{"id":17967,"date":"2025-11-20T10:07:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17967"},"modified":"2025-11-20T11:57:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T11:57:45","slug":"republican-candidates-join-nationwide-scrutiny-of-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=17967","title":{"rendered":"Republican candidates join nationwide scrutiny of tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/republican-candidates-join-nationwide-scrutiny-of-tenure\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Badger Institute has argued for\u00a0more leeway to\u00a0lay off\u00a0professors<\/em><\/h4>\n

Republican candidates for governor are joining politicians across the country who are increasingly skeptical of tenure guarantees for professors.<\/p>\n

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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who was part of a state Senate majority that helped put across the last major tenure reform in\u00a0Wisconsin in\u00a02015, told the Badger Institute this week\u00a0that\u00a0tenure would be a big part of a review of UW\u00a0System\u00a0spending and operations if he is elected governor.<\/p>\n

The Badger Institute contacted\u00a0all other Republican and Democrat candidates.<\/p>\n

Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann\u00a0is on the record in support of\u00a0changes to tenure if warranted but\u00a0did\u00a0not respond to a request for an interview.\u00a0There are\u00a0seven\u00a0announced\u00a0Democrats in the race, none of whom have\u00a0yet\u00a0addressed the tenure issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe reformed tenure a decade ago,\u201d Tiffany said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0worth going back and reviewing whether it did what it was supposed to do. At the end of the day, there\u00a0has to\u00a0be accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the 2015 budget process, the Legislature removed tenure protections from\u00a0the Wisconsin Administrative Code. The Board of Regents created its own\u00a0policy<\/a>,\u00a0stating\u00a0that a tenured faculty member \u201cmay not be terminated except for cause, for reasons of financial emergency, by resignation, or by retirement.\u201d A second\u00a0regent\u00a0policy\u00a0<\/a>allows schools to lay off tenured faculty if a program is discontinued.<\/p>\n

A Badger Institute paper,\u202fThe Trouble With Tenure<\/em><\/a>, pointed out that UW System campuses eliminate, suspend and add programs\u00a0nearly every\u00a0year. Tenured professors can now, at least theoretically, be eliminated when programs are no longer necessary \u2014 exactly the way jobs are\u00a0eliminated\u00a0every day in the private sector when the market changes or demand dries up.\u00a0The reality is\u00a0that\u00a0never happens.<\/p>\n

We recommended eight years ago that the Board of Regents go further.\u00a0They had the ability to allow layoffs of tenured faculty for reasons that included significant program reduction or modification, not simply program discontinuance, but\u00a0declined.<\/p>\n

We still believe that giving chancellors that sort of latitude would be more than\u00a0appropriate.<\/p>\n

The universities are\u00a0required<\/a>\u00a0to review the performance of tenured professors at least once every five years.<\/p>\n

As the Badger Institute\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0last year, only once since the change has the tenure policy been questioned. In August 2024, the\u00a0regents\u00a0approved allowing the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to end the College of General Studies at its two-year branches in Waukesha and Washington counties and\u00a0to\u00a0lay off 35 tenured faculty.<\/p>\n

These financial decisions are often portrayed in the media by academics as an attack on academic freedom. The results of\u00a0an\u00a0audit<\/a>\u00a0by the Legislative Audit Bureau in the spring that showed more than $40 million had been spent on DEI programs across the system\u00a0suggests\u00a0how tenured faculty are deployed is\u00a0instead\u00a0an accountability issue, Tiffany said.<\/p>\n

Across the system, there were 4,073 tenured faculty\u00a0\u2014\u00a0professors and associate professors \u2014 teaching at the 13 schools in 2023-24, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau\u2019s annual\u00a0report.<\/a><\/p>\n

That number is down from the 4,676 tenured staff working in the 2014-15 school year,\u00a0a reduction of\u00a012.9\u00a0percent. However, total enrollment during the same period was down 10.2 percent, to 162,531 students from 180,979 a decade earlier, according to Fiscal Bureau data.<\/p>\n

