Coming up on IGI, we take a look at academic tenure in higher education in the wake of the firings of professors following the suspension of tenure at Emporia State University.

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(♪) This program is brought to you with support from a Lewis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU.

(♪) Hello and welcome to IGI.

I'm your host, LeTiffany Obozele.

Institutions of higher learning have long stood as bastions of knowledge, critical thinking, and academic freedom.

At the heart of the university system as a concept that has withstood the test of time.

Academic tenure.

But recently, this pillar of intellectual independence has come under fire, as evidenced by the recent termination of 30 tenure or tenure track professors at Emporia State University.

On today's show, uncover the complexities surrounding academic tenure.

Exploring its historical significance, the challenges it faces today, and the potential pathways for future.

Joining us today is Dr. Irene Mulvey, President of the American Association of University Professors.

Sherman Smith, Editor in Chief of the Kansas Reflector.

And Dr. Michael Poliakoff, President of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Thank you all for joining us today on IGI.

I want to start with you, Dr. Mulvey, and I want to get people on board and know what academic tenure is.

If you could talk about the intent behind academic tenure, its historical significance, and maybe any ways that it's changed today.

Sure.

The necessity for protecting academic freedom in our schools was formulated in the AAUP 1915 Declaration of Principles.

Around that time, there were many reports coming into the newly formed AAUP of infringements of academic freedom.

Most of the time these were faculty members whose research was not appreciated by someone in power influence, someone who wanted to shut them up and they were fired because someone wanted to shut them up.

So out of these situations came the idea that safeguarding academic freedom is essential in our colleges and universities.

And tenure is the means to protect academic freedom.

Then the 1940 statement, which was jointly formulated by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Association governing boards and also endorsed by more than 250 scholarly associations, lays out the principles of academic freedom and tenure.

And the idea is that there are four aspects to academic freedom freedom in teaching, freedom in research, freedom in institutional governance, and that it doesn't impinge on your freedom, free speech as a citizen.

And so once they after the expiration of a probationary period, a full time faculty member has academic tenure, which means they can only be fired for cause.

And even then, only after an adjudicated hearing, before an elected faculty body at which the burden of proof rests on the administration.

In other words, tenure is the process of academic due process that protects faculty members from inappropriate dismissal over the years, how it's evolved over the years.

I think, first of all, it's it's led to an increased understanding of the importance of academic freedom and how tenure protects it.

But it's also been undermined in ways by administrations and board in that the vast majority of faculty today do not have tenure and do not have the possibility of getting tenure.

And that's the real tragedy.

I mean, that that academic freedom is not protected the way the way it should be because of the undermining of tenure.

Thank you for talking about the four tenets of academic freedom and how it relates to tenure.

A lot of times when people are talking about these concepts, is there a difference between a K through 12 teacher and academic freedom and a higher education teacher when it comes to academic freedom?

Well, I'm not an expert in K through 12 tenure.

I'm, you know, only I only know higher education.

And I think the academic freedom for higher education faculty is much more robust than in K through 12, where I think there's set curriculum that people have to follow.

But in higher ed, you know, academic freedom is not freedom for the individual faculty member.

It is freedom for the work.

The academic freedom is for the work with tenure, the research, you can follow the work wherever it leads.

I mean, a climatologist, a a trustee who made their fortune in the fossil fuel industry might not like the conclusions reached by a climate climatologist, but, you know, the the academic freedom lets the work go to whatever the conclusions are reached.

The scientists reaches those conclusions through their work, and they are validated by a peer review process based on other experts in the field.

So I think that's a different that that's definitely higher ed only.

Okay.

So can you tell us how in higher ed, when teachers are engaging in that academic freedom, how that fosters an environment where scholars can pursue innovative, even maybe controversial topics without fear of repercussions?

Right.

I mean, innovative research requires risks.

And faculty members without the protections of tenure are probably less likely to take those risks.

I mean, if you're in a job where you have to produce a paper every year, you're not going to take on a project that might take years to come to fruition or might not even work.

I mean, it may it may not work or it may lead to a scientific breakthrough.

So this kind of innovate of risk taking research is of faculty members freed up to take on that kind of thing when they have tenure and they don't have to worry about their continued employment being dependent on, you know, immediate results.

Yes.

So, Sherman, I want to turn to you.

And one of the reasons we're here is because of ESU and those 30 tenure tenure track professors being let go.

