Academic Freedom and Tenure Investigative Reports

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Hamline University (Minnesota)

This report concerns the nonrenewal of the part-time appointment of Professor Erika López Prater at Hamline University after a student complained of having been offended by Professor López Prater's presentation of two images of the Prophet Muhammad during an online session of her art history class, as well as two related cases at Hamline and a controversy over an art exhibit at nearby Macalester College. The committee found that Professor López Prater's decision to show the images was protected by her academic freedom, and her nonrenewal lacked a rationale that would be supported by AAUP standards. The committee recommends that "the AAUP closely monitor developments at Hamline University" and hopes for a renewed offer of teaching to Professor López Prater.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Emporia State University (Kansas)

This report concerns the action taken on September 15, 2022, by the administration of Emporia State University to terminate the appointments of thirty tenured and tenure-track faculty members under a temporary "COVID-related workforce management policy" adopted by the Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) in January 2021. The investigating committee concluded that the mass dismissal "is a signal event in American higher education" and in violation of several AAUP-recommended standards concerning academic freedom and tenure, such as the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and Regulation 4 of the derivative Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Additionally, the report concludes that the Kansas Board of Regents actively enabled the administration of Emporia State University in these violations, and "initiated the process that assaulted tenure and imperiled academic freedom at Emporia State University."

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Collin College (Texas)

This report concerns actions taken by the administration of Collin College to terminate the services of Professors Lora Burnett, Suzanne Jones, and Michael Phillips. The investigating committee found that the administration’s actions involved “egregious violations” of all three faculty members’ academic freedom to speak as citizens and to criticize institutional policies, and, in the case of Phillips, of academic freedom in teaching. The committee determined that the administration dismissed Jones and Phillips from their appointments without a pretermination hearing before an elected faculty body in which the burden of demonstrating adequate cause for dismissal rests with the administration. The committee also found that the administration failed to afford Burnett the opportunity to petition an elected faculty committee to review her allegation that the nonrenewal decision violated her academic freedom. The report concludes that the conditions for shared governance and academic freedom at Collin College are “grossly inadequate.”

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Indiana University Northwest

This report addresses the actions taken in September 2021 by the administration of Indiana University Northwest that led to the dismissal and revocation of tenure of Dr. Mark McPhail. The investigating committee found that IUN violated several AAUP-recommended standards of academic due process and the protection of intramural speech in the dismissal of Dr. McPhail, without any appropriate proceeding or disciplinary process. Furthermore, the report concludes that the behavioral complaints brought against Dr. McPhail that resulted in his termination relied on “racist tropes of incompetent, angry, and physically violent Black men” without any credible basis in truth, and that the general "conditions for academic governance at Indiana University Northwest can therefore only be described as unsound."

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Linfield University (Oregon)

The report of the investigating committee concerns the dismissal of a tenured professor and endowed chair at Linfield University in Oregon. The report finds that Linfield’s administration violated the 1940 Statement and the institution’s own regulations when it dismissed the professor, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, without demonstrating adequate cause for its action before an elected faculty hearing body. The investigating committee also found that the administration violated Pollack-Pelzner’s academic freedom to participate in institutional governance without retaliation. General conditions for academic freedom and shared governance at Linfield University, the report states, are “deplorable.”

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University System of Georgia

This report, prepared by the Association’s staff, concerns the action taken on October 13, 2021, by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia to remove the procedural protections of tenure from the system’s post-tenure review policy.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Pacific Lutheran University (Washington)

This report, prepared by the Association’s staff, concerns the case of Dr. Jane Harty, a part-time faculty member with forty years of service in the Department of Music at Pacific Lutheran University. In November 2018, Dr. Harty was suspended from her teaching responsibilities for the remainder of her one-year contract and informed that she would not be reappointed for the following academic year. The stated reason for the action was that she had violated a directive issued by her department chair that prohibited faculty members from accepting payment from PLU students for private lessons given independently of the university. The summary nature of the action, the relatively minor character of the infraction, and the fact that Dr. Harty’s longtime advocacy for the rights of faculty members on contingent appointments had brought her into repeated conflict with her administrative superiors suggested that the administration had imposed the suspension for reasons that implicated principles of academic freedom.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nunez Community College (Louisiana)

This report concerns actions taken in spring 2018 by the administration of Nunez Community College to terminate the services of Professor Richard Schmitt following his twenty-second year on the faculty. These actions were taken in apparent violation of his academic freedom and without affordance of the protections of academic due process to which he was entitled as the result of having obtained de facto tenure at the institution through length of full-time service.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: St. Edward’s University (Texas)

