IHE: Florida Passes Posttenure-Review Law

[pondering]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/04/20/florida-passes-posttenure-review-law

I'm in the humanities at a Florida R1 university and just got tenure this year. I was looking forward to being able to relax just a little and enjoy teaching and research for their own sake after over a decade of precarity. Oh well.

[mahagonny]

So you're just trying to do your job and you walked into a culture war.

"The only missing piece in that equation is that tenured faculty cannot be fired for political reasons, meaning the passing whims of the latest politician in power cannot be used to harm the future of Florida's students and institutions."

-statement by union president Andrew Gothard

There seems to be two claims here that I doubt. One, that the position of the Governor is his own whim rather than a representation of the long-held values of the voters. And two, that higher education itself is not pushing a political agenda.

[Parasaurolophus]

"The only missing piece in that equation is that tenured faculty cannot be fired for political reasons, meaning the passing whims of the latest politician in power cannot be used to harm the future of Florida's students and institutions."

Given the way that was just dropped into the article without context, I don't think I understand what he's even claiming. Is it that the new regime is basically identical, minus protection against being dismissed for politically-motivated reasons?

[pondering]

"The only missing piece in that equation is that tenured faculty cannot be fired for political reasons, meaning the passing whims of the latest politician in power cannot be used to harm the future of Florida's students and institutions."

Given the way that was just dropped into the article without context, I don't think I understand what he's even claiming. Is it that the new regime is basically identical, minus protection against being dismissed for politically-motivated reasons?

While I'm a dues-paying union member and strongly support it, I have to say that our spokespeople could be better at messaging.

What he meant is that our present regime of post-tenure faculty evaluation is similar to what is being proposed (therefore it is largely unnecessary), and that the present regime differs only in that it does not take "political reasons" into account when evaluating us.

Currently all Florida faculty undergo annual evaluations that rate our research, teaching, and service. For tenured faculty, several "unsatisfactory" evaluations in a row can lead to being put on a performance improvement plan and, ultimately, being terminated. (Admittedly, I have never heard of this happening in practice, but it is written into our contract.)

We'll have to see the details of the five-year post-tenure review that the Board of Governors creates in response to this new law, but judging by the rhetoric coming from Florida Republicans, they want to be able to evaluate faculty on their viewpoints as well as job competence. (Not coincidentally