Functioning properly, tenure protections provide the foundations for academic freedom, robust discussion, and intellectual diversity on campus. Tenure should allow faculty to speak their minds about issues ranging from culture to politics to university governance without fear of losing their teaching positions. There would be even fewer distinguished conservatives and classical liberals on college faculties if they lacked tenure protections.

But overall, the current system is sorely underachieving. Honest citizens of the academy have acknowledged tenure’s flaws. The first is that contrary to the rhetoric of its defenders, it does not protect academic freedom as it should. The second is that it sometimes provides lifetime contracts to underperforming faculty.

The political imbalance of college faculty should be a fire bell in the night that tenure and promotion practices filter out candidates who do not align with prevailing campus orthodoxies. A 2020 National Association of Scholars survey gathered donor information from 12,372 professors and found that “American professors donate to Democrats instead of Republicans by a 95-1 ratio.” The most pernicious recent development , of course, is the notorious use of DEI statements in screening applicants for faculty positions.

Overall, rather than encouraging academic freedom, the six-year probationary period for tenure-track professors is a time when those aspiring to tenure are most unlikely to exercise their academic freedom.

Sadly, the problem of protecting underperforming faculty is one that goes back to tenure’s infancy. The American Political Science Association published a study in which 62% of the department chairs agreed that tenure “has shielded incompetent faculty from dismissal” at their institutions.

Perhaps it is time to move away from the current “up or out” practice of either terminating a professor or awarding a lifetime contract that is essentially an obligation of $3 to $4 million over the future of that professor’s career. Perhaps a system in which there are long-term, 10-year renewable contracts or 15-year contracts would give the institution financial and programmatic flexibility to respond to the needs of the workforce and student interest while still safeguarding the essential freedom of faculty in their teaching and research.

Tenure should be a special status, and post-tenure review should be rigorous. After a predetermined amount of time (preferably no more than five years), tenured professors should be subject to a process similar to the one they went through to get tenure in the first place. That means thorough reviews by committees of their department, outside evaluators, and the institution’s administration.

And arguably most important, trustees need to be involved. They need to examine carefully tenure and promotion policies and practices. Instead of rubber-stamping tenure recommendations, whether positive or negative, they need to have the time to review and inquire.

When faculty committees, provosts, and presidents know that their recommendations face a disinterested and objective final review, there is reason to believe that tenure and promotion decisions will be driven by data and less subject to the force of campus orthodoxy that is nowadays the greatest threat to academic freedom.

This piece appeared on The Washington Examiner on September 28, 2023.

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Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording.

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Media Contact: Gabrielle Anglin
Email: ganglin@goacta.org
Phone: (260) 609-3486

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For 26 years, the organization I lead, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni—or ACTA for short—has labored to ensure that college students receive an academically rich and thorough education at an affordable price. We promote the “Three A’s”: Academic Excellence, Academic Freedom, and Accountability. And Florida leads in all three of those.

In 2019, the State University System of Florida adopted the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression, the gold standard for freedom of thought and opinion. It is one of only 84 institutions to make this demonstration of intellectual integrity. Since 2021, Florida colleges and universities have had one of the strongest requirements for civic literacy all around the nation.

Today marks another great chapter. There is no doubt that tenure without accountability is an invitation to abuse. Authorizing regular post-tenure review is a best practice, and it is properly established in Senate Bill 7044.

ACTA has exposed in recent years a veritable rogue’s gallery of frivolous college courses around the nation: zombies, vampires, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga—I am not joking—and even Peanuts comics. Bravo for the transparency to make syllabi and textbooks available for the inspection of students, parents, and taxpayers. Core general education courses should be reliably robust and transferable across institutions. This is a bulwark against the wasting of opportunity costs and student and taxpayers’ money. 

Regional accreditors have been delegated enormous authority to grant or withhold federal student aid, which is life or death for most colleges and universities. And they have too often been a law unto themselves. The system has devolved to over-regulation and intrusion into matters properly left to governing boards and to the state. ACTA has had to fight over the years to preserve institutions’ religious liberty and their curricular decisions. Senate Bill 7044 is a bold innovation that moves accreditation from being a regional monopoly into the twenty-first century, bringing ultimately choice for schools and a wholesome competition among the accreditors. 

