Marcus stressed that the salary and layoff disputes stemmed from actions taken prior to Garland's arrival in September.
RELATED ARTICLE: Ohio Court Strikes Down Faculty Workload Requirements
WILBERFORCE, Ohio -- While Central State University's chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was winning arbitration cases against CSU's administration, it also was winning an Ohio Supreme Court case that affected public colleges throughout the state.
On September 30, the seven-member panel, by a 4-3 vote, declared unconstitutional a state law specifying the minimum faculty workload at Ohio's state-supported colleges and universities. The court ruled in favor of CSU's faculty union, that had challenged the 1993 law which removed faculty workload requirements from the list of subjects that could be determined through collective bargaining.
Central State's AAUP chapter had a contract in place that specified faculty workloads when the law took effect. However, CSU's administration adopted a faculty workload policy consistent with the new law in 1994. The administration then notified the faculty union that it would not negotiate on that issue because of the wording of the law. The AAUP challenged that decision in state court.
The Ohio Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Alice Robie Resnick, said the court "cannot find any rational basis for singling out university faculty members as the only public employees ... precluded from bargaining over their workload."
Resnick also said she found no relation between collective bargaining and a decline in teaching. The law was ruled unconstitutional because it violated the equal protection clauses of the Ohio and United States constitutions because it did not involve a legitimate public interest.
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