MISSION, Kansas (AP) — When Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked colleges in Texas to drop critical race theory, faculty at the University of Texas approved a resolution defending their freedom to decide how to teach racial topics.
For his part, Patrick, a Republican, said it was time to think about holding educators accountable by targeting one of the main perks of their job.
“Maybe we need to look at tenure,” Patrick said at a press conference in November.
This sentiment is shared by conservative officials in red states across the country. Indefinite tenure-related academic appointments—the holy grail of university employment—have been scrutinized by legislators or state oversight boards in at least half a dozen states, often presented as attempts to rein in liberal academics.
Homeownership advocates brace for the possibility of new threats as lawmakers return to state buildings across the country.
This trend reflects the extent to which a conservative approach to education regarding race, gender, and sexuality has spread from schools to institutions of higher learning. But budgetary considerations also play a role. The number of full-time teachers is declining even in more liberal states. Universities are hiring more additional part-time faculty amid declining financial support from state governments.
Traditionally, tenured professors can only be fired in extreme cases, such as professional misconduct or a financial emergency. Defenders of tenure say it’s a critical component of academic freedom, especially with the rise of controversy over scholarly discussions about history and identity.
Inexperienced educators “have a duty to play it safe when it’s time to discuss a difficult topic in class,” said Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors.
But in difficult financial and political times, even tenured professors are not guaranteed employment.
In Kansas, Emporia State University this fall cut 33 faculty members — most of them full-time — through an emergency pandemic measure that allowed universities to bypass layoff policies to balance budgets.
Max McCoy, Emporia State’s sole journalism professor, wrote a column that began “I could get fired for writing this” before he knew it would be his last year of teaching at the school.
“This is a purge,” he said. He said that all the professors who were fired were “Democrats or Liberals in our opinion”.
University spokeswoman Gwen Larson said individual professors were not subject to dismissal. She said the cuts followed an analysis of how demand for academic programs is changing and “where we need to go in the future.”
The attacks on higher education have been sparked by a shift in conservative views of colleges and universities, said Jeremy Young of the free speech group PEN America. The proportion of Republicans and independent Republicans who said higher education has a negative impact on the country rose from 37% to 59% from 2015 to 2019, according to a Pew Research Center poll.
In Texas, university administrators are working behind the scenes to repeal a pending law that would limit tenure for fear it would hurt recruiting, said Jeff Blodgett, president of the AAUP Texas Conference.
Some people are no longer applying for university jobs because of the debate, said Pat Heinzelman, president of the Texas Faculty Association.
In Florida, a federal judge in November blocked the “Stop-WOKE” law, a law promoted by Gov. Ron DeSantis that restricts certain racially motivated talk and analysis in colleges. The governor’s office is appealing the injunction. be part of the evaluation criteria for tenured professors as part of the review process that evaluates the Board of Governors of the university system.
“They seized on the idea that many totalitarian regimes have used over the years, which is that if you can prevent students from learning about ideas that the ruling political party disagrees with, that is one way to prevent those ideas from existing in society. society in general,” said Andrew Gotthard, president of the Florida Amalgamated Faculty.
However, DeSantis has questioned the argument that tenure ensures academic freedom.
“If anything, it has created a more intellectual orthodoxy where it is harder for people with dissent to get a position,” he said at a press conference in April.
In Louisiana, lawmakers created a task force to study tenures with a Republican-approved resolution noting that students must be assured that courses are free from “political, ideological, religious, or anti-religious indoctrination.” The professors expressed concern until they found out that the members of the task force were basically maintaining permanent status.
In Georgia, the State Board of Regents approved a policy that makes it easier to fire tenured faculty who receive negative performance ratings. Also, in recent years Iowa, South Carolina, and Mississippi have passed legislation to ban or restrict real estate ownership, but it has not been passed.
The rollback follows decades of decline in the number of full-time faculty. According to the AAUP, in the fall of 2020, 24% of faculty members held full-time positions, compared with 39% in the fall of 1987, the first year for which direct comparable information is available.
Part-time college teachers rarely receive benefits. They often have to travel from campus to campus to earn their living.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Caprice Lawless, who wrote the Complementary Cookbook, replete with recipes that underpaid PhDs can cobble together with pantry staples.
“I’ve taken PhDs to food banks and watched them cry because they don’t have enough food for their family,” said Lawless, who said she worked as a social worker of sorts before retiring two years ago from Front Range Community College. in Westminster, Colorado.
Opposition to tenure has united conservatives for a variety of reasons: Not everyone shares the same concerns about a “woke up higher education,” said Mark Stein, a history professor at San Francisco State University who has written about the shift to part-time departments.
“But,” he said, “if you attack the ‘awakening’ of higher education and that results in a cut in funding for higher education, then economic conservatives will be happy.”
According to Saul Gittleman, a former chancellor of Tufts University who wrote on the subject, tenures skyrocketed after World War II, when he helped with hiring, as the G.I. Bill led to a surge in enlistment. The country has seen an overproduction of PhDs lately, said Gittleman, who predicts tenure outside of the top 100 colleges and universities will largely disappear in the coming decades.
“Critical race theory is justification,” he said. “If there were no teachers, you would not have heard this.”
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Associated Press contributors Paul Weber of Austin, Texas, and Anthony Izaguirre of Tallahassee, Florida contributed to this report. The Associated Press Education Group receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. AP is solely responsible for all content.