Higher Education Quick Takes

The board of the University of North Carolina system voted Friday to bar campuses from offering gender-neutral housing, The Raleigh News & Observer reported. The university's Chapel Hill campus had decided last year to start offering some gender-neutral housing, and the board's action stops that plan from taking effect. The board acted without discussing the issue in public, but the Chapel Hill move has been criticized by conservative groups in the state. Advocates for gender-neutral housing have said that it is an important option for transgender students and for some gay and lesbian students who may face hostile environments in traditional housing. Members of Campus Pride, an organization the is an advocate for gay, lesbian and transgender students, protested outside the meeting, with signs that read "Trans Lives Matter."

The National Collegiate Athletic Association got slammed – perhaps even more aggressively than usual – online this week after the ESPN men’s basketball commentator Jay Bilas pointed out an apparent hypocrisy: The NCAA staunchly prohibits athletes from profiting off their own images, but the association was selling jerseys on its ShopNCAASports.com website that seemed to do just that. While the jersey wouldn’t include a name, if a shopper searched for “Johnny Manziel” – the 19-year-old Heisman Trophy winner who is now under NCAA investigation for selling autographed photos – up popped jerseys featuring the Texas A&M University quarterback’s number and team colors.

The NCAA responded quickly, removing the search bar but staying silent when people noticed. Its officials couldn’t escape the questions during an NCAA Executive Committee press call Thursday, though, where NCAA President Mark Emmert said the association would no longer sell university jerseys or memorabilia. Adding that he didn’t know how the practice began and that it was “a mistake,” Emmert noted that the website is an aggregator for other retailers and that the NCAA did not profit off the sales. Nonetheless, the NCAA is “exiting” the business.

“I can certainly understand how people could see that as hypocritical,” Emmert said of the sales.

Officials noted that the website will still sell NCAA-branded apparel.

Faculty members at Pennsylvania State University aren’t giving up their fight against “Take Care of Your Health.” They’ve launched an online petition against the university’s controversial new health care plan and its punitive surcharges for smoking, not completing annual biometric exams and online screenings, and covering spouses or domestic partners eligible for insurance through their own employers. Those monthly surcharges range from $75 to $100 each. More than 1,300 people, including faculty, staff and family members had signed the petition as of Thursday. “We the undersigned request, indeed, we demand, that the Office of Human Resources put an immediate end to the implementation of these programs, and open a conversation with their constituents (including both faculty and staff) in order to develop more equitable and less intrusive strategies for containing health care costs,” reads the petition, addressed to President Rodney Erickson, the Penn State Board of trustees, and human resources officials.

In contrast to positive incentive-based wellness programs at numerous other institutions, the petition reads, Penn State “has adopted what can only be called a harsh and coercive punishment system, in essence requiring employees to submit to intrusive questions and comply with medical procedures, or else pay significant fines.”

Penn State says it has offered positive wellness incentives in the past, such as Weight Watchers, but they did little to bring down the ballooning costs of its self-funded insurance system. It announced the surcharges this summer. They take effect in late fall and early winter. In an e-mail, Susan Basso, vice president for human resources, said the university was aware of the petition but would proceed with "Take Care of Your Health," a plan that's admittedly "bold for a university." The number of employees who have signed the petition make up just five percent of the benefit-enrolled population, she added.

Brian Curran, the professor of art history who authored the petition, said he was surprised by how many names he’d gathered and how diverse the signatories’ backgrounds were. Many also left comments. In almost every note, Curran said in an e-mail, “there is a sense, more or less explicitly stated, of the great burden that the past two years of [the Jerry Sandusky child abuse] scandal has placed on the morale of both faculty and staff. There is a common thread of ‘enough is enough,’ [and] ‘this is the last straw.’" That said, he added, “I continue to hope that the administration will do the right thing, and at least delay the imposition of the surcharges for the next year, so that a full airing of grievances and proper consultation can take place.”

The university consulted with the Faculty Senate's Benefits Committee on the plan, but the body as a whole was never asked to vote on it.

A former doctoral student who worked as a psychology intern at the University of California at San Francisco was awarded more than $14,000 in back wages after filing a complaint with the California labor commissioner over uncompensated work, the International Business Times reported. While the internship was paid, Johanna Workman was only allowed to log 17 of 40 hours per week, she said, and although she had expected a stipend, she was paid hourly and did not make minimum wage. Workman was not a student during the six months for which she sought back wages – August 2012 through January 2013 – having graduated in 2011. But the case is unusual in that interns who have sued over violation of labor laws in recent months have worked in the private sector. In ruling against the university, the California Labor Commissioner cited the U.S. Department of Labor’s guidelines for unpaid internships, the same guidelines that were applied in the recent court victory of unpaid interns – also non-students – over Fox Searchlight Pictures.