Letter to the Editor: UC sets bad example for students in treatment of lecturers

Dear editorial staff,

What a wonderful editorial about the need for the University of California administration to respect its lecturers and to be transparent about negotiations. Lecturers are as important to the teaching mission of the UC as are Academic Senate faculty, and they should have equivalent pay and benefits. One shameful practice that the administration should immediately remedy is its denying part-time lecturers the right to elect Social Security deductions, which they do in order to save the UC the employer contribution. What kind of example does this set our students about civic community?

Katherine C. King is a professor emeritus of comparative literature and classics.