CUNY’S class clowns

The CUNY professoriat and the faculty union have filed suit to block the board of trustees from establishing smart, systemwide curriculum standards, claiming that they, the inmates, are legally authorized to run the asylum. If such be the law in New York, it’s time to move anywhere, even to Jersey.

Chancellor Matt Goldstein and the board of trustees in June approved reforms aimed at lifting standards across CUNY’S outposts and, just as importantly, ending a long-running instrument of anti-student torture.

CUNY’S constituent colleges and departments have for decades refused in many cases to recognize one another’s courses. Students complete associate degrees only to have senior colleges refuse to honor their transcripts and demand that the students repeat coursework.

If this happened once in a while, it would be deplorable, especially considering that every tuition penny counts to students from working-class backgrounds. In fact, CUNY has battered them this way for decades, and the professors have shown scant concern.

Now it is trying to block the administration from setting standards that would provide relief to students.

And the motivation is entrenched faculty interest in keeping courses just the way they are, whether that benefits students or not.

Faculty members supporting the suit should be ashamed, and the court should give them a clear lesson in who runs CUNY.