Tracing the Dismantling of Tenure and Academic Freedom in U.S. Public Higher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Policies and practices: constructing institutional and professional capacities

Proposal

At first glance, U.S. higher education institutions would appear to be among the most venerable exemplars of academic freedom, shared governance, and tenure. Indeed, the German concepts of Lehrfreiheit (freedom of inquiry and teaching) and Lernfreiheit (the freedom to study without governmental or institutional interference) have been key to the success of numerous U.S. research universities, setting the stage for remarkable scientific, economic, and cultural progress. Nevertheless, many individual state public higher education systems in the U.S., taking their cues from the populism of Donald Trump, have become increasingly activist, leveraging their control over institutional funding to demand compliance with neoliberal political agendas.

This paper contextualizes this nascent state control over public colleges and universities by first highlighting five contemporary critiques of U.S. higher education that have had tremendous influence on higher education policies: 1) accusations of biased scholarship; 2) unaffordable tuition rates; 3) institutional inefficiency; 4) activist teaching; and 5) a lack of workforce preparedness. In turn, the paper demonstrates how politicians in states like Florida, Georgia, Iowa, and Wisconsin have leveled accusations of “biased scholarship” as a tool to not only weaken tenure protections, but to justify assessments of professors’ teaching and research by administrators and boards of regents, rather than by scholarly peers (e.g., Flaherty, 2022). As a corrective to “unaffordable tuition,” tenure protections and academic freedom have been further weakened by an increased reliance on contingent faculty and interim leadership. Today, only 30% of all full-time faculty at U.S. public institutions have tenure (Reilly, 2021). Moreover, external search firms obscure administrative hiring processes, undermining shared governance, and many university presidents leave their jobs within a single year, weakening institutional culture (Bowman, 2017; Nietzel, 2022).

To combat “institutional inefficiency,” the tenets of New Public Management (NPM) and performance funding are being widely employed (Lanford & Tierney, 2022). In response to “activist teaching,” many state-level boards of regents have passed laws which ban the teaching of critical theories, prevented scholars from presenting their research findings in court trials and other public forums, and compelled the adoption of learning management systems which exclusively use pre-approved curricula and assessments developed by private educational companies (Mattes, 2017). As a result, professors who conduct research or teach about societal inequities, historical inaccuracies, or vested corporate interests have been threatened. Furthermore, accusations of “inadequate workforce preparedness” have resulted in facile rhetoric around “student success” and the disruption of existing degree programs. Hence, faculty promotion and retention has become heavily dependent on student evaluations under consumerist logic. Additionally, student success is solely defined through limited quantitative measures (e.g., retention/graduation rates), rather than in holistic assessments of student development that can produce graduates prepared to participate in a multicultural and democratic society.

In conclusion, this paper argues that these developments will have a particularly negative impact on U.S. regional public institutions. The result will be a less equitable higher education system that limits access for marginalized students and devalues critical thinking, scholarship, and societal development in favor of workforce training and social stratification.

Author

• Michael Lanford, University of North Georgia