Academic Freedom & Tenure Investigations

College and University Government: Lindenwood College

Report concluding that conditions for academic governance at Lindenwood College are truly deplorable.

College and University Government: Elmira College

Report dealing primarily with conditions of academic government at Elmira College, particularly relations among the faculty, the chief academic officers, and the governing board.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Hillsdale College

1988 Report dealing with the denial of due process and lack of protections of academic freedom at Hillsdale College. The investigating committee concluded that the administration, in declining to provide the faculty member with a statement of the reasons for not reappointing him and in failing to afford opportunity for review by a faculty body of his allegation relating to academic freedom, denied him basic procedural safeguards to which he was entitled under the Association's Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments. The absence of these procedural safeguards, the committee found, leaves the faculty of Hillsdale College inadequately protected against an improper exercise of administrative power.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Husson University

This report concerns the action taken by the administration of Husson College (now University) to terminate the services of a professor in his sixth year of full-time service at the college following five years of credited prior service elsewhere. The professor, who had held a concurrent appointment as a division head and had clashed repeatedly with the president over issues of academic and administrative policy, alleged that considerations violative of his academic freedom had contributed significantly to the ad- ministration's decision. The administration stated that its action was necessitated by financial difficulties and the resulting need to eliminate a faculty position in the professor's department. Before the professor's appointment expired, the unexpected departure of a senior colleague created a vacancy in the department which, the investigating committee found, the professor was fully qualified to fill. The administration did not offer the position to him, however, but instead advertised for and recruited a new appointee..

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico

This 1987 report describes actions by the administration of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico to suspend and then to dismiss a tenured professor, without any severance salary, once it was informed that she had remarried in a civil ceremony after a previous Catholic marriage had ended, thirteen years earlier, in civil divorce. The administration justified its action by stating that faculty members at the university, which was canonically established by the Holy See, must adhere even in their private lives to the laws of the church, under which the professor's marital life following her civil remarriage was considered to be sinful. At the time of her initial appointment she was warned orally of this constraint but she states that she explicitly refused to acquiesce in it.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Talladega College

This report deals with actions taken by the administration of Talladega College in late May 1985 to terminate the services of three professors without affording them the protections of due process. Additionally, the administration's actions in these cases, coupled with revised institutional regulations that restrict faculty prerogatives and remove safeguards of academic due process, have left academic freedom in jeopardy at Talladega College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Metropolitan Community Colleges

Report concerning the claims of financial exigency, the administration of the Metropolitan Community Colleges sought to layoff 21 tenured faculty members, while retaining part-time faculty and suspending two academic programs.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: American International College

Report concerning the administration of American International College's dismissal of a faculty member after thirteen years of service without setting forth specific cause for its action and without offering him a hearing and other safeguards of academic due process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nichols College

Report concerning the administration of Nichols College's dismissal of a faculty member  prior to the expiration of his term of appointment, without providing him with the basic safeguards of academic due process

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas

Report discussing the lack of  written regulations or by-laws which safeguard academic freedom, tenure, and due process at Phillips County Community College. Apart from the lack of written safeguards—indeed, perhaps in part because of this deficiency—sound conditions of academic freedom, tenure, and due process do not exist at this college.

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