“Three Florida professors have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2023 state law subjecting public university faculty to mandatory post-tenure review every five years,” reports The College Fix:
The scholars argue the law “imperils academic freedom” and enables the Florida legislature to “usurp the exclusive powers and duties” of the state university system’s Board of Governors granted to it by Florida’s constitution. While two of the three plaintiffs are scholars who have left-leaning views, the third is a Christian professor who said the law could have unintended consequences. Steven Willis, a professor at UF’s Levin College of Law, said he fears that weakening tenure protections might render conservative faculty members vulnerable to being punished for their political beliefs…“Without tenure, there is an enormous target on my back, as well as that of all conservative academics and all Christian academics.” Willis said he recognizes the merits of post-tenure review, but the new law “lacks due process” and “applies unclear rules retroactively.” “It places the power to evaluate us in administrators who have historically been hostile to Christians and Republicans,” said Willis, who added in the past he has been investigated for his beliefs.
SB 266 requires the board to implement post-tenure review at state universities assessing faculty members’ productivity and teaching performance. The law also states decisions concerning “evaluations, promotions, tenure, discipline, or termination, may not be appealed beyond the level of a university president or designee,” and that disputes over such matters are not subject to arbitration. These two provisions “reduce the substantive protections of tenure from a permanent position (subject to for-cause dismissal) to a five-year contract renewable at the discretion of university presidents,” the plaintiffs claim. The complaint quotes Florida State University’s Office of the Provost as saying that, when it comes to removing tenured faculty, “each community of scholars forms its own definition of ‘adequate cause,’ specifically misconduct or incompetence. No single person can exercise that authority.”
Reforming tenure has been a priority of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who called unproductive tenured faculty the “number one financial drag” on state universities during a July speech at St. Petersburg College….Former University of Florida President Ben Sasse and Provost J. Scott Angle have also supported using post-tenure review to address declining productivity among faculty who have “quietly retired.” “We have lots of folks who are extraordinarily productive, we also have a significant number of folks who cease to be research productive overtime,” Sasse said…Angle advocates for review measures that prioritize remediation. “The first step should never be ‘You’re done, time to move,’” Angle said in the same meeting. As The College Fix reported earlier this month, 34 professors didn’t meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory under the post-tenure review process implemented at the University of Florida. The 39 scholars were among a total of 262 critiqued during the initial wave of reviews.
This lawsuit was filed on July 30 in Leon County Circuit Court, as Hernandez v. Board of Governors of the State University System.
An earlier lawsuit by the faculty union calls the changes to faculty arbitration rights a violation of the right to collective bargaining contained in the National Labor Relations Act. The union claims it breaks state universities’ collective bargaining agreements with the United Faculty of Florida.