It was once common to hear America’s higher education called “the envy of the world.” Today, we see an example of how Florida intends to make sure that is a reality.

Thank you senator, president, and governor for doing this.

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After weeks of uncertainty from a routine board meeting to a final emergency closed-session discussion, the trustees approved tenure for the writer — only to see her opt for a position at Howard University in Washington, D.C., days later.

Duckett told NSJ in an interview earlier this month that the journalism school’s dean, Susan King, had recruited Hannah-Jones “two years ago,” pre-dating the publication of her controversial “1619 Project.”

He says the Knight Foundation was also involved in the recruitment process in the fall of 2020.

“When this process started, I wrote an email in January [which Duckett says is pending release] saying ‘There’s going to be a lot of questions here, and I don’t want this to come up [without prior knowledge],’” Duckett says. “I wanted some questions answered and asked for a delay, meaning it would come up in March.”

King says she first met Hannah-Jones in 2017 and confirmed discussions began in 2019 to bring the New York Times Magazine writer to campus.

King told NSJ on July 20, “I talked to her when she spoke to alumni and she became a distinguished alum. We met at a conference of the Carnegie Knight deans. This was a relationship with an important alum, and she is one.”

She added that discussions began in the spring of 2019 to move the Ida Bae Wells Society to UNC Chapel Hill, then, during a vacation in 2019, the opportunity to bring Hannah-Jones to the university emerged.

“In the summer of 2019, the week of July 4, the person we recruited for Knight Chair in Advertising turned the job down. In further discussions, the Knight Foundation said they weren’t interested in advertising anymore. They were interested in local news, start-ups, serving communities and democracy,” said King. “They were also interested in diversity and journalists of color, and investigative journalism.”

According to King, Hannah-Jones was interested in giving back to the university.

“She wanted to be an encouraging voice especially to students of color,” said King, adding, “Then, the 1619 Project came out.”

Duckett is emphatic that Hannah-Jones’ political views were irrelevant to whether she should be awarded tenure.

“I want to be clear about something: it’s not my job as a trustee to tell the university who or who not to hire. We are an advisory board, and we don’t run the university,” he says.

Duckett says a vote as a trustee is not a vote on whether you like or agree with the person; it is about the policy of tenure and whether the process is followed.

King says during the recruitment period she talked to the school’s faculty and they agreed that she was someone they wanted to come in with tenure.

“There was no difference in Nikole’s process and other processes,” she said.

Process was mentioned repeatedly by both Duckett and King. For Duckett, it exposed what he says are flaws within university policy.

“I don’t understand why tenure vote comes to the board, honestly. If the policy is followed, it doesn’t matter [what the trustees say]. You can’t change policy and I don’t think someone should come to the university who has never taught and should be given tenure; but that’s my personal belief,” he says. He also added that his father was a tenured professor of medicine at Wake Forest and East Carolina University.

“When I first had questions, I didn’t go public and said we’d take it up in March — that’s not a big delay when someone’s been recruited for two-plus years,” said Duckett.

Duckett said no one from the university administration answered his subsequent questions, which he says centered on the changes in the position’s role, the nature of an outside hire, and others he said he could not discuss at the time due to confidentiality.

On Feb. 26, an offer letter was sent to Hannah-Jones. She accepted on Feb. 28.

Duckett says the trustees were unaware of the contract.

Following a public-records request, North State Journal received a copy of the letter, including the terms for employment.

The offer letter reads:

Dear Nikole,

I am pleased to offer you appointment as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism and Professor of the Practice in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. This is a five-year fixed-term faculty appointment effective July 1, 2021 until June 30, 2026. As discussed, we expect that you will be considered for a tenured appointment during or at the conclusion of the term of this appointment. Such consideration will be made consistent with applicable University and School policies and procedures. If approved during the term of this appointment, you would be offered a new, tenured appointment and this appointment would terminate.

The letter also includes five responsibilities she was to have, which were: teach two courses each semester; research and produce mainstream journalism projects to elevate the national conversation about structural racism and create opportunities for dialogue that will enhance the experience of our students; participate in faculty meetings and engage in key in initiatives within the school; serve on appropriate school committees to support the mission of the school; and attend the annual Knight Chair meeting or activity sponsored by the Knight Foundation.

Additionally, Hannah-Jones was offered $25,000 in annual support from the foundation, a startup package of $100,000 from the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost to be used for research, professional activity, teaching support and student engagement, as well as $9,000 in moving costs.

