‘An all-out assault on the university?’ NC bill would eliminate faculty tenure

North Carolina legislators are considering a bill that would eliminate tenure for future faculty hired at the state’s public colleges and universities.

Instead of tenure, the bill proposed by Republicans would establish a “uniform contracting procedure” in which hired faculty are offered employment contracts ranging from one to four years, which could be renewed.

The bill is one of several “disturbing recent developments” described by nearly 700 university faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill who signed a letter published in The Daily Tar Heel on Monday. The letter criticizes actions by state and university leaders in recent months that they say “violate the principles of academic freedom and shared governance that undergird higher education in N.C. and the U.S.”

Jay Smith and Maxine Eichner, who are both UNC professors with tenure, led the effort. In an interview with The N&O Thursday, Smith and Eichner said the bill would create difficulties in attracting and recruiting new faculty to the university, as well as retaining current faculty.

“It’s just so potentially devastating,” Smith said. “It makes me heartsick for what it’s going to do to the university and for the state.”

A handful of other states have considered or enacted changes to tenure in recent years, including Florida, where a bill passed last year made it harder for faculty to retain tenure. The Texas Senate last week passed a bill that would eliminate tenure for future hired faculty. Other tenure bills have been considered in South Carolina and Iowa, among other states.

Where does the bill stand?

House Bill 715, titled the “Higher Ed. Modernization & Affordability Act,” has not yet received any votes.

A House committee was set to consider the bill Thursday, but Rep. David Willis, the chair of the committee and a Republican from Marvin, said at the meeting the item had been pulled from the day’s calendar “after consultation with some of our stakeholders last night with the UNC System and some of our campuses around.”

Willis, who filed the bill, said it would be brought “back at a future meeting,” but did not specify when that would be.

Attempts by The News & Observer Thursday afternoon and Friday to contact Willis were unsuccessful.

What is tenure?

Academic tenure for university faculty is a type of employment appointment that generally allows faculty to remain employed at the university indefinitely, barring extraordinary circumstances or being terminated for cause.

The process to be granted tenure can take several years and considers a professor’s experience in teaching and research, as well as recommendations by other professors within and outside the university.

Tenure is generally viewed by faculty and higher education leaders as a way to provide academic freedom for faculty, both in teaching and research roles.

“Tenure provides the conditions for faculty to pursue research and innovation and draw evidence-based conclusions free from corporate or political pressure,” according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a national nonprofit membership organization for faculty.

Tenure and the freedom it provides allow faculty to teach and research subjects that may be considered controversial or “regarded as dealing with hot-button issues,” Smith, a history professor, said.

Smith, for example, said he developed a course on the history of college sports and the rights of athletes, while Eichner, a law professor, said she teaches courses on the Black Lives Matter movement and the law, as well as a course that incorporates feminist legal theory and Critical Race Theory.

“These are classes that it is not at all clear to me that I’d be able to teach without tenure,” Eichner said.

Tenure is also an important recruiting tool for universities to attract new faculty, Smith said, in part because it provides job security. Smith said he worries the bill would reduce or eliminate UNC’s and his department’s ability to recruit top scholars, who may fear retribution based on what they teach or research.

“The No. 1 consequence that I thought of, at least, was how impossible this makes recruitment going forward, if this were to become law, because we would be a complete outlier,” Smith said. “And people emerging from top graduate schools, top law schools, top professional schools would not be interested in coming to this place, because your job would be too tenuous.”

Nationwide, the AAUP says, about 21% of faculty have tenure, a number that has declined over the past few decades. In a Q&A with The Daily Tar Heel this week, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said “a little more” than 50% of faculty at UNC are tenured.

It would be “disastrous” for tenure to be eliminated, Guskiewicz told The DTH.

How would HB 715 change tenure?

If passed as written, HB 715 would eliminate tenure for faculty hired on or after July 1, 2024, at public two- and four-year colleges and universities in the state.

Instead of tenure, newly hired faculty would be employed at-will or under a contract for a term of one to four years. The contract could be renewed after its completion, though if a college or university chooses not to renew the faculty member’s contract, the school would be required to “provide timely notice.”

Colleges and universities would not be allowed to fire, suspend without pay or demote faculty during the contract term, unless the faculty member displayed “incompetence,” “neglect of duty,” “serious misconduct” or “unsatisfactory performance,” the school was unable to financially support the position, or the school curtailed or eliminated “a teaching, research, or public-service program.”

If a faculty member was to be demoted, suspended or fired, the college or university would offer them “an opportunity for a hearing before” the chancellor or president of the school, who would decide what action to take. The faculty member would be allowed to appeal the decision to the school’s board of trustees, which, if necessary, would “make a final decision on the matter.”

The bill does not appear to impact faculty who currently hold tenured positions. But, Smith said, he views the bill as “part and parcel of an all-out assault on the university and on faculty independence.”

“And so, those of us who happen to have tenure would also begin to feel less secure, even though we still have tenure,” he said.

Other provisions of HB 715

Eliminating tenure is just one provision of HB 715. Among other changes to colleges and universities, the bill would:

▪ Give boards of trustees the power to regularly evaluate and eliminate “unnecessary or redundant expenses, personnel, and areas of study.”

▪ Require a report on noninstructional research performed at each school and “recommendations to increase instructional time for students and faculty” at the schools.

▪ Direct the UNC System’s Board of Governors and the State Board of Community Colleges to establish minimum class sizes for all undergraduate courses. Schools would not be allowed to offer a course if it does not receive the required minimum enrollment by the first day of class.

▪ Require the boards to report on the “administrative services” provided at each school and on any positions or offices that would function “more efficiently or inexpensively” if they were consolidated into or managed by the main offices of each system.

▪ Direct the boards to adopt “unified” admissions applications for their respective systems. Individual schools would be prohibited from “adding to or otherwise modifying” the application.

▪ Require colleges and universities to study the capacities and usage of campus buildings and report the findings.

▪ Prohibit schools from spending money on social fraternities and sororities or on “any activities related to political, social, or religious issues, including special interest clubs and other student organizations.” This provision would not apply to athletics of any level, bands, student governments, academic clubs or nonsocial fraternities and sororities.