And so I want to talk with you about the special workforce management framework that was introduced by the Kansas Board of Regents during COVID 19 pandemic.

What was its purpose?

What was the reaction from the regents or why was it implemented and when was it actually used?

Yeah, this is a policy that is borne out of the pandemic's early days when there was a lot of uncertainty and there was a lot of fear about the financial damage that this was going to do to universities.

And the Board of Regents wanted to establish some sort of framework for reducing staff if if there was an emergency need to do that.

So they put this policy in place in I believe in January of 2021, at a time when we didn't even have vaccines widely available.

And initially there wasn't much reaction.

Somebody at the university of Kansas, I think, mentioned this that was just sort of like this thing exists.

And there is a tremendous blowback of like, how dare you think about using this at KU?

And then nobody thought about it again for about another year or so when it started to become apparent that Emporia State was interested in pursuing this.

Okay.

So let's talk about how Emporia State used this framework to dismiss those 30 tenure or tenure track professors.

Under what grounds were they dismissed?

You know, that's one of the concerns that professors have here, is that when the university went to the board of Regents, they presented their plan to do this.

But it wasn't clear, you know, why they chose these particular professors.

There's a list of nine possible reasons, but they're also clear that it's not limited to those nine reasons.

So it could be any reason that they were getting rid of these professors.

And when they did eliminate them, they wouldn't tell the professors why they were being eliminated, why they were chosen over their peers, or why their program was selected.

And of course, literally the way they did this was they called professors to a deserted off campus building where one by one they were called in to, you know, a vacant room with an h.r.

person and law enforcement and just kind of handed a piece of paper.

That's an H.R.

person read and just kind of said next.

And it was a shocking way, I think, for professors to find this out and to not even understand why they were chosen.

And we just talked about academic tenure and academic freedom and how important that is to teachers being able to teach.

Are you familiar with that complaint in the recent lawsuit by 11 of the dismissed ESU professors?

Yeah.

These professors filed this lawsuit against ESU officials, against Board of Regents members, and perhaps unknown other individuals that they assumed could have been involved in what they allege is a conspiracy against tenure.

The idea that there would be a broader attack on tenure that would then be tested out at CSU in this way.

You know, they talk about this being an attack on their academic freedom and free speech because, you know, they say many of them were liberals.

They were involved in trying to form a union.

They were outspoken critics of the university president, but they also recognized tenure as a property right under state law and that this was being taken away.

And because of this framework that the regents put in place, they didn't have due process.

When they tried to appeal, they weren't allowed to call witnesses or look at the evidence that the university may have against them.

You know, they just had the burden of proof without knowing why they had even been fired in the first place.

Now this framework that came about for COVID that wasn't used into a year and a half later, did it remove the requirement that Dr. Mulvey talked about for people having academic earned due process after passing that probationary period?

Yeah, that's a central part of this framework is basically obliterating that, you know, it removes it.

And part of the challenge in the lawsuit is whether or not the Board of Regents and the university can just kind of unilaterally make that decision to suspend due process that is otherwise protected in state law.

Well, I could just.

Dr..

I'm sorry, I'm interrupting you.

Go ahead.

I mean, not to I, I strongly agree with Mr. Sherman that the process needs to be one that has impeccable fairness about it.

And I wrote in March of 2021 in Forbes that the regents need to take a big look at administrative spending before they start looking at the possibility of terminating faculty, because after all, the business of a college or university is teaching and learning.

And I'd like to make sure that there is indeed real attention paid to the way the colleges, the universities are spending money to make sure it's directed towards that central function of instruction rather than administration or some superfluous student services.

However, having said that, and I'm sure, Mr. Sherman, you have to acknowledge this, that the from 2012 to 2021, the declining enrollment has been 9%.

That's true for all of the public universities and for Emporia.

That's a huge bite out of the budget.

And I fear in a macro sense that what the late Clayton Christiansen told us that a whole lot of colleges and universities would be merged or closed is coming true.

That's a bigger question, but I wanted to at least acknowledge the very real cost issues involved here.

So I would just say that, you know, when ESU brought this policy to the Board of Regents, their plan to the Board of Regents.

It was initially about being financially solvent.

But we know from a AAUP study in reports that their rationale for this then shifted to other sort of explanations about realigning or attracting students and to certain new programs that they were then adding back to the university.

The day you report said there, there explanations were shifting and incoherence over this.

