A United Campus Workers of Kentucky board member says a bill now under consideration in the state House that would let public universities lay off educators – including those with tenure – for financial reasons could be “devastating” for the commonwealth’s academic community.
Last year, the GOP-dominated state legislature passed a measure over the objections of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear that requires public universities to conduct performance and productivity reviews of tenured employees every four years – which could be used to remove them from their positions if they do not meet certain performance requirements.
Typically, tenure is meant to grant professors job security and protections for academic freedom. However, in recent years, some states have taken action to limit how far tenure protections go. Nearly a dozen states, including Kentucky, have imposed new levels of review that make it easier to fire tenured faculty. And Oklahoma’s governor issued an executive order just last week barring public colleges and universities from granting tenure.
House Bill 490, which passed a committee vote on Tuesday, would require university regent boards – as well as the board that oversees the Kentucky Community and Technical College System – to establish a process by which faculty members could be removed for “bona fide” financial reasons. Those reasons would include, but are not limited to, dire financial need on the university’s part; low enrollment in programs or majors the educator is associated with; and “misalignment of revenue and costs” in a college, department, program or major.
Ray Horton, a board member of UCW Kentucky who also teaches at Murray State University, said the bill’s misalignment language is vague, and is concerned that it could let university leaders interpret it in ways that make it much easier to eliminate tenured jobs.
“This just gives a ready-made pretext to basically fire any tenured professor on a whim with no more than 30 days notice,” Horton said. “This would destroy tenure in Kentucky public universities, in my opinion.”
Kentucky Republican state Rep. Aaron Thompson, the sponsor of HB 490, told legislators Tuesday that the measure is meant to make sure all Kentucky public postsecondary institutions are following the same sets of rules when it comes to terminating employees.
Thompson said some of the bill’s language was based on tenured faculty termination policies in place at the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University. While both of those schools can terminate tenured faculty if an academic program is reduced or eliminated, both policies also state that the respective universities must first try to find other suitable positions on campus that the tenured employee could qualify for before firing them.
However, Horton said HB 490 does not have similar protections in place for tenured professors whose programs or majors have low enrollment.
The UCW Kentucky board member said bills like HB 490 undermine the academic freedom protections that tenure traditionally grants. Horton said measures like this one aimed at limiting tenure job protections could lead to a “mass exodus” of educators leaving public Kentucky universities and going to private ones or moving to other states where he said tenure provides “genuine security.”
Horton worries that tenured professors wouldn’t be the only people affected by this measure.
“Tenured faculty have a long term investment in the institution where they teach. They get involved in the shared governance process of the university. They mentor students, they build long term relationships within the community. And by eroding tenure, it's also going to harm the education that students are able to receive,” Horton said.
HB 490 now goes before the full House for consideration. UCW Kentucky is hosting a Zoom call Thursday evening to discuss how the measure will impact university employees.
