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News & Issues |
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AAUP Comments on Faculty Background Checks The American Association of University Professors today released a report titled “Verification and Trust: Background Investigations Preceding Faculty Appointments,” formulated by the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. In its report, occasioned by the increasing frequency and invasiveness of personnel investigations on campuses, the committee calls for a renewed sense of proportion in such inquiries. Acknowledging that, to some extent, all background checks entail some compromise of the privacy of candidates, the report urges that the practice be limited to candidacies for positions with significant security considerations. “The privacy of a candidate [for employment] should be compromised only as necessary in order to secure information that may ensure that applicants are qualified to meet the particular obligations of specific positions,” the report advises.
The report singles out a “general policy of searching the criminal
records, if any, of all applicants for faculty positions” as egregiously
disproportionate to reasonable institutional needs. “While it is
possible that a search of criminal records might disclose information
that could reasonably be thought to have a negative bearing on a
particular candidate’s suitability for a faculty position, such
a discovery must surely be rare. Undertaking such searches is highly
invasive of an applicant’s privacy and potentially very damaging,”
the committee’s report comments. Criminal
records are “notoriously imprecise” as to criminal guilt. They contain
information that ranges from arrest through dismissal or sentencing,
and they do not contain important contextual information, the report
further observes. The
committee recommends that the scope of background checks should
be limited by the specific requirements of a particular position.
“We recommend that whenever a college or university contemplates
pursuing background checks that are more extensive than those now
customary within the academy, it should articulate the specific
information it seeks and explain the reasons why it believes such
information is necessary.” |