But it's important to note that issue was not isolated in in seeing enrollment changes or financial changes.

And, you know, their status wasn't any worse than the other state universities, but they were the only one that felt that this was necessary.

Okay.

So you guys have both brought up something interesting.

And I want to start with you, Dr. Poliakoff.

How do you view the impact of tenure on institutional budgets and tuition costs?

Are there ways to address these concerns without undermining the principles of academic freedom?

I believe there are.

And one of them may well be long term contracts.

Let me back up a moment.

The tenure system as AAUP has endorsed it, and its 1940 statement is essentially a probationary period of six years.

And then it's kind of up or out.

I'm not sure that's a particularly wholesome way to proceed for the future of the best argument that I've heard for tenure is not one concerning academic freedom, which I think is better protected in other ways.

But essentially one of the competitiveness of the universities to attract and keep excellent faculty.

Can that be done?

Short of a lifetime contract, that is essentially an obligation of 3 to $4 million over the of the future of that professor's career, or with a system in which there are long term contracts, tenure contracts, 15 year contracts work better in giving the institution more flexibility, financial flexibility, programmatic flexibility to respond to the needs of the workforce and student interest while still safeguarding the absolute crucial freedom of faculty in their teaching and learning.

And I would also add in that the freedom of speech and inquiry of the students and I hear you saying that you believe academic freedom is protected in other ways and you've given us an example of something to be consider a lifetime contract.

I know that sometimes critics of tenure argue that it can sometimes protect under-performing faculty members from consequences.

How do you respond to that criticism?

And are there other ways you believe there's improvement in the tenure system?

I'm afraid the criticism of protection of faculty who are not performing, I hate to use that strong word incompetent or are indeed involved in misconduct, has not been as robust as it should.

The the AAUP, which I have strong respect for, I set up a committee A at its founding in 25th, in 1915 for the protection of academic freedom.

Absolutely important.

The committee B which was to focus on professional ethics, has never been so strong.

And when you set the expectations of AAUP against those of, say, the American Psychological Association with its almost 400 page of case studies of ethical practice and its willingness to take away membership and to sanction psychologists who don't live up to the ethical standards of the profession.

There is a real gap there that has certainly eroded public confidence.

And yes, American Political Science Association in its in its journal published a study in which I find it's just mind boggling.

65% of the department chairs said that they thought that tenure had shown itself to have that propensity, that flaw of protecting incompetence.

This is a very, very bad situation, especially combined with financial exigency and certainly good journals.

Journal of Higher Education reported a widespread belief among faculty that there's too much faculty misconduct.

I would certainly refer people to Neil Hamilton at the University of St Thomas, who has faulted the profession for not inculcating the standards of ethical practice.

So let me stop rambling on there.

I know others speak.

I need to push back on a couple of things there.

I mean, I think tenure does not protect a underperforming faculty member.

If there are legitimate reasons based directly and substantially on fitness and professional capacities for a teacher or a researcher, then the administration can initiate proceedings that would lead to dismissal or discipline.

But the proceedings must adhere to widely, widely accepted standards of academic due process.

I think this idea that that tenure protects underperforming faculty members, I think Dr. Poliakoff said incompetent faculty members is simply it's simply not true.

In academia, we feel it's one of those things that people who want to undermine academic freedom say keep saying over and over in the hope that I'll make it true, but it doesn't make it true.

Tenure does not protect underperforming faculty members.

It's an unwillingness of administrators to maybe initiate the meetings that they need to do.

And also, I want to something else that Dr. Poliakoff said about longer term contracts.

Longer term contracts do not protect academic freedom, period.

If a faculty member is concerned that their teaching or their research is going to be something that some person with influence and power doesn't like or something that's going to rock the boat and they're not.

And it's a concern of their continuing employment that they will they will they will self-censor in the classroom and in their research.

They'll think twice before embarking on a research project.

They they may think twice about working on vaccine efficacy in public health efforts or climate science.

They may think twice about including the 1619 project in their syllabus, in their readings, even though that shouldn't be controversial.

But, you know, if you're concerned that someone's looking over your shoulder and your contract is up in a certain number of years, you'll think twice about that.

So I think it's important to understand that tenure protects academic freedom.

And there's there's there's there's no problem.

I think the question is those those are undermining tenure.

What's the problem they're trying to solve?

Because the premise that it protects, undermining and in confidence in faculty members is simply not true.

