Students walk across the University of Louisville campus.
A Republican-backed proposal that would require Kentucky’s public universities and colleges to follow a uniform process when firing faculty for financial reasons moved forward in a House committee Tuesday morning.
Opponents see the measure as another effort by the General Assembly to sidestep tenure protections in higher education.
House Bill 490 allows the governing boards of Kentucky public universities and colleges to dismiss faculty for financial reasons, including financial exigency, low enrollment in a program, or a significant imbalance between revenue and costs. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Aaron Thompson, R-Russell, told the House Postsecondary Education Committee that the proposal would enable higher education board members to “make sound fiscal choices” when deciding whether to remove faculty members.
When Rep. Sarah Stalker, D-Louisville, asked whether some universities already have similar procedures, Thompson said some do, and those policies are outlined in faculty handbooks.
“It is generally not the same across all the universities,” Thompson said. “So, this would have the same set of rules across all comprehensive universities.”
Under the bill, each university board must establish a process for removing a faculty member due to financial reasons by July 1. The process must give the faculty member an opportunity to respond to a notice of removal.
Although no members of the public spoke against the bill during the committee meeting, some Democrats and Republican Rep. Bobby McCool of Van Lear passed on voting for HB 490. Several Republicans voted in support of it.
McCool said he believes individual university or college boards should handle such policies, explaining that position as he passed on the vote.
United Campus Workers of Kentucky, a union representing higher education employees, told the Lantern in an email that it opposes the bill “because it is yet another attempt to weaken faculty job protections” and warned it could open the door to “further politicization of our universities.”
Last year, the General Assembly approved a law that academics cautioned would weaken tenure at the state’s public universities. That measure allowed university boards to remove faculty members and presidents who failed to meet performance standards set by the board.
“Institutions are constantly facing some form of financial pressure, and this bill creates a ready-made pretext for arbitrarily removing faculty — either for political reasons or under the guise of budgetary concerns,” the union said about HB 490.
The union also argued that the bill would heighten pressure on faculty to teach, research, and publish in areas that “‘maximize revenue’ for the university.” For students, the measure could signal a shift toward a “corporate model” in higher education focused on return on investment, potentially favoring large classes over courses with lower enrollment.
The bill now heads to the House floor for a vote.
Leave a Comment