Emporia State University, in Kansas, denied professors academic due process and violated principles of academic freedom and shared governance in firing 30 tenured and tenure-track faculty members last year, according to a report released on Monday by the American Association of University Professors. Administrators justified the September firings by saying finances were so dire that such action was necessary, and a year-old policy from the Kansas Board of Regents allowed the state’s six public universities to suspend or terminate employees without declaring financial exigency first.
A few months before that policy was set to expire, in December 2022, Emporia State’s president, Ken Hush, submitted and received approval for a “framework for work-force management” that would allow the university to terminate employees for any number of reasons. Citing extreme financial pressures that had been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Hush said at the time that hiring freezes, spending restrictions, and voluntary retirement were not doing enough to mitigate the university’s rising expenses.
One day after the framework’s approval by the Board of Regents, the university began issuing termination notices.
In its new report, the AAUP condemns what it characterizes as the university’s position that “the terminations were an unfortunate necessity.”
The report adds: “To this we respond that difficult conditions not only test an institution’s commitment to its professed values but clearly reveal the strength of that commitment. Both the Emporia State administration and the Kansas Board of Regents have failed that test, having demonstrated through their actions an almost total disregard for the institution of tenure and the principle of academic freedom.”
According to the report, Hush declined to be interviewed by AAUP investigators. But he did defend in writing the university’s handling of the firings, saying that they had followed rules set forth by the university and the regents, and that no professors had been fired due to their beliefs or speech. He added that tenure, due process, and academic freedom are “as valuable now as they have always been to our institution.”
How do you write an appeal letter when you don’t know why you’re being fired?
But the report’s authors zero in not on individual cases but on how affected faculty members were terminated, which, the report concludes, violated their academic due process.
The report says that, one day after the framework’s approval, affected faculty members began receiving termination notices instructing them to attend a meeting at an off-campus building, where they were read dismissal letters aloud and offered three months of severance pay. Virtually all notices were the same and listed nine “factors” from the framework document, the report says.
“In the view of the investigating committee, the termination criteria appear to represent more of a display of unilateral administrative dominance than a good-faith rationale,” the report reads.
The report adds that the only way affected faculty members could appeal was to the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings, where they found themselves in a “highly disadvantaged position.” Because they were not given specific reasons for their termination, the report says, it became “difficult, if not impossible,” to know how to actually pursue an appeal.
“How do you write an appeal letter when you don’t know why you’re being fired?” asked one of them.
The report also concludes that the university’s actions constituted an “assault on tenure,” which the faculty members alleged in letters of appeal, interviews, and news accounts. The administration has denied that charge.
The report suggests that, in firing the faculty members, the Emporia State administration and the state’s Board of Regents had rendered the climate for shared governance “deficient.”
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