USG policy changes 'abolished tenure,' national faculty organization moves to censure

The national faculty organization American Association of University Professors has released a report on new University System of Georgia policies, calling it a danger to academic freedom and moving toward censure.

"The USG administration and board of regents, in flagrant violation of the joint 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, have effectively abolished tenure in Georgia’s public colleges and universities," reads the conclusion of the report prepared by the AAUP's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure and released Wednesday.

If the USG system does not reverse course, the report warns, the governing council of the AAUP will vote to censure USG.

"It's like congress censuring the president, it has no legal binding, no legal authority," said Georgia AAUP President Matthew Boedy, an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, of the potential censure. "To me, it's an incredible black eye for the university system."

In a Dec. 3 letter to the AAUP, USG Acting Chancellor Teresa MacCartney disputes the conclusions of the report. The letter, which USG representatives shared with The Chronicle, argues that the changes to tenure protection will impact only a small number of faculty who are failing to serve the university well.

More:Controversial tenure changes trigger investigation by national faculty organization

Tenure is the guarantee for professors that they will not be fired except for a good cause, such as criminal or unethical behavior, and only then after having their case heard by fellow faculty. These protections, according to faculty, protect academic freedom to engage in risky research that might not show results or to study controversial subjects.

In September, USG released a new guideline for post-tenure review that would allow tenured faculty who failed both a review and an improvement plan to potentially lose tenure and be fired by university administration without any peer review process. Despite widespread pushback on these and other proposals by the Georgia chapter of the AAUP, the Board of Regents passed the proposal in October.

On Dec. 1, eight state AAUP conferences from South Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky and Oklahoma also issued a statement condemning the changes.

More:What do Georgia's tenure changes mean for professors at the state's public universities?

The national committee report released Wednesday outlines AAUP's longstanding criteria for post-tenure review processes:

• Post-tenure review must be developed and carried out by faculty.
• Post-tenure review must be conducted according to standards that protect academic freedom and the quality of education.
• Post-tenure review must not be a reevaluation of tenure, nor may it be used to shift the burden of proof from an institution’s administration (to show cause for dismissal) to the individual faculty member (to show cause why he or she should be retained).

"The newly adopted USG post-tenure review policy implicates all three of these principles," the report reads.

Other states have recently proposed changes to tenure. South Carolina state legislators introduced a bill last month that would effectively prevent tenure being granted for five years, according to The State.

The adoption of a separate system to discipline faculty members who fail a post-tenure review, however, seems to be unique to USG. 

"The AAUP is not aware of any public university system – other than the University System of Georgia – that has removed its dismissal-for-cause procedures from post-tenure review," the report reads.

In the letter, MacCartney argues that post-tenure review is a long-term process that includes peer review along the way.

The typical, peer-led discipline process for tenured faculty "is generally used to address specific acts of misconduct by a faculty member that typically may occur at a single point in time," MacCartney wrote. "Appropriately, such accused faculty are afforded adjudicative hearings by a panel to evaluate the disputed facts of the alleged acts and to hear from witnesses to those acts. In contrast, the post-tenure review process occurs over multiple years, during which the faculty member is actively engaged in the process."

Boedy said the promise that faculty are included in post tenure reviews up until the point where discipline is imposed makes no sense, and if it is important to include them in the process they should be included throughout it.

"That is gaslighting, that is redefining terms," he said of MacCartney's argument. "That is a load of hooey." 

Despite the pressure from AAUP, Boedy said he doubts USG will change. 

"Clearly the university system is trying to find a way to justify what the Board of Regents has done, and I don't know that the Board of Regents cares," he said.

While he does not think censure will dramatically impact future hiring for USG, Boedy said it will impact the faculty who currently work for the 25 colleges that grant tenure across the state.

"There are thousands of people who have to stay here and work under these conditions," he said.

The national AAUP also condemns the process by which the new post-tenure review process was created.

"The proposal first unveiled at the September board meeting was not drafted by an appropriately constituted faculty body," it reads. "And at no point in the process did any faculty governance body have the opportunity to discuss and vote to approve the draft policy."

There are other changes made by the Board of Regents in October that have drawn complaints from faculty, including a new fourth category of student success that professors will be evaluated on when seeking tenure or facing a post-tenure review. But the report from the AAUP committee focuses mainly on the ability to discipline tenured faculty without a peer review.