Opinion/Hajdarovic and Mathews: Brown students want say in COVID safety policies

Kaitlyn Hajdarovic and Kaylee Mathews work as graduate student researchers in laboratory-based biological sciences at Brown University. Corinne Hutfilz and Megan Gura, who also work as graduate student researchers, contributed to this commentary.

Early on in the pandemic, Brown University President Christina Paxson made it clear that Brown’s highest priorities are keeping tuition money flowing and protecting themselves from COVID-related lawsuits. As positive cases of COVID-19 grow in Rhode Island, Brown's administration continues to endanger the health and safety of its graduate student employees who work in laboratories across campus.

On May 28, the Association of American Universities, a lobbying organization of which Paxson served as vice chair at the time, signed a letter to Congress urging them to enact liability protections for higher education institutions. This was followed shortly thereafter by an appearance in front of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where Paxson refused to acknowledge the message she was sending to the Brown community by asking for protection against liability should Brown “behave unreasonably." Incongruously, during the same Senate hearing, Paxson stated that she views CDC guidelines as a minimum standard for keeping the Brown community safe.

However, minimum standards were all we were given. The administration refuses to implement contact tracing measures that acknowledge aerosol transmission of COVID-19. Using the minimum CDC definition of “contact,” lab workers at Brown are generally not informed when someone in their lab, on their floor, or even in their building tests positive for COVID-19. Instead, workers rely on hearsay to keep themselves safe. Perhaps most strikingly, Brown plans to invite even more undergraduates back to campus in spring than in any other semester during the pandemic, despite the fact that Rhode Island has one of the highest transmission rates per capita for COVID-19 in the world.

Other institutions have implemented precautionary measures, such as enforced building access restrictions, prompt notification to employees whose work area has been exposed to COVID-19, dashboard information about where cases on campus are occurring, reduced undergraduate invitation to campus, or suspended in-person undergraduate activity altogether. Brown’s comparatively lax approach illustrates its decision to feign powerlessness, relying on a system of “personal responsibility” rather than administrative accountability.

Representatives from the Graduate Labor Organization have attempted to address these issues by working with administration directly, but the meetings have been less than fruitful. GLO was not offered representation on any committee the University formed to create policy for the pandemic. When GLO asked for representatives to be included, the university offered two positions: one seat on the committee tasked to create policy for research, and one seat on the committee tasked with creating policy for the entire campus. In the former committee, the assigned GLO representative reported a belittling experience with no success in negotiations to improve working conditions. The latter committee dissolved before the GLO representative had a chance to participate. This committee was then replaced with its successor, the Campus Activity Level Review Team. GLO’s request to join this replacement committee was subsequently denied.

Even informal meetings with administration have not yielded the changes that need to happen in order to keep workers safe during the pandemic. Representatives of GLO therefore submitted an intent to bargain over workplace health and safety issues. Brown declined this request. Brown claims to be taking COVID-19 seriously, but at every turn, they refuse to listen to the concerns of their laboratory workers.

We don’t want to be at odds with administration. We want to be treated like human beings, to be listened to, not disregarded when we tell them their policies aren’t working. And we would know; we are the people these policies were made for, though we weren’t given a say in how they were made.