So when you take away that premise and you understand that, that you acknowledge that American higher education is the envy of the world because of our robust protection for academic freedom, protected by academic due process and tenure, we're doing something right.

And I think the impulse to get rid of tenure is an impulse to undermine academic freedom and to silence criticism and to quash critics.

It's an authoritarian impulse, and I think it's something we should be very, very wary of.

And I may respond.

I don't want to monopolize conversation, but it wasn't a Republican legislator or Republican governor who published the article in the Journal of the American Political Science Association.

When tenure protects the incompetents results from a survey of department chairs.

So those were other faculty members.

We were the administrators initiating proceedings on that?

It's not the faculty's job to initiate proceedings when a faculty when there's misconduct.

I agree misconduct should be addressed as as soon as it arises.

I mean, I know of all sorts of instances, but to blame the faculty for that and tenure, that's that's the that's the wrong that's that's not right.

Department chairs are faculty members.

They have a reduced teaching load, but they're faculty members.

They're not administrators.

That's not that.

That's highly dependent on means.

And the other point, Dr. Mulvey, that I wanted to respond to is the idea that a long term contract would necessarily be a an invitation to the suppression of freedom of thought.

The six year up and out system that AAUP has espoused is far more of a muzzle.

What junior faculty member is going to dare to go against the prevailing opinions on campus?

After all, Joshua Katz, who held an endowed chair at Princeton, was fired.

And I compliment your colleague John Wilson for noting that it was done with such specious charges simply because he had bucked the faculty, quote, anti-racism initiative, which was anything but.

But that's another issue.

So if a endowed professor can be fired, what what possible motive would a bold junior faculty member have for saying I disagree?

And now that we're coming to a really contested issues in matters of gender and identity, I'm afraid that we're going to be seeing even more group think unless there are some intervention other than the tenure system.

I want to get back to the Kansas situation.

So let me just say real quick, the six year up and out thing, as you're describing it, is not the way the AAUP views it.

The AAUP views it that after the expiration of a probationary period, the faculty member has tenure.

That's that's the way it works, according to AAUP policy.

But to go back to what Mr. Sherman Smith was saying and what happened in Kansas, I think I mean, the description and he references our investigative report that the AAUP did on the Emporia State situation, in which it's a very detailed academic report.

I think Dr. Poliakoff would agree that most of these situations are extremely complicated and you can't really address them in a 30 second soundbite.

But our report on Emporia State is about 15 pages, very detailed, very academic footnotes, the whole the whole academic thing.

But and the association put Emporia State on our list of institutions censured for violations of academic freedom.

But I think when when what Mr. Smith described there is exactly what tenure is supposed to protect.

I mean, these faculty members appears they were targeted.

I'm very interested in the lawsuit.

I'm looking I'm anxious to see where that goes.

But I think that the ultimate argument in Emporia State was within Kansas passing this policy, which was only used by Emporia State, not the other publics.

The the overlying argument was there's a crisis.

So ten years out the window.

And that's that's the real problem is tenure is only there until a crisis emerges.

Then there's no such thing as tenure.

I mean, the policies that protect academic freedom and tenure are robust enough to apply even in situations where there's a crisis like the pandemic, like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, in which, you know, we had an investigation there.

But I think I think the it appears that the Kansas and what happened in Kansas was the exploitation of a crisis to target some faculty members and get rid of some faculty members that people didn't want.

And I feel like that's that's like a textbook example of what tenure is supposed to be protecting in our institutions of higher learning.

I mean, in a democracy, higher education, the role of higher education in a democracy is as a as a public good.

And in order to carry out that role, faculty members need more.

Faculty members need the tenure protections for their academic freedom.

I think it's interesting, too, the Kansas does have a procedure in place that any university could follow at any time.

That's a thorough review.

And the the evidence is public.

There's a criteria for evaluating a program of professors.

There's an appeal process.

It's a long, long time consuming ordeal.

But it's a fair way of establishing why you would want to eliminate entire programs like ESU did.

This policy that the regents had that ESU took advantage of was just a way to short circuit that process under the pretense of a crisis.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this episode of IGI.

If you have any comments or suggestions for future topics, please send us an email at issues@ktwu.org.

If you would like to view this program again or any previous episodes of IGI, visit us online at watch.ktwu.org.

I'm LeTiffany Obezele, thank you all for being here with us and thank you for watching.

(♪) This program is brought to you with support from the Louis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust and from the friends of KTWU.