This report concerns the dismissals of two tenured faculty members and the nonrenewal of a tenure-track faculty member at St. Edward’s University (SEU) in Austin, Texas, in violation of AAUP-recommended procedural standards and principles of academic freedom. According to the report, the SEU administration failed to afford the tenure-track professor timely notice of nonrenewal and a faculty appeal process, and it declined to afford the tenured professors a dismissal hearing before an elected faculty body. The AAUP investigating committee found credible the claims of all three faculty members that their criticisms of administrative decisions led to the actions against them.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Nebraska–Lincoln

The report of the investigating committee concerns the administration’s actions to suspend from her teaching responsibilities—initially, for stated safety concerns—a sixth-year doctoral student with a part-time appointment as lecturer for the 2017–18 academic year. The lecturer, Ms. Courtney Lawton, received threats after a video recording of her participation in a demonstration protesting an on-campus recruitment table for Turning Point USA was disseminated on the internet. The administration subsequently extended Ms. Lawton’s suspension through the end of her term of appointment, for stated reasons of misconduct but without affording her an appropriate hearing.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Spalding University (Kentucky)

This report concerns actions taken by the administration of Spalding University to terminate the appointment of tenured professor of social work Erlene Grise-Owens after she criticized the administration’s handling of an incident involving a student who brought a gun to a campus parking lot. The social work school’s chair immediately alerted social work faculty about the incident—except the school’s three faculty members of color, even though the student was scheduled to attend class with one of them the next day.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Community College of Aurora (Colorado)

This report concerns actions taken by the administration of the Community College of Aurora, during the fourth week of the fall 2016 semester, to terminate the appointment of part-time instructor of philosophy Nathanial Bork without affordance of academic due process. Mr. Bork was dismissed after conveying his intention to send to the college's accreditor a report detailing his “deep concerns” about the college’s Gateway to Success initiative, which modified certain entry-level liberal arts courses in an effort to improve their pass rates.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Missouri (Columbia)

This report concerns the action taken on February 25, 2016, by the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri to dismiss Dr. Melissa A. Click, an assistant professor of communication, from the faculty of the University of Missouri on charges of misconduct without having afforded her the faculty hearing called for under both the university’s regulations and the recommended standards of the American Association of University Professors. This action followed more than three months of controversy surrounding Professor Click’s confrontations with two University of Missouri students on November 9, 2015. 

Academic Freedom and Tenure: College of Saint Rose

This report concerns the action taken on December 11, 2015, by the administration of the College of Saint Rose to eliminate twenty-seven academic programs and terminate the appointments of fourteen tenured and nine tenure-track faculty members as the result of an “academic program prioritization” process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, A Supplementary Report on a Censured Administration

This supplementary report raises questions about the dismissal of professor Teresa Buchanan from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, which has been on the AAUP’s list of censured administrations since 2012. Professor Buchanan, a specialist in early childhood education with an unblemished eighteen-year performance record, was being evaluated for promotion to full professor when a district school superintendent and an LSU student filed complaints against her for occasional use of profanity and bawdy language. Her dean immediately suspended her from teaching, and eventually, despite a faculty hearing committee's unanimous recommendation against dismissal, the LSU board of supervisors accepted the administration's recommendation that she be dismissed. The faculty senate at LSU also condemned the administration's actions, and, represented by attorneys from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Professor Buchanan has filed a lawsuit against the university, for which the AAUP Foundation has provided financial assistance.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Felician College

This report concerns the cases of seven full- time faculty members at Felician College, most of them long-serving, who were notified in late January (along with nine colleagues who did not contact the AAUP) that their services were being terminated in June. The administration initially attributed its actions to a decline in enrollment that it claimed had resulted in financial exigency. The report also discusses the deplorable conditions for academic freedom and faculty governance in the absence of a tenure system.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Southern Maine

This report addresses the actions taken by administrators at the University of Southern Maine to discontinue, reduce, and consolidate numerous academic departments and to reduce the size of the faculty by fifty positions at the end of the fall 2014 semester. The investigating committee sought to determine whether the program closures and retrenchments were conducted in accordance with AAUP-supported principles and due-process standards. The committee concludes that the USM administration violated the Association’s standards on financial exigency and program discontinuance, as well as those on academic governance.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