It wasn’t until the May meeting of the trustees, which had previously been scheduled to be the last of the current board, that the matter came back for a vote, says Duckett.

At that point, the trustees had heard Hannah-Jones was unhappy.

“The dean [King] had offered tenure, and she [Hannah-Jones] was unhappy. And that’s when it started. It was forwarded back to us,” Duckett says.

The majority of the trustees then voted to schedule a meeting on June 30, the last day of their term, to vote on the matter.

“I put in writing what my questions were, and I hope they make it public,” says Duckett, adding he has also asked for his emails to be publicly released.

Duckett then explained he looked into the Knight Foundation and the university’s tenure process.

He says the Knight Foundation pays for a third of her salary and the university pays the remaining two thirds. He also says he found out there are 14 different tenure policies at the university, including two separate ones within the Hussman school.

The two policies are for research-based hires and outside hires. The last outside hire to receive tenure was in 2008.

Duckett says, “Just because they did it in 2008, doesn’t mean I had to vote for it.”

He then says he wrote questions, had those questions answered, and then a vote was taken.

It was at that point Hannah-Jones went public with her complaint and threatened lawsuits through her attorneys. Included in the complaints were all 170 members of the General Assembly.

“I’ve never heard of hiring someone who threatened to sue you, no business would do that… But academics isn’t business,” Duckett said.

He says he followed the process and took a vote.

“Some people voted no and I understand it, but it was because of political beliefs. I can’t tell them what to do, I never took a poll. I got feedback from the attorneys,” he continued.

Those attorneys were the general counsel of the trustees, Charles Marshall, and an outside attorney from Atlanta who Duckett says was an expert on personnel law.

Dr. Michael Poliakoff, the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), told NSJ he believes the trustees were right to err on the side of caution.

“Tenure is a $3 million-plus investment for the university,” Poliakoff said. “If you look at the latest statistics, 20% of professors have tenure, and it’s steadily declining.”

Poliakoff adds that he thinks not investigating the many factual and historical records surrounding the 1619 Project would have been a breach of fiduciary duty by the trustees when deciding whether Hannah-Jones should have tenure. He says to his knowledge, she hadn’t served on faculty anywhere else before agreeing to come to UNC-CH.

North State Journal asked for any available records, but UNC-CH media relations said in an emailed statement that as a personnel matter, under the state privacy laws, any legal counsel provided to university personnel and the board would be privileged.

In explaining his decision, Duckett references liability coverage from the potential lawsuit.

“I talked to folks I know personally and came to my own conclusion… the state only has so much coverage,” Duckett says, referring to directors’ and officers’ insurance. This coverage protects personal assets of a board’s directors and officers and their spouses in the event they are personally sued for actual or alleged wrongful acts.

“My understanding is there’s a limit on what the state covers if you lose, and it’s a consideration,” he says.

What remains unknown is the specific liability threat posed and what the attorneys told the trustees.

Poliakoff says that in his experience in dealing with university counsels, they “can be risk averse to the point of alarmist.” He also said it was irregular to sign a government contract without the knowledge of the trustees.

“I just wanted my questions answered. It was never about race and I never heard anyone mention race. It was spun out of control and it’s what happens to everything these days,” Duckett says. “The lawyers had a lot to say. I didn’t have BOG or legislators calling me and I don’t care what they think, honestly. I was appointed to do this, and I loved being a trustee.”

Duckett still supports the university, but says, “We’re not telling our story well enough. It’s a damn incredible university and just helped cure COVID. Business school, med school, more people want to work there than ever.”

King said that the past few months haven’t been an easy time, but she hopes to see the university strengthened.

“She earned tenure and there’s things I’m very happy about, [such as] the Board of Trustees affirming the role of the faculty. I, as dean, am committed to finding the common ground on this university campus and making faculty and students of color feel welcomed. We have a lot to build on and we owe it to the students and to the state.”

The remaining questions, including whether Hannah-Jones will indeed file a lawsuit, remain unanswered.

This article is originally featured here.

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Your recent article covering the decision by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees not to award tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones misses a crucial point (“Her ‘1619′ Project Is a Political Lightning Rod. It May Have Cost Her Tenure,” The Chronicle, May 19). A university’s board of trustees is ultimately responsible for the governance of the institution and must ensure that a tenure appointment is based on time-honored academic expectations.