Enrollment at the University of\u00a0Wisconsin-Madison has been on a steady rise, up 17.4 percent, from 42,865 in 2014-15 to 50,335 in 2023-24. Total faculty during that time is up 5 percent, to 2,245 from 2,139, while tenured faculty is down slightly, from 1,629 to 1,593.<\/p>\n

Even with those flat faculty numbers, universities President Jay Rothman asked for $855 million for the system\u2019s 2025-27 budget. The Legislature gave him $256 million with a requirement that all teaching staff teach a minimum of 12 credit hours a year and at least one course a semester.<\/p>\n

University officials late last month circulated a\u00a0proposal<\/a>\u00a0accepting the workload with some exceptions. The Board of Regents has until Dec. 1 to approve the agreement and send it on to the Legislature\u2019s Joint Committee on Employment Relations.<\/p>\n

However, some faculty representatives are watching to see what the\u00a0joint\u00a0committee\u00a0does with the proposal, raising the possibility of the same kind of challenge\u00a0from\u00a0a politically riven state Supreme Court\u00a0as happened last\u00a0summer\u00a0when justices\u00a0overruled\u00a0<\/a>a Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules action.<\/p>\n

The pushback from educators is misdirected, Tiffany said. \u201cThey (the university system) brought this on themselves with their slush funds for programs like DEI,\u201d he said. \u201cThe money is going into administration rather than the classroom. Students and their\u00a0parents\u00a0ought to know how this money is spent.\u201d<\/p>\n

A canvass by the Badger Institute found that in\u00a0nearly a\u00a0third of states, legislative bodies over the past two years have taken aim in some way at tenure. The pace of\u00a0action\u00a0has accelerated in the last year.<\/p>\n

Nebraska is mulling whether to become the first state in the country to end tenure in its public institutions of higher learning and begin the process of \u201cgetting rid of professors who are not pulling their weight,\u201d according to\u00a0state\u00a0Sen. Loren Lippincott,\u00a0who introduced\u00a0a bill\u00a0<\/a>in January.<\/p>\n

Ohio has called for annual tenure reviews, leaves open the\u00a0option\u00a0to fire a professor for underperformance, and\u00a0considers\u00a0student evaluations of a professor\u2019s ability to keep his classroom free\u00a0of political, gender, racial and religious bias.<\/p>\n

Kentucky this spring passed a bill requiring tenure reviews every four years and creating the\u00a0option\u00a0to fire tenured professors who\u00a0fail to\u00a0meet performance standards. North Dakota now has tenure reviews every five years.<\/p>\n

University administrators in Arkansas are now allowed to call for an immediate review,\u00a0to\u00a0withdraw tenure or\u00a0to\u00a0fire a professor for cause.\u00a0Indiana this past spring\u00a0passed a law calling for productivity reviews of tenured faculty with\u00a0an option\u00a0to\u00a0terminate\u00a0the professor. Utah codified annual tenure reviews last year.<\/p>\n

Texas has tried and failed in its last two sessions to end tenure altogether. The Kansas Legislature narrowly missed doing the same\u00a0this past\u00a0session. Lawmakers in Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma,\u00a0South Carolina\u00a0and West Virginia have taken cracks at reforming or abolishing tenure.\u202f<\/p>\n

Schoemann\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel earlier this week that if he were\u00a0elected\u00a0governor\u00a0he would be open to\u00a0eliminating\u00a0tenure as part of \u201csignificant reform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiffany stopped short of calling for the end of\u00a0tenure but\u00a0said it was past time to review the entire way the UW\u00a0System\u00a0does its business. If tenure needs to be changed,\u00a0he\u2019d\u00a0support it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it\u2019s time to put the entire UW\u00a0System\u00a0budget under the microscope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u202fuse or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u202fpermission.\u202fTo request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute Marketing Director Matt Erdman at\u202f<\/em>matt@badgerinstitute.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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