Efforts to abolish college faculty tenure have been defeated in several states so far this year.
During this spring’s legislative sessions, conservative lawmakers in at least five states introduced bills that would have killed college tenure or gutted so many of its essential provisions as to render it virtually meaningless. But now, as most state legislators head home, tenure is still intact in all those states, perhaps on slightly more wobbly legs, but still standing.
Legislatures in the states of North Dakota, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina have mounted this year’s most closely watched attempts to banish or kneecap tenure for college faculty, a target recently favored by rightwing lawmakers who seek to brand college campuses as “woke” havens of liberal indoctrination. (A bill that would stiffen post-tenure review, but not eliminate tenure in Ohio is still under consideration by the legislature.)
In each case, with the exception of North Carolina’s House Bill 715, which remains in limbo, the efforts to abolish or severely restrict tenure have been withdrawn, defeated, or watered down to the point that most of tenure’s basic principles remain in place.
Here’s a quick summary of what has transpired.
Texas
In Texas, Senate Bill 18 was filed by State Sen. Brandon Creighton, chair of the Texas Senate’s Subcommittee on Higher Education. It would have prohibited that state’s public higher education institutions from offering tenure or “any type of permanent employment status” starting on Sept. 1, 2023. The bill also would have permitted the Board of Regents to establish “an alternate system of tiered employment status for faculty members provided that the system clearly defines each position and requires each faculty member to undergo an annual performance evaluation.” No post-tenure review, no reforms, and no process improvements were viewed as necessary in Texas.
The bill, which passed the Texas Senate, would have fulfilled Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s public pledge to eliminate tenure for faculty at the state’s public universities, a goal he announced in a pique over Texas faculty formally defending their right to academic freedom.
However, the Texas House of Representatives refused to go along with Senate Bill 18; instead of prohibiting tenure, it substituted a version of the bill that required universities to conduct regular performance reviews of tenured faculty and that gave university boards more leeway in dismissing faculty who hold tenure. This weekend the Senate agreed to the House substitute, and the bill now goes to Texas Governor Greg Abbott for approval.
While its vague language remains a concern for many faculty, they also recognized that the House substitute was far better than the Senate version because it codified many of the policies and practices already in place at Texas institutions.
Patrick tried to cast the vote as a victory: I hope they are hearing us clearly now. They are accountable to the public like all of us.” But it wasn’t a victory. Tenure will continue at Texas universities, despite Patrick’s quest to end it.
North Dakota
The North Dakota legislature also took up a particularly bad proposal in 2023 called the “tenure with responsibilities” act. House Bill 1446, which had been introduced by House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, was voted down by a 21-23 margin in the Senate after the North Dakota House of Representatives had passed the bill by a vote of 66-27.
The bill, which was amended in an attempt to remove some of its more obviously problematic elements, would have created a four-year pilot program for tenured faculty at Bismarck State College and Dickinson State University giving the presidents of those universities the authority to review any tenured faculty member “at any time the president deems a review is in the institution's best interest.”
What made the bill particularly alarming is that Stephen Easton, the President of Dickinson State University, helped draft it and defended the need for it in a series of comments that understandably gained little support from other campus leaders in the state.
Florida
Of course, Florida, whose governor likes to boast is where “woke goes to die,” was not about to be left behind in the rush to curtail tenure. House Bill 999, introduced by Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, was a dreadfully ill-advised bill that would - along with mandating several other big-government intrusions into university operations - give governing boards in Florida the power to review the tenure status of college faculty anytime they believed they had reason to do so. That provision was ultimately stripped out of the bill, but no one will be surprised if it resurfaces in some form in future Florida legislative proposals that puts the end of faculty tenure in its sights.
Louisiana
In Louisiana, Senate Bill 174, introduced by Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, would have reshaped tenure policies at its higher education institutions, but Cathey, who also tried to restrict tenure last year, never requested a hearing for his bill so it did not move forward.
According to press reports, Cathey has said he believes in abolishing tenure, but his decision to not pursue his legislation brings to mind the controversy he stirred last year when he created a panel to review tenure practices but then never convened it.
North Carolina
In North Carolina, House Bill 715 is one of several bills designed to extend politician’s control over that state’s public colleges and universities. Among its various provisions is a requirement that faculty hired after July 1, 2024, in the UNC system or at North Carolina community colleges couldn’t be given tenure, but would be subject to term employment contracts instead.
The bill’s passage remains uncertain at this time, and the North Carolina General Assembly’s session runs through August 31 so it will be awhile before its final status is known. For now, the bill has led to a predictable outcry by faculty, and it has also been described as a “step too far” in mainstream press editorials.
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In the end, the spate of anti-tenure bills appears to have been done in by their obvious excesses, similar to the fate of other tenure bans introduced previously in South Carolina and almost annually it seems in Iowa.
It probably isn’t a desire to protect faculty’s academic freedom or free speech rights that’s led to the various bills’ defeats. More likely it’s the recognition that killing tenure would also reduce the ability of colleges and universities to recruit and retain faculty, putting the state’s economic interests in jeopardy. There are still enough state legislators who, while they may not like the concept of faculty tenure, do not want to harm the competitive position of some of their state’s most influential institutions.
In addition, some legislators probably paid heed to the voices of politically conservative faculty members, who pointed out that tenure serves to protect them too, particularly on the many campuses where they are outnumbered by their politically progressive peers.
Instead of introducing some possible tenure reforms that might have had a chance to win over more adherents - like stronger post-tenure review requirements or a cap on the total number of years that tenure would cover - many legislators preferred to score political points with their conservative constituents by drafting more extreme anti-tenure measures. They were more interested in making noise rather than history.
By reaching too far, their bills failed to get a grip. Intended to deliver a fatal blow, they barely left a scratch. So far now, college tenure remains uneasily secure. Whether next year sees a return of the anti-tenure fervor and its accompanying legislative proposals remains to be seen.
