JCU Professors Now Tenured In Name Only
FOR RELEASE March 2, 2021
JCU Professors Now Tenured in Name Only
On March 1, 2021, the John Carroll University Board of Directors voted to effectively eliminate tenure protections for academic freedom at JCU. Under conditions the Board has defined as “budgetary hardship,” faculty can be removed whenever the administration projects an annual budget shortfall of 6%, assuming the university projects two additional years of “hardship.” Touting the new policy as a “scalpel,” the university can use this new policy to target specific tenured faculty members to be fired without cause while leaving the rest of their departments untouched. Faculty fired under this clause have no right to appeal. Previously, the university could not eliminate faculty positions except for academic reasons, like eliminating a department that no longer fits with the university’s academic mission, or in cases of “financial exigency,” a much more serious financial emergency. These types of cuts generally require faculty approval.
The implications for the quality of the degree are obvious. This policy provides strong incentives for faculty to leave JCU for institutions where they are valued and protected, makes it far more difficult to attract high quality new faculty, and sends a chill through all faculty who legitimately fear termination without cause. As Faculty Council Chair, Dr. Brent Brossmann, said, “The foundation of a high-quality education is the ability of teachers to nurture and challenge students—to encourage them to think for themselves and to understand perspectives and beliefs different from their own, even when those may be unpopular or controversial. On March 1, the JCU Board of Directors did substantial damage to the ability of JCU professors to provide such an education by unilaterally granting themselves the right to fire tenured faculty without cause and without any right of appeal if the University declares a ‘budgetary hardship.’”
The American Association of University Professors, the national experts on issues of tenure and academic freedom, argued this “would deny the faculty meaningful involvement in many of the crucial decisions that would affect their livelihoods and the academic mission of the institution; and they would deprive the faculty of vital due-process rights to contest those decisions. John Carroll University would in effect be eliminating tenure as it is commonly understood.”
Since September, 2020, JCU faculty have proposed multiple ways of addressing the University’s financial challenges, including salary reductions, benefit reductions, increased workloads, and passed their own comprehensive counterproposal that addressed the Board’s goals while preserving tenure. Faculty made clear they would accept almost any proposal that did not include firing tenured faculty members without cause. Despite Faculty efforts to find an acceptable compromise, the Board unilaterally granted themselves this power after the Faculty overwhelmingly rejected it twice by Faculty vote.