This report finds that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) administration and the board of trustees of the University of Illinois violated principles of academic freedom when they withdrew a tenured faculty appointment that had been offered to Professor Steven Salaita. The job offer was withdrawn after Professor Salaita made a series of impassioned Twitter posts expressing outrage about the war in Gaza.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

This report finds that University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center's administration violated commonly accepted academic standards when it terminated the appointments of two professors. One professor had twelve years of service and the other had thirty. Both had been recommended for “renewal of tenure” by the faculty personnel committee.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Northeastern Illinois University

The administration of Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago violated principles of academic freedom when it denied tenure to a candidate who had opposed its wishes in a dispute between linguistics faculty and teachers of English as a second language (TESL), concludes an AAUP investigating committee in this new report.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: National Louis University

Report dealing with the National Louis University administration’s actions in spring 2012 to discontinue nine degree programs and five nondegree certificate programs, to close four departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, and to terminate the appointments of at least sixty-three full-time faculty members, sixteen with tenure.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Southern University, Baton Rouge

Report investigating the declaration of financial exigency at Southern University, Baton Rouge (SUBR), and the subsequent terminations of tenured professors and restructuring of academic programs.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Northern Iowa

Report examining the move last year by the administration of the University of Northern Iowa to discontinue nearly one-fifth of the university’s academic programs and close the university’s laboratory school. More than fifty faculty members were threatened with layoffs, and numerous tenured professors were constructively dismissed.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Northwestern State University of Louisiana and Southeastern Louisiana University

Report finding administrators discontinued or consolidated academic programs and arbitrarily selected certain tenured professors in the programs for termination of appointment.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

2011 report finding violations of academic freedom in two cases at Louisiana’s flagship public institution, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, that are different in the administrative officers involved and in the matters under dispute but alike in putting core issues of aca demic freedom to the test. The first case, affecting a nontenured associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in his seventeenth year of full-time service on the faculty, tested the rela tionship between freedom of research and publication and freedom of extramural utterance in a politically charged atmosphere. The second case, affecting a tenured full professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in her thirty-first year on the faculty, tested the freedom of a classroom teacher to assign student grades.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bethune-Cookman University

Report dealing with due process, tenure, sexual harassment, and financial exigency in 2009 at Bethune-Cookman University, a historically black university. The report concerns the actions taken by the administration to suspend and then dismiss four professors, two with tenure, without having demonstrated cause for its actions in hearings before faculty peers. The report also deals with the administration's actions to terminate the appoint ments of three other professors without advance notice, without affording academic due process, and in two cases without the protections of due process that under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure should have been provided because of the length of their service.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Texas Medical Branch

The report of the investigating committee concerns the actions taken by the administration of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, after a declaration of financial exigency at that institution by the University of Texas Board of Regents, to terminate the appointments of more than 120 faculty members, approximately one-third of them tenured. The actions followed a suspension of operations at the medical branch and its affected hospital as a result of the devastation inflicted on September 13, 2008, by Hurricane Ike. Faculty members received between six and nine months of notice, depending on their tenure status and length of service.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Clark Atlanta University

Report discussing the declaration of an enrollment emergency by the administration of Clark Atlanta University and its subsequent action to terminate the appointments of approximately one-fourth of the total faculty, with no notice and four weeks of unconditional severance salary.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Stillman College

Report concerning the suspension and subsequent dismissal of a faculty member by the administration of Stillman College on grounds of “malicious gossip or public verbal abuse" without due process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Cedarville University

The report of the investigating committee concerns the action taken by the administration of Cedarville University to dismiss a professor in the Department of Biblical Education from his tenured faculty position with thirty days' notice, without first demonstrated cause for its action in an adjudicative hearing before faculty peers.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Olivet Nazarene University

Report concerning action taken by the administration of Olivet Nazarene University to remove a tenured professor from his usual teaching responsibilities and to prohibit the use of his book in all university courses. The president took this action after a controversy arose within the university’s denominational constituency over the professor’s views on evolution.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: North Idaho College

Report regarding North Idaho College policies, part-time instructors lack basic protections of academic due process, therefore, making them vulnerable.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nicholls State University

Report addressing tenure and de facto tenure, due process, adequacy of notice and the ramifications of grading issues and academic freedom

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of New Haven

Report dealing with issues of the status of non-tenured faculty, due process, and the adequacy of the procedural standards in assessing student complaints at the University of New Haven.

