Editorial: Laying off responsibility

There are many arguments that could be put forth as to why staff reductions, including layoffs, were necessary. The University has stated its intention to reduce its operating budget by $170 million over the next two years, and $15 million of those cuts were set to come from a combination of layoffs, overtime savings, voluntary retirements and reductions in hours. Given the decline in the endowment, it is obviously prudent for administrators to reduce costs. Certainly the University community benefits, at all times, from prudent administration — it is perhaps most due to sound management in the past, for instance, that our current situation is not nearly as bad as that at Harvard, which has cut far more of its central services and its workforce.

But even with these arguments in favor of cost cutting, it is unclear whether staff reductions are the best way to achieve this. In effect, this is the central problem: The University community has been given almost no information with which to evaluate the layoffs. This is wrong, and the University community should have some of this information. We should know — perhaps no more than in outline — which departments laid off the most workers, why layoffs were chosen over other potential cost-reducing strategies (including cuts to services students might enjoy), why even more endowment spending wasn’t considered and which types of jobs were eliminated.

We should be clear on one point, though: The goal of evaluating (and requesting) such information must not be to quibble with individual decisions. It could be argued, for instance, that this request for more information is somehow absurd — that for the University community to be offered an opportunity to pass judgment on such complex administrative decisions as layoffs would somehow be disadvantageous for the University, and something that should not be publicly discussed.

But this answer isn’t good enough. The widespread layoffs ask, in effect, what type of community Princeton should be. There are many good arguments, like those above, for why the layoffs were necessary. There are also many good arguments against this. Is the University in the business of handing out charity in the form of highly redundant jobs? Clearly not. But given its resources, should it take a less-than-mechanical look at decisions so strongly impacting individual lives? Perhaps. But without more information, no serious debate on these critical issues can occur. And though this is a small case, it draws on exactly the broader principles which this community can, and indeed must, decide through such a dialogue.

As members of the University community continue to adjust to the “new normal” after a severe economic downturn, it is more important than ever that we have debates over what is critical to Princeton and what is tangential. The layoffs raised this question. It is a shame that we have not had an opportunity to discuss them in an informed manner.