Charles G. Duckett — trustee and chairman of the university-affairs committee — was right: “Shared governance means people have different responsibilities. And shared governance does not mean that we just have to sit here and rubber-stamp everything that comes our way.” Effective leadership requires an active and deliberative board. Shared governance is not byword for deference, but rather describes an inclusive and transparent decision-making process the responsibility for which lies with the board.

University boards at times act as bulwark against abuses in the tenure process. In 2002, faculty peers at Brooklyn College sought to deny tenure to KC Johnson, an eminent teacher and scholar, on the grounds of a perceived “lack of collegiality.” Read, the thinly veiled political disaffection of his colleagues. The chairman of the history department would later state that this effort had been spearheaded by a group of “academic terrorists” within the department. After a public outcry, Johnson appealed the decision to the chancellor of the City University of New York system and was eventually promoted with the unanimous support of the CUNY board.

Hannah-Jones’s journalism has been criticized by a roster of America’s most eminent historians from both sides of the political aisle, and it is unapologetically incendiary. The retractions that have accompanied Hannah-Jones’s ‘magnum opus’ have been some of the most noteworthy in recent memory, particularly given that the project’s own fact checkers highlighted multiple inaccuracies prior to publication. In the case of KC Johnson, the board turned a biased political decision into an objective academic decision. Before rushing to judge the UNC board’s decision as “political,” it behooves us to entertain the possibility that they protected academic integrity and standards against fashionable campus politics.

Michael B. Poliakoff
President
American Council of Trustees and Alumni
Washington

This letter originally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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The report, with a foreword by Benno Schmidt, chairman of the CUNY board of trustees and former president of Yale, comes at a time when duly-invited graduation speakers are made unwelcome, campus speech codes threaten the free exchange of ideas, and academic freedom controversies are emerging on a number of campuses.

The guide features key documents that shaped the modern concept of academic freedom, coupled with commentary from a wide and bipartisan roster of distinguished educators, attorneys, and policymakers. Contributors include former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers; co-founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate; University of Wisconsin professor Donald Downs; University of St. Thomas professor Neil Hamilton; and U.S. Circuit Judge José Cabranes. Excerpts from the commentary and key observations are attached.

“Academic freedom is the hallmark of American colleges and universities, and that freedom must be defended,” said Anne D. Neal, ACTA president. “Yet the very groups that have been charged with protecting and advancing academic freedom have become part of the problem and are undermining public trust in our colleges and universities. Regrettably, too many have forgotten that academic freedom is both a right and a responsibility. ACTA’s guidebook is designed to empower trustees to protect academic freedom at a time when too many—including members of the professoriate—undermine it.”

The report outlines action items for trustees to protect the free exchange of ideas on college campuses including:

• Implementing a program of professional education in ethics for faculty and members of the academic community
• Elimination of speech codes
• Ensuring students are exposed to a wide and balanced range of ideas and speakers
• Implementing a solid system of post-tenure review
• Ensuring that gifts to the college are free of conditions that restrict academic freedom
• Protecting the academic freedom of non-tenured and adjunct professors

The report will be sent to more than 14,000 trustees across the United States, along with an action plan.

The report also lists hundreds of institutions with a “Red Light Rating” from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for harmfully-restrictive speech codes, and features case studies that illuminate common campus academic freedom issues such as: controversial speakers, student religious associations, research integrity, tenure, and politicization of the classroom.

“When professors seek to use the university to advance their ideological agenda, administrators and trustees must respond vigorously,” wrote Summers.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is an independent, non-profit organization committed to academic freedom, excellence, and accountability at America’s colleges and universities. For further information, visit www.goacta.org.

Contact:
Daniel Burnett
Press Secretary,
DBurnett@goacta.org
202-467-0376—direct

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As colleges and universities received their allotment of state funding for the current fiscal year this week, LSU system schools, like LSU-Shreveport, were instructed to find a way to cut 23 percent out of the 2011-12 fiscal budget as federal stimulus money ends.

But the more shocking news came when system President John Lombardi, visited LSUS recently.

“LSU is likely to declare exigency,” said Paul Sisson, LSUS provost.