Report of an AAUP Special Committee: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities

Report regarding the  “nearly universal departure from (or in some cases complete abandonment of) personnel and other policies” by five New Orleans institutions―the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, the University of New Orleans, Southern University at New Orleans, Loyola University New Orleans, and Tulane University―as they contended with the disaster that befell the city and its universities. 

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bastyr University

Report concerning the actions taken in 2005 by the administration of Bastyr University against three faculty members and involves issues of academic due process and adequate cause for termination.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Our Lady of Holy Cross College

Report discussing issues including campus procedures, the president’s reasons for dismissing a faculty member, and the effect of the dismissal on academic freedom at Our Lady of Holy Cross College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: New Mexico Highlands University

Report concerning tenure denial, academic freedom, due process and the role of faculty in governance at New Mexico Highlands University

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Greenville College

Report concerning due process and academic freedom at Greenville College, a religiously affiliated institution.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Virginia State University

Report dealing with actions taken by the administration of Virginia State University to dismiss two tenured members of the faculty after subjecting each of them to a post-tenure review process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of the Cumberlands

Report dealing with resignation, dismissal, and academic freedom at Cumberland College, a religiously affiliated institution.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Benedict College

Report dealing with academic freedom, tenure, and administration-directed grade changes at Benedict College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: City University of New York

Report discussing the decision made by the central administration of the City University of New York and deals with the issues of academic freedom, due process, collective bargaining, and national security.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Meharry Medical College

Report dealing with issues of faculty with primarily clinical duties financial exigency, due process, academic freedom,tenure, and faculty government at Meharry Medical College, one of four historically black medical schools in the United States

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Philander Smith College

Report concerning the dismissal of a professor on stated grounds of insubordination; the termination of the appointments of four other full-time faculty members on stated grounds of need to reduce the size of the college's faculty and staff; and the earlier termination of the services of a program director who sought the assistance of the Association based upon her faculty function of teaching courses at the college.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Medaille College

Report concerning improper dismissal procedures at Medaille College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: East Texas Baptist University

Report presenting several key issues under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and derivative principles and procedural standards endorsed by the Association.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of South Florida

Report dealing with actions taken by the administration and the governing board of the University of South Florida against Dr. Sami Al-Arian and deals with academic freedom, due process, extramural utterances, and national security.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Tiffin University

Report concerning the appropriate role of faculty in the governance of Tiffin University, academic freedom concerns, and the lack of tenure.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Dubuque

Report examining the University of Dubuque's termination of tenured faculty, the faculty's role in the process, and faculty governance.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Charleston Southern University

Report concerning action taken by the administration of Charleston Southern University  to dismiss a faculty member for cause in the middle of his eleventh year on the faculty and the nonreappointment of another after six years of faculty service.

Termination of Tenured Appointments: MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine

Report concerning the discharge tenured members of the basic-science faculty of the MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine, in response to a declaration of financial exigency, with minimal notice, inadequate severance salary, and a complete absence of normal procedural safeguards in violation not only of applicable Association-supported standards but also of the bylaws of the institution itself.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Central Arkansas

Report dealing with the decisions and actions of  President Winfred L. Thompson of the University of Central Arkansas regarding tenure, denial of tenure, and faculty governance.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Albertus Magnus College

Report addressing four issues at Albertus Magnus College: the procedures used by the administration to decide that Professor Hartwig was not to be reappointed, his suspension, the reasons for the actions against Professor Hartwig, and the implications of these reasons for academic freedom.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Johnson & Wales University

Report addressing issues of reasons and the opportunity for review, adequacy of notice and academic freedom at Johnson & Wales University.

New Mexico Highlands University: A Case of Denial of Tenure

Report concerning tenure denial by the board of regents of New Mexico Highlands University

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Lawrence Technological University

Report concerning the actions taken by the administration of Lawrence Technological University regarding appointment termination following a decision to discontinue the undergraduate programs in business management.

