Updated 5:54 p.m.
An economics professor who claimed he was unfairly denied reappointment at the University of Vermont for teaching left-of-center ideas has lost his challenge of the school’s decision.
The Vermont Labor Relations Board dismissed the grievance filed by former UVM lecturer John Summa last Friday, finding that he did not “demonstrate that his academic freedom rights were violated,” according to its written decision.
Summa, a documentary filmmaker who shot footage of his own lectures, has a PhD in Marxian political economy. He was a full-time lecturer at UVM from 2009 to 2017.
After learning that his contract would not be renewed, Summa contested the decision. He claimed that by challenging the “straitjacket” model of economics being taught at UVM, he had become persona non grata with other members of the department. He also said the university violated terms of its labor agreement with full-time faculty members in the United Academics union.
Specifically, Summa contended that UVM economics department chair Sara Solnick and professors who wrote evaluations of his teaching were motivated to remove him because he was critical of the “standard economic model” and its associated pro-free market ideology.
The board found no evidence for that claim. It concluded that Summa’s colleagues were critical of him because he did not explain the standard model fully to students before critiquing it, thus reducing their ability to understand the critique and become engaged.
“The problem was not that he taught the alternative economic model versus the
standard model; it was how he taught,” the decision states. It says that the “quality” of Summa’s teaching drove the decision to not recommend him for reappointment, rather than “the subject matter of what he taught.”
Summa said the decision was unfair and that he is considering appealing it to the Vermont Supreme Court. The decision ignores evidence he submitted during two days of hearings before the board in February, Summa said.
“It’s an absolute whitewash,” he said.
UVM officials were pleased by the decision.
“The University is grateful to the VLRB for thoughtfully considering all of the evidence and arriving at what we believe is the appropriate outcome,” said UVM spokesman Enrique Corredera.
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Best news out of UVM in a long time!
I’m waiting for John Summa to say “Stay thirsty, my friends.”
Thomas, let’s not get too exuberant about this just yet. The best part is still to come. 16 hours of videotape with two HD and 4K cameras don’t lie. showing a Chair lying under oath, a Chair who made proven false claims about my teaching (claims used to vote me out), a hostile work environment (bullied for what I taught), proven fake claims of using text-heavy slides, and other nit-picky nonsense, a whistleblower from UVM Faculty Standards Committee (which voted me reappointed unanimously but dismissed by the Dean) who stated that the entire committee believed the Chair “was out to get” me, and proven attempts by the Chair to remove a support letter written by a highly respected Associate Dean of UVM’s College of Arts & Sciences, Patty Corcoran, stating unequivocally that I was a “huge asset to UVM” and an “exceptional” lecturer, Good news for UVM? That they managed to bury the truth, absolutely good news for them. More at http://www.deadendeconomics.com ~ John Summa
Disgraceful. Summa was dismissed because he refused to teach the standard “Samuelsonian” bourgeois economics claptrap, which is one of the greatest examples of social science prostitution in the service of the main paradigm, capitalism. All the justifications advanced by his accusers are mere window-dressing to cover up a decision that has no basis in the principles of a true university education. Marxian economics is actually more complete than Neoclassical, since it embodies both to present a coherent critique of economic organization and its effects on society. UVT has lost a brilliant man committed to truth and real science instead of glorified propaganda and system-upholding superstitions.
Hey, Karl, it’s UVM not “UVT.”
Read the Powell memorandum and see why and how universities have been taken over by the right wing capitalist class. Any talk about universities being bastions of Marxists or leftists is a joke. Those who say such a thing use the classic Red scare tactic of tainting an opponent repeatedly knowing that unthinking people will mimic it or buy into to its foolish assumptions.