and students.
Graduate school experience is very much characterized by the relationships between faculty and graduate students, being those essential for mentoring, securing letters of recommendation, networking, or even just receiving valuable professional and personal advice. Therefore, the risk striking students face is very significant, as it extends beyond the suspension of stipends (or, in the case of Temple’s harsh attempts to bust the strike, health insurance and tuition remission as well). The decision to strike may not be well-received by all, especially in departments like ours that heavily rely on graduate students as instructors of record (rather than as Teaching Assistants or graders). Faculty in these departments are immediately affected by the strike, encountering obvious difficulties in fulfilling their teaching and research responsibilities. Some students in some departments at Temple have, unfortunately, experienced such a lack of solidarity from faculty, which will certainly impact their relationships long after the current impasse with the administration is over.
Despite the challenges we are facing, the philosophy department is leading by example, prioritizing community values and heeding Camus’s call to use plain language to address injustice. Since all graduate student workers in the department, including both union members and non-union members, went on strike on January 31, we have not only strengthened our relationships with one another but with our faculty as well, culminating in philosophy becoming the first department to publicly declare its backing of graduate students, as demonstrated in this recent statement:
As members of the Department of Philosophy faculty, we support the demands of the Temple University Graduate Students’ Association (TUGSA) in their current contract negotiations with the University. We also strongly oppose the University’s revocation of striking graduate students’ tuition and health insurance benefits. Our graduate students rely on Temple health insurance to meet their basic healthcare needs. Directly threatening the health and welfare of members of our student body evidences a disregard for our community and undercuts the University’s claims to care about equity.
Graduate workers are a key part of our department and our university: without them, we are not able to complete our own research, mentor undergraduate students, or effectively teach students in our courses. For over a year, TUGSA has put forward proposals to ensure fair wages, working conditions, dependent health care coverage, and leave policies for graduate TAs and RAs. These proposals would improve the lives of graduate workers, as well as benefiting our department and enhancing the quality of undergraduate instruction.
We believe that the members of TUGSA, even while they are on strike, remain Temple graduate students, and we hope that the University will refrain from unnecessarily harsh or disrespectful treatment of them.
Eli Alshanetsky, Philip Atkins, Katie Brennan, César Cabezas, Lee-Ann Chae, Eugene Chislenko, Paul Crowe, Kristin Gjesdal, Espen Hammer, Brian Hutler, Miriam Solomon, and David Wolfsdorf
Department of Philosophy, Temple University
The solidarity and profound sense of trust that have emerged within our department in recent weeks are crucial not only for creating a positive graduate school experience, but also for fostering an environment of respect, kindness, and mutual recognition that allows for meaningful relationships and good philosophy. The confidence in the values we share and the goodwill we have for one another are building the foundations for a stronger department where we can flourish. I’m confident this will last long after we win.
Eli Benjamin Israel
Eli Benjamin Israel is a philosophy PhD student at Temple University, and starting in July, a member of the APA's Graduate Student Council. His main research interests are in the field of moral philosophy, with a historical focus on Kant, as well as on contemporary debates concerning autonomy, the role of desires in practical reasoning, and the nature of consent in interpersonal relationships
