MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--MORE INFO FROM PROF. WHITE IN COMMENTS, PLUS OTHER COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS--MORE DISCUSSION WELCOME
Philosopher Alan White (Wisconsin/Manitowoc) has been involve throughout in the process of revising the Regental rules on tenure after the assault on tenure by Governor Walker and his Republican allies in the legislature. The current proposed polices can be viewed here. Prof. White kindly gave permission to share his letter to colleagues about the current draft:
1. The faculty tenure document.
This document is the Regents' policy replacement for the statement of tenure formerly ensconced in Wisconsin state statute 36.13. You may recall that the Regents immediately adopted the verbatim language of 36.13 as interim policy after the state removed it. Except for the inclusion of the next to last entry "Oversight, Roles and Responsibilities"--needed, I suppose, to authorize administrators to do their jobs in carrying out Regents' policy--this document largely just copies 36.13. So in letter and spirit, I'd say this just codifies what the Regents did last year with the interim action. While that's good news, it's in fact limited by newly adopted state statute 36.21, modified to specify that termination may be for conditions ("certain budget or program changes") that do not qualify as financial emergency--and deletes "financial emergency" from the old statute as the standard for layoff or termination. An entirely new law, 36.22, details procedures for "layoff or termination of [a] faculty member due to certain budget or program changes." So, in fact state statute has abandoned the AAUP gold standard of financial exigency as sufficient reason to terminate tenured faculty.
2. The Procedures Relating to Financial Emergency or Program Discontinuance Requiring Faculty Layoff and Termination
The title of this document has at least some good news: Regents' policy reinstates financial emergency as a standard of terminating tenured faculty, but note--only *a* standard. That's because of 36.21-22 of course. It has a couple of added statements referring to procedural protections for laid-off faculty set out in 36.22 and deleted a couple of definitions from the previous draft, but it looks very much like the one you saw prior to our final meeting. There are some added passages that *appear* to afford extra protection. For example, notice on page 5 F. there is a statement added: "It is recognized that the chancellor should make a recommendation adverse to the faculty recommendation with respect to discontinuance of an academic program only for compelling reasons which should be stated in writing and in detail." But please note this language is not a *requirement* but "recognized" as optimally the case. "Should"s are not "Must"s. At the very least we need to fight for language changes like that.
My suggestion if that if you are going to comment on this document, please read 36.21-22 as well. I provided those in an earlier email.
3. The Periodic Post-Tenure Review document
Despite my own protests--joined by Madison reps--this document is largely unchanged from the draft we had at the final meeting. On page 3 point 12 following, we argued strenuously for including an extra step prior to what is described in 12. b., which essentially allows only an administrative reconsideration in the case of a negative review. We argued for a second faculty review in the case of a negative review, just to ensure that the negative review was justified. It's not included here. I think we need to press for that. In addition, I and other committee members argued that the time frame to asses remediation in the case of a negative review(12. c. ii)--18 months--was too brief to be realistic for some cases, and that it should be expanded. The time frame is unchanged. And of course page 4 16. is unchanged as well. The only option for a faculty member terminated by this process is independent of UW grievance processes--filing a civil suit.
As goes Wisconsin--one of the country's best public university systems--so may the nation go. This deserves everyone's attention, as well as everyone's thanks to Prof. White for his work on this. Comments are open for further information, comments, links, etc.
