This sounds like a U.S. version of the Birkbeck disaster, and it really deserves more serious coverage in the traditional media. A professor at WVU (not in philosophy) writes:
WVU is currently in an unprecedented financial crisis and the administration is starting the process of cutting academic programs and faculty, including tenured faculty. I'm writing to you because you've often written about administrative overreach and malfeasance in cases like this before, and that is definitely what we have going on here at WVU. I'm trying to keep my name out of the public eye, because my department is surely going to undergo personnel cuts and I'd rather not be a visible enemy of the administration. But I wondered if you might give us some visibility by posting about the situation on your blog, which I know is quite influential.
Essentially, the administration has been advancing a narrative where the school is a victim of general demographic trends, Covid, and inflation, and now they have to cut lots of faculty to eliminate a structural budget deficit that isn't anybody's fault. What's actually happened is that the President and his protege (a VP of 'strategic initiatives') have pursued a reckless and utterly failed growth strategy for the last 10 years, during which time enrollment has shrunk considerably, which has put the university in a huge financial hole. Their malfeasance and dishonesty is documented in great detail in this anonymous investigation by WVU faculty: https://wvufacts.wordpress.com/ .... We're having trouble getting any publicity or media coverage on what's actually happening here, because faculty are scared to go on record with the media, given the autocratic and deeply corrupt nature of Gordon Gee's administration (this probably won't be news to anybody who's followed higher-ed over the last 40 years or so of Gee's checkered career). And Gee and his cronies have giant media operations who have managed to get more or less friendly stories placed in local and regional media (and even Inside Higher Ed), basically parroting their dishonest version of events.
The administration has now proposed rewriting the Board of Governors rules that govern financial exigency and layoffs of faculty in a way that basically guts tenure and gives carte blanche to administrators to reduce programs when and where they see fit, with no formal faculty involvement. Left unchecked, there is little doubt that the Board will approve these changes and layoffs will begin by October: they're supposed to oversee the president but in reality they are appointed by his political cronies and do whatever they're asked. We think the only possible hope would be public outrage over the mismanaging of the university and its public funding (which is, of course, a tiny fraction of the actual budget, but still a large amount of money).
On the changes to the governing rules, see here: https://policies.wvu.edu/bog-rules-under-review/proposed-bog-faculty-rule-4-7-reduction-in-force; these changes "basically eliminate all faculty involvement from the decision process and cut out the few benefits and rights that faculty in such situations retained under the old rules" according to my correspondent.
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