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End tenure for North Carolina professors? GOP bill would shift system to contracts

Critics call it an overreach that could threaten the UNC system's standing with accrediting agencies.
Posted 2023-04-27T21:08:28+00:00 - Updated 2023-04-28T12:53:59+00:00
NC lawmakers consider ditching tenure for experienced professors

Republican North Carolina legislators want to scrap the state’s system for providing tenure to state college and university professors — a move critics are calling government overreach, an affront to academic freedom and potentially damaging to the state’s academic reputation.

Generally speaking, tenure provides experienced professors with academic and financial protections not afforded to other educators. It enables them to work without fear of being fired, except under extreme circumstances.

House Bill 715, which Republican sponsors call the Higher Education Modernization & Affordability Act, would replace the University of North Carolina system’s tenure offerings with a contract program.

Under the bill, colleges and universities in the UNC system could only offer contracts lasting up to four years. Contracted professors could be fired, suspended or demoted due to “incompetence, neglect of duty, serious misconduct, unsatisfactory performance, institutional financial exigency” or if there’s a “major curtailment or elimination of a teaching, research, or public-service program.”

The bill would also prohibit North Carolina colleges from spending state funds on “social fraternities and sororities,” as well as “any activities related to political, social, or religious issues, including special interest clubs and other student organizations.”

Critics of the proposal worry that it would squelch academic freedom. They fear they could be fired by boards for researching topics or expressing views deemed controversial by politicians. They also worry the measure would damage the UNC system’s standing with accrediting agencies.

The bill has been moving through the state House. It was scheduled to be discussed at a House committee on Thursday, but was pulled from the agenda. It was unclear why. Republican state Rep. David Willis of Union County, a sponsor of the bill and chairman of the committee, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nearly 700 state educators at UNC-Chapel Hill signed an opinion article submitted to the Daily Tar Heel newspaper by law professor Maxine Eichner and history professor Jay M. Smith.

"We would be outliers in the world of higher education,” Smith told WRAL in an interview. “And no one across the country would have any interest in coming to the state of North Carolina to practice their craft if there's no prospect of enjoying academic freedom, which is what tenure provides.

"What that means is our students will suffer for it,” Smith said. “Education in our institutions would be degraded. Our reputations will fall in the eyes of national and international experts, and North Carolina will have shot itself in the foot.”

Lawmakers in at least five other states — including Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Iowa and North Dakota — are seeking to rollback tenure protections.

North Carolina’s bill comes two years after the UNC system garnered national attention for squabbling over tenure with a renowned author and journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

UNC-Chapel Hill sought to hire Hannah-Jones as the university’s Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, offering a five-year contract instead of granting tenure as previous Knight Chairs had been offered.

The offer prompted outcry from many UNC students and faculty who believed she deserved tenure. UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees eventually offered her tenure after reports emerged that a major donor to the journalism school had expressed concerns about her hiring. The school ultimately reached a settlement agreement with Hannah-Jones, who accepted another job at Howard University.

Smith and Eichner in their opinion article also expressed concerns about House Bill 96, known as the REACH Act. The bill would mandate that college students pass a course on U.S. history that features required reading of nearly a dozen historical documents, including the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and essays from the Federalist Papers.

State Rep. Jon Hardister, a Guilford County Republican who sponsored the bill, said it's intended to give college students a basic overview of the nation's "formative principles, system of government and civics."

"United States history is taught in high school, but we believe it is important for students to be provided with a review of the subject in higher education," Hardister said in an email. "The goal is not to inculcate political views of any kind, but rather to foster a better understanding of our history and encourage students to engage productively in civics, regardless of their political beliefs."

Smith, in an interview, said the bill was insulting.

“Those of us who teach in places like Chapel Hill have spent years mastering our disciplines,” he said. “And we therefore think we know best how a course ought to be designed, what readings should be assigned to it, how student performance should be assessed, what the general themes of the course should be. This is what we spend our lives doing.”

On Wednesday, the idea of teaching more students about the founding documents received support from one of the nation’s top Republicans: former Vice President Mike Pence.

After delivering a speech Wednesday at UNC-Chapel Hill, he took questions from the audience. Pence was asked to share his thoughts on House Bill 96 and its critics at UNC.

“There’s some great work being done to preserve academic freedom here at the University of North Carolina that’s not being done on a lot of campuses around the country,” Pence said.

“I would disagree with the professors that signed that letter,” he added. “... Whatever your politics are: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are the cornerstone of the freest and most prosperous nation on earth. It's our heritage and every American should take every opportunity — and every academic institution should take every opportunity — to make sure that the people of this country understand our heritage of liberty.”

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