Opinion: Real recourse for the win

While many observers saw the contract negotiations between Stanford and its graduate workers as primarily concerned with pay and benefits, an insistence on robust anti-harassment policies also played an important role. Salary negotiations took center stage in the news coverage and opinion pieces published in the last days of bargaining between Stanford Graduate Workers’ Union (SGWU) and Stanford University for the first contract. This focus was a response in part to how the provost’s office mischaracterized bargaining.  

But SGWU and the university also were still negotiating on non-discrimination on Nov. 12, the very last day of bargaining, after the SGWU had authorized a strike to start that same day, then extended negotiations past midnight and through the next day and night at the university’s request. Talk about a nail-biter. 

I am proud of my union. We never budged on real recourse against discrimination, harassment, and abusive conduct at the hands of supervisors. Over the last decade, we supported survivors of physical assault and sexual harassment in coming forward, and we organized for real recourse, initially as part of Stanford Solidarity Network, the minority union that predates SGWU as our rank-and-file union. Over the last calendar year, our fearless bargaining committee studied the contracts ratified by our sister unions at MIT, University of Chicago, and Northwestern, and exchanged 17 proposal articles for non-discrimination with the university. In the end, the university could not deny our resolve, and we secured “the strongest nondiscrimination clauses in private higher education.” 

Up until now, reporting rates for discrimination and harassment have been abysmally low at Stanford. Of respondents to the 2021 IDEAL survey, only 6% of graduate workers who experienced discrimination and/or harassment made a formal complaint, suggesting they did not see the university’s procedures as providing meaningful recourse.

Going forward, the union will empower graduate workers to secure their persons and labor against infringements. The contract language that remains is purposefully broad on the definition of misconduct in favor of survivors, encompassing and extending beyond the safeguards against gender discrimination provided by Title IX. That latitude reflects the fact that Stanford graduate workers have seen it all: professional undermining, offensive epithets, deliberate and consistent misgendering and deadnaming, bullying, stalking, verbal and physical assault of a sexual nature, and otherwise. No more will such misconduct go unchecked. 

“Abusive conduct means conduct of any individual in the workplace, with malice, that a reasonable person would find hostile, offensive, and unrelated to the university’s legitimate business interests,” the approved language reads.

The grievance procedure will operate in tandem with the university’s own processes and those of the Title IX office, and provide for third-party neutral arbitration. The hope is that the threat of outside arbitration will encourage swift resolution and dissuade bad actors.

Should a union member suspect misconduct and decide to take action, their case will be assigned to a union steward, who will be trained, experienced, and legally protected, and will leverage every available resource to address the concern. Every union member will have the right to request the presence of a union representative at a disciplinary meeting or at any meeting in which they anticipate disciplinary action. Graduate workers who experience retaliation after complaining will also have full union-backed protections.

While investigations into misconduct are ongoing, graduate workers will have the right to request status updates on the proceedings every 30 days, and the university will be required to respond within seven days of such requests. During and following investigations, graduate workers will have a formal avenue to request accommodations from the university.

Lastly, upon the union’s request, the university will meet twice a year with the union to discuss improvements to university policies and procedures regarding discrimination, harassment, and abusive conduct. 

This is what winning real recourse looks like. “I cry nine times out of ten times I talk about this article,” said a member of SGWU’s bargaining committee. “We broke new ground in addressing one of the worst parts of Stanford.” Our first contract sets a new standard for non-discrimination in institutions of higher learning. May we see many more such wins in the years to come.

Chloé Brault is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature and a Clayman Institute graduate dissertation fellow. She has been advocating for real recourse at Stanford since 2018; she was interviewed by KQED on this topic in 2023, and she co-authored a May 2024 opinion piece with Sophie Walton on the SGWU negotiations.