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Faculty Push Back Against OpenAI Deals (Inside Higher Ed, March 27)
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2026/03/27/faculty-push-back-against-openai-dealsMore than a year after the California State University system spent $17 million to give all students, faculty and staff access to ChatGPT Edu in the name of workforce readiness, thousands don’t want the system to renew its contract with OpenAI.
While they’re skeptical of the product’s ability to enhance teaching and learning and worried about its potential to worsen working conditions and student mental health, the CSU system’s ongoing financial troubles are driving the pushback. In January, faculty wrote a petition asking Chancellor Mildred García not to renew the CSU’s contract with OpenAI, which expires June 30, and instead “use the savings to protect jobs at CSU campuses facing layoffs.”
“We believe that investing in the CSU’s human workforce is the best way to ensure the quality of research, teaching, and learning in California public education,” the petition reads. “The challenges that we face in higher education cannot be resolved with AI. We must, instead, empower faculty, staff, and students to define a sustainable, human-centered future for the CSU system.”
-snip-
“People are upset that there appears to be money to support AI but not faculty and staff,” said Dylan Harris, an assistant professor of geography at Colorado Springs and president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “It is not that AI is taking our jobs per se, but that AI is being prioritized over many of our jobs.”
-snip-
While they’re skeptical of the product’s ability to enhance teaching and learning and worried about its potential to worsen working conditions and student mental health, the CSU system’s ongoing financial troubles are driving the pushback. In January, faculty wrote a petition asking Chancellor Mildred García not to renew the CSU’s contract with OpenAI, which expires June 30, and instead “use the savings to protect jobs at CSU campuses facing layoffs.”
“We believe that investing in the CSU’s human workforce is the best way to ensure the quality of research, teaching, and learning in California public education,” the petition reads. “The challenges that we face in higher education cannot be resolved with AI. We must, instead, empower faculty, staff, and students to define a sustainable, human-centered future for the CSU system.”
-snip-
“People are upset that there appears to be money to support AI but not faculty and staff,” said Dylan Harris, an assistant professor of geography at Colorado Springs and president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “It is not that AI is taking our jobs per se, but that AI is being prioritized over many of our jobs.”
-snip-
More at the link.