For Release: June 18, 2009
Contact: Jordan Kurland or Robin Burns
Washington, D.C. — Delegates to the Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Association of University Professors voted on June 14 to place Cedarville University (OH), Nicholls State University (LA), North Idaho College, and Stillman College (AL) on the AAUP’s list of censured administrations. They also voted to remove the University of New Haven from the list and to delegate the Association’s Committeee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to act similarly with respect to Tulane University once final language on the stated basis for censure removal has been approved.
Censure by the AAUP informs the academic community that the administration of an institution has not adhered to the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure jointly formulated by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities and endorsed by more than 200 professional and educational organizations. With these actions, 49 institutions are now on the censure list.
Cedarville University-Censured
The report of the investigating committee concerned the action by the administration of this church-related Ohio institution to dismiss a tenured professor in the Department of Biblical Studies with thirty days’ notice, without having first demonstrated cause for its action in a hearing before faculty peers. The letter of dismissal questioned the faculty member’s collegiality, professionalism, and doctrinal orthodoxy, alleging that he failed to “maintain consistent, biblically appropriate, spiritual interest and effective Christian relationships in the University family.”
The investigating committee found that Cedarville University’s official procedures for contesting a dismissal for cause denied the affected faculty member academic due process by (a) not affording him a pretermination hearing, (b) misdirecting the burden of proof onto him, and (c) denying him access to the evidence and the witnesses against him. The committee concluded that in doing so the administration acted in disregard of procedural safeguards set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the complementary 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings. The committee further concluded that the administration’s confiscation of all the evidence and the record of the proceedings warranted condemnation for having changed a hearing of record into an exercise in futility, hampering the affected professor’s opportunity for appeal. The committee also concluded that the administration’s charges against the professor far exceeded the limitations on academic freedom on religious grounds to which Cedarville University subscribes, resulting in a dismissal that violated his exercise of academic freedom within his area of academic competence.
Committee A recommended to the Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting that Cedarville University be placed on the Association's list of censured administrations. The Annual Meeting voted accordingly.
Nicholls State University-Censured
The investigating committee’s report addressed the case of an instructor who began teaching at Nicholls State in 1995 as a full-time faculty member in mathematics. In May 2007, one day before the instructor completed her twelfth year on renewable term appointments, the department head told her that she would not be reappointed. She asked why, received a response from him that was demonstrably inaccurate, and then submitted a written request to the president, who replied that the university’s policies do not require providing reasons and that in practice they are not provided.
The investigating committee was unable to obtain a coherent explanation of why the administration waited until the next-to-last day of the instructor’s existing appointment to notify her of her release. The instructor was entitled under the provisions of the 1940 Statement of Principles to a year of notice or severance salary. The investigating committee called the one day of notice at the end of twelve years of service “deplorably scant.”
The investigating committee found consistently favorable evaluation of the instructor’s academic work and no hint of any personal misconduct. It concluded that the only plausible reason for releasing her was her incurring the administration’s displeasure by having assigned failing grades to a large number of students in a required course in college algebra that constituted a large proportion of her teaching.
Although the Nicholls State University administration officially classified its action against the instructor as a nonreappointment, the investigating committee found that the action removing someone consistently evaluated as meritorious from the faculty after twelve years of full-time service occurred well beyond the generally accepted maximum probationary period and thus should be considered a dismissal for cause. Finding further that the administration declined to state any reason that would explain its action or afford her any opportunity for a hearing, the investigating committee concluded that the administration denied the instructor the safeguards of academic due process that accrue with continuous appointment as enunciated in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and derivative Association-supported standards.
Having found no plausible reason for the administration’s action to dismiss the instructor other than its displeasure with the large number of failing grades she had given her students, a reason the administration has allowed to stand unrebutted, the investigating committee concluded that the administration thereby violated her academic freedom.
The Annual Meeting voted to place Nicholls State University on the Association’s censure list.
North Idaho College-Censured
The published report, prepared by the Association’s staff, concerned the action taken by the administration of North Idaho College to deny any further course assignments to a highly regarded adjunct instructor of English after she had taught part time at the institution for thirteen consecutive semesters and courses she had taught remained available. The administration, which notified her of nonreappointment by e-mail on the last day of the fall semester, refused to explain why it had declined to reappoint her. It also rejected her request for faculty review of her claim that the administration had given inadequate consideration to her qualifications for reappointment and that it had discriminated against her because of conflicts that it had had with her husband, a tenured instructor and former director of the college’s writing center. The administration asserted that her complaint was not grievable under the terms of her particular appointment. Efforts by the AAUP staff to persuade the administration to recognize the instructor’s rights under the Association’s recommended standards proved unavailing.
The report found that the North Idaho College administration terminated the instructor’s services in disregard of the provisions on part-time faculty appointments set forth in Regulation 13 of the Association’s Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Under these provisions, the instructor was entitled to notice of nonreappointment at least a month before the end of her last semester of teaching, a statement of reasons for nonreappointment, and an opportunity for faculty review of the decision. The report found “no plausible academic basis for the decision not to reappoint her.” The report also found that the administration’s dispute with her husband may well have motivated the action against her. The report further found that “her vulnerability to the termination of her services at the administration’s pleasure . . . could well have had a negative impact on the academic freedom of other part-time faculty members holding similar appointments.”