Exigency is similar to bankruptcy in that the schools could restructure in a way that would help it survive economically. Certain rules are suspended and among them is the academic tradition of tenure. Tenure ensures academic freedom and offers some financial stability for professors. For professors, tenure is not only a goal but a reward for years of dedication to research and teaching. Not every professor earns tenure.

“It’s not the last thing you strive for but one of the big things you strive for,” he said. “You are recognized by your peers that you’re a good teacher, a good scholar and a good performer. That you can contribute to the working knowledge of the world.”

If the system files exigency on behalf of its schools, a tenured professor could be on the same financial chopping block as an adjunct professor. The security they once enjoyed would be diminished.

“Tenure matters (still) but it doesn’t give you the same level of job security,” he said.

In the past two years, LSUS has eliminated vacant positions, scaled back from four colleges to two, and has offered staff and faculty early retirement bonuses. Faculty and staff have taken on increased workloads. But with another cut looming on the horizon, it’s time to go deeper.

“Primary focus has been to protect students and protect degree programs,” he said. “As the crisis continues, it becomes less and less possible to protect the student. Everyone feels it; the community will feel it in any services we provide.”

While the suspension of tenure protection could help the bottom line, it could hurt morale. Ada Meloy, general counsel for the American Council on Education, said the unusual circumstances can make faculty uneasy.

Anne D. Neal, president of American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said despite the gloom and doom, there is a silver lining.

“It really allows institutions to focus on mission and eliminate fat that has accumulated during the feast years,” she said. “It really is the time to think outside of the box and restructure in a way that is beneficial for students.”

Should the system file exigency, LSUS would host campuswide meetings for restructuring input. Everyone will participate in those discussions, Sisson said.

“I’m proud at how we managed (the cuts),” he said. “We will get through it, but there will be pain. We’re still doing amazing things. Everyone needs to know that and contact their legislator and tell them ‘this is important to us.’ It would be a dismal and gray world without universities.”

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Last year a memo from Tech’s provost stressed the need for candidates seeking promotion or tenure to “do a better job of participating in and documenting their involvement in diversity initiatives”—an effort, it said, that was “especially important for candidates seeking promotion to full professor.” Draft guidelines for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences stipulate that “the university and college committees require special attention to be given to documenting involvement in diversity initiatives.”

That involvement can entail anything from “self-education” through “participating in diversity awareness workshops” to “revising a course reading list to incorporate concepts, readings, and scholarship on issues of gender, race, and other perspectives.” It seems fair to assume that the diversity police at Tech might look more kindly on a professor who revised his syllabus to include scholarship from left-wing critical race theorists than, say, the works of conservatives such as Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell.

Why? For one thing, the college’s diversity committee defines diversity as “the desirability and value of many kinds of individual differences while at the same time acknowledging and respecting that socially constructed differences based on certain characteristics exist within systems of power that create and sustain inequality, hierarchy, and privilege . . . .[D]iversity is to be actively advanced because it fosters excellence in learning, discovery, and engagement.”

That loaded definition, with its warmed-over structuralist cliches, is a tightly packed portmanteau of ideological assumptions about the relationship between the individual and society. It also contains dubious factual assertions. As the Virginia Association of Scholars points out, the connection between diversity and academic excellence is not exactly cut-and-dried: Historically black colleges and universities, for instance, claim a robust record of achievement. (The same might be said of demographically homogenous institutions of higher learning in, e.g., Japan.)

None of this is to say diversity is objectionable in the abstract. Of course it is not. It is, in fact, commendable—just as patriotism is commendable in the abstract. But imagine for a moment the reaction if Tech officials insisted that candidates for promotion and tenure do a better job of documenting their involvement in patriotism initiatives. Imagine the school encouraging professors to attend flagpole rallies, to organize Fourth of July parades, or to include in their syllabi writers who celebrate the robust virtues of Americanism. Members of the university committee would ask—rightly—what any of that had to do with how well they taught Chaucer, or the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And they would assume, again rightly, that dissident interpretations of patriotism might meet with a jaundiced eye when promotion candidates came up for review.

The policy is not yet cast in stone. It resembles a bill introduced in Congress but not yet signed by the president. There is time for revision. And there is ample cause for revision as well. Here’s hoping wiser heads at Tech make necessary changes—before young professors find themselves having to recite from the modern equivalent of the Little Red Book.

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