Academic Freedom and Tenure University of the District of Columbia

Report concerning the actions by the administration of the University of the District of Columbia to terminate the appointments of 125 faculty members.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Brigham Young University

Report concerning academic freedom at Brigham Young University, a religiously affiliated university, and the denial of tenure.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Report regarding action taken by the administration of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design to dismiss five senior members of the faculty without cause and without hearings.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Saint Meinrad School of Theology

Report concerning the dismissal of a faculty member from the Saint Meinrad School of Theology for having signed an open letter to Pope John Paul II asking that continued discussion be permitted concerning the question of ordaining women to the priesthood.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Garland County Community College

Report regarding tenure and the lack of due process in dismissal proceedings at Garland County Community College, now National Park College.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: St. Bonaventure University

Report arising from the termination of the appointments of eighteen tenured faculty members, on grounds of financial exigency, at St. Bonaventure University.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Alaska Pacific University

Report discussing the issues of financial exigency, due process, relocation, and program discontinuance at Alaska Pacific University

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bennington College

Report dealing with a declaration of financial exigency as justification for terminating the appointments of presumptively tenured faculty.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Benedict College

Report discussing termination, claims of financial exigency, and academic governance and the climate for academic freedom at Benedict College.
 

Academic Freedom and Tenure: University of Bridgeport

Report concerning the action taken by the administration of the University of Bridgeport to terminate the appointments of two professors on thirty days' notice. At the time of this action the professors had each completed more than thirty years of service at the university.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Savannah College of Art and Design

Report concerning the action of the administration of Savannah College of Art and Design in terminating faculty members without cause or due process.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: North Greenville College

Report concerning the actions of the administration of North Greenville College in terminating the appointments of two professors without affording them the safeguards of academic due process . Further, since tenure is no longer granted at North Greenville College, its procedural protections are not available to the majority of faculty members who serve indefinitely on term appointments renewable at the administration's discretion.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Clarkson College

Report dealing with action taken by the Clarkson College administration in May 1992 to terminate the services of six members of the college's full-time faculty.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: The New Community College of Baltimore

Report concerning the action taken by the administration of the New Community College of Baltimore to terminate a tenured faculty member without cause or due process following an announced termination of tenure commitments with the transfer of the college's control from the city of Baltimore to the state of Maryland.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Loma Linda University

Report concerning the dismissal of three faculty members by the administration of Loma Linda University and condition of academic freedom and tenure in general at that university.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Dean Junior College

Report concerning the actions of the administration of Dean Junior College in terminating the services of two faculty members without academic due process.  This action was based significantly on the administration's displeasure with their college activities, involving dissent against the administration, that warranted protection under principles of academic freedom.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Catholic University of America

This 1989 report involves a Catholic University of America professor who has not been dismissed from his position but who, with conditions imposed upon his teaching that he considers unacceptable, had chosen to take a leave of absence and teach elsewhere. Although the events of primary interest in the case occurred within three years, they can best be understood in the context of a history spanning more than two decades. This case has been the subject of two books and of countless magazine and newspaper articles both in this country and abroad, and aspects of  it have been argued at length before a faculty committee and a superior court; few Association cases, it may be said, have been so widely publicized or so profusely documented. Additionally, the case arose and developed at a university with a governance structure that has no exact counterpart in this country, even among other Catholic institutions.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Report regarding the administration of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's elimination of the appropriate faculty role in making new appointments and has placed academic freedom in peril at the institution by restricting further faculty appointments to those holding a particular and narrowly construed ideological stance.

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: Yeshiva University

Report regarding the administration of Yeshiva University's 1979 termination of  the appointments of three faculty members, and suspended them from further teaching responsibilities without having afforded them the 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.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: State University of New York

Report regarding retrenchments at the State University of New York that were initiated by the University administration without appropriate consultation with the faculty and without any showing of a financial exigency. They were overseen by the administration with disregard for the rights of tenure, for due notice, and for the role of the faculty in institutional government.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Murray State University

Report on the administration of Murray State University's 1975 termination of the services of nine faculty members without due process and in disregard of the role of faculty in reaching decisions of faculty status.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Concordia Seminary

Report regarding the administration of Concordia Seminary's 1972 termination of a faculty member based on outside ecclesiastical authorities' displeasure with his views on matters that fell within his academic competence, despite the recommendations of his colleagues and inadequate notice of the termination of his services

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Frank Phillips College

Report on the administration of  Frank Phillips College's 1965 dismissal of a faculty member without providing cause, without academic due process, and without providing for any payment of salary beyond the date of notification of dismissal.

Academic Freedom and Tenure: Grove City College

Report on the 1962 termination of a faculty member by the administration of Grove City College without due process. The dismissal action in this case was accompanied by collateral controversy, disclosure of unusual attendant circumstances, and frequent display of emotion. Many of these elements were reported in the press and by radio and television broadcast. Therefore, the investigating committee additionally issued  a set of Supplementary Observations and these are included in this report..