Following Committee A’s recommendation, the Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting placed North Idaho College on the Association's list of censured administrations.
Stillman College-Censured
The investigating committee’s report dealt with the dismissal of a tenured assistant professor at this Alabama institution toward the end of his twenty-eighth year on the faculty on grounds of his having violated faculty handbook proscriptions against “malicious gossip or public verbal abuse.”
Tension between the assistant professor and the current college president became evident during the 2006-07 academic year. At a faculty meeting, the professor sharply questioned the president about a delay in issuing faculty contracts, whereupon the president summoned him for a private conference and then provided him with a letter forbidding him from asking questions at faculty meetings about matters not on the agenda. The professor responded in a letter blaming the president for declining enrollments, a cash-flow crisis, low faculty and staff morale, and “extreme student discontent.” In the letter, copies of which he sent to the college’s trustees, he advised the president “to step aside and let somebody else take over.”
An interview of the professor by a reporter for the local newspaper led to a prominent story in October 2007 that was critical of the administration. The minutes of the December 2007 faculty meeting included a paragraph from the president stating that the professor was not allowed to speak at meetings because he “engaged in malicious slander” and “told wanton lies.” In January 2008, the administration fined the professor for missing class days. He alleged that the fine was in retaliation for his outspoken criticism, and this incident became the subject of another newspaper story. The professor was then informed that he was being suspended with pay and barred from the campus pending an investigation of reported violations of the faculty handbook provisions prohibiting “malicious gossip or public verbal abuse.” The academic vice president was to interview him as part of the investigation, but the professor declined to participate when the vice president informed him that he could not tape the discussion or have a witness present. On April 11, 2008, a letter from the academic vice president notified him that his services at the college were terminated effective immediately and that he would be paid on May 1 for the remaining weeks of his 2007-08 appointment. Beyond the aborted interview with the academic vice president, he was afforded no opportunity for a hearing on his dismissal.
The investigating committee concluded that the administration’s dismissal of the professor on the stated grounds violated the academic freedom to which he was entitled under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The committee concluded that the administration, in suspending and then dismissing the professor, disregarded basic requisites of academic due process as set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles and the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings. Further, the investigating committee concluded that the current policies and practices of the college administration “have created a climate that is inimical to the exercise of academic freedom.”
The Ninety-fifth Annual Meeting voted to place Stillman College on the Association’s list of censured administrations.
University of New Haven- Removed from Censure List
Last year’s annual meeting voted to place the administration of the University of New Haven on the censure list. The report of the investigating committee concerned action by a new dean of arts and sciences to terminate the services of a lecturer in the English department in her eighth yearly full-time non-tenure-track appointment after six years as a part-time instructor in the department. The dean acted against her at a time when her department chair and tenured colleagues evaluated her performance very favorably and recommended her promotion. The dean had dealt with a student complaint against the lecturer, learned of information in the dean’s office about previous complaints, and concluded that she had shown a pattern of unnecessarily hostile behavior toward student complainants.
Possessing the authority under university policies to deny a non-tenure-track lecturer further appointment, the dean moved to release the lecturer from the faculty once her existing term of appointment expired. A faculty hearing body upheld, on all counts, grievances filed by the lecturer. The hearing body recommended her retention on a multiyear term of appointment, but the university president rejected its findings and recommendation.
The Association’s investigating committee, addressing the issue of the dean’s substituting his judgment for that of the lecturer and her faculty colleagues on her assessment of student academic performance, concluded that the dean’s doing so was at odds with the principles of faculty authority in this area. The investigating committee observed that because of the length of her service the lecturer was entitled under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure to tenure’s protections against involuntary termination. Finding that she was not afforded those protections, the committee concluded that the administration in dismissing her acted in disregard of the 1940 Statement of Principles and the complementary 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings.
The lecturer, who had initiated litigation, informed the Association this past November of a satisfactory settlement of her case. The Association’s staff then invited the University of New Haven president, with the issue of redress resolved, to consider changes in institutional practices and policies that could lead to removing the censure. Following discussion of potential changes with the university provost, the staff provided two specific proposals. The first called for guidelines, to be formulated jointly by the dean of arts and sciences and the chair of the English department, on the respective roles of the dean’s office and the department in responding to student complaints. The result has been a set of procedures, approved by the dean and the department chair in May, that should preclude any reoccurrence of the type of the case on which the censure was based. The second proposal from the staff called for revised policy that would provide full-time non-tenure-track faculty members after seven years of service with the protections against involuntary nonretention that accrue with faculty tenure. The result has been a new policy document that provides senior non-tenure-track faculty members notified of nonretention with opportunity for a hearing of record before an elected faculty body.
With all outstanding issues having been resolved, Committee A was pleased to recommend that the University of New Haven be removed from the Association’s list of censured administrations. The annual meeting voted accordingly.
The complete Committee A recommendations to the AAUP’s annual meeting are available on the AAUP’s Web site . For more information, please contact Jordan Kurland at 202-737-5900, ext. 124 or Robin Burns .
The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, shared governance and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has over 48,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States.