Until recently, Syracuse University graduate students could lose key campus jobs if they were placed on conduct probation. That’s harder now, thanks to a new union agreement that is being put to the test in the fallout of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment (GSE), a two-week campus protest in the spring.
At least two graduate students, who like many of their peers are employed by SU as teaching assistants (TAs), are being sanctioned by the university in connection with the GSE.
As part of a general removal of all leadership positions, SU used to be able to strip TAs of their job if they were placed on academic probation for student conduct violations ranging from assault to being drunk in public.
However, in March the Student Graduate Employee United (SGEU) union, founded in 2023, negotiated to separate conduct and employment issues as part of their first Collective Bargaining Agreement.
SGEU representative Bridget Mack, a physics doctoral student, said, “You can't give employment punishment for an academic infringement.”
For example, ignoring an unsigned letter that SU distributed in May, on its main campus lawn, Shaw Quad. The letter told students that if they did not relocate the protest encampment from the Quad, to make room for graduation ceremonies, they would be violating an unstated university policy.
Of the dozens of student protesters who stayed put, a handful were charged with violating student conduct policy for not following the order. They have spent the summer in closed-door meetings and hearings with SU’s Community Standards Office, with some students challenging the university’s accusations and punishment.
Mack says these GSE-related cases are the first in which the SGEU is pushing to provide additional union support in conduct proceedings, for any members who want it.
“It's just another person to have behind your back as you're navigating, because a lot of these conduct processes are just so complicated,” said Mack.
One of the biggest complications, say students and experts on the conduct proceedings, is that students are allowed only one procedural advisor (PA) in the room with them who can advise in a “non-disruptive manner”; in a word, PAs are not allowed to speak. And in all but sexual harassment or assault cases, students cannot choose an attorney as their PA, although the university can bring one to proceedings.
Students will often choose a faculty member who knows them, and their academic standing, as their PA.
Mack says, federal Weingarten rights allow for the presence of a union representative in a disciplinary meeting, but the question is, does a student conduct meeting count as one, if the results could lead to the loss of a job?
According to the National Labor Relations Board, Weingarten rights ensure an employee has the right to request the presence of a labor representative during a meeting they believe could lead to discipline. For their part, employers are not required to inform union members of those rights, but do have to respect them once invoked.
“We're good-faith trying to navigate with the Syracuse administration what this means,” said Mack.
At Syracuse University, there are instances where the union’s and university’s oversight overlap, but Mack says, to her knowledge, no union member in a GSE-related conduct case has been allowed a union representative in addition to their procedural advisor.
Including Cai Cafiero, who was the protest’s media liaison and is a graduate student teaching assistant in SU’s School of Education. Following several informal conduct meetings with Community Standards, which runs the proceedings, in July, she was offered conduct probation for disregarding SU's order to relocate the GSE.
According to Cafiero, she asked more than once for additional union representation in those meetings and was told, “If I wanted my union rep there, they had to be serving as my procedural advisor.”
Cafiero says SU also pointed to SGEU’s Collective Bargaining Agreement as another reason to deny her request, because disciplinary conduct and employment processes are now separate for graduate students.
“I understand what they're saying, in terms of the conduct office does not have the ability to fire a student or place a student on leave from their job,” said Cafiero. But she says she doesn’t see how SU can guarantee her job is not on the line, because once on probation any new violation could lead to suspension or expulsion from the university.
The risk to her employment and a previously clean academic record are among six reasons Cafiero gave SU (and shared with WAER) when requesting to take her case to a formal conduct hearing in hopes that she could turn her probation into a conduct warning. As part of her punishment, SU also assigned Cafiero a presentation for which she must research civil disobedience and write about the consequences of violating university policy, as assignment she says violates her academic freedom.
According to Cafiero and her faculty procedural advisor, after several conduct meetings, the Community Standards officer in charge of her case, Zach Phillips, said the university would not waive probation because of the number of people impacted during graduation by the pro-Palestinian protest.
“They are trying to put every student who participated in commencement as the victim, as it were, of my decision to be a part of this encampment after the request for relocation,” said Cafiero.
In May, graduation ceremonies did take place on Shaw Quad, separated from the protest encampment by a temporary fence.
SU has repeatedly declined to comment on Cafiero’s case, and did not respond to questions about union representation in future conduct cases.
Cafiero says the summer’s conduct proceedings have left her stressed, but she’s still an active activist, although not on SU’s campus. She also says she’s optimistic about the university waiving probation following a formal conduct hearing, which was held on August 16.
The hearing panel, which Cafiero says comprised a graduate school and two SU staff members, should let her know its decision within eight business days. If it does not waive probation, Cafiero says she will appeal.
That process that would be organized by the same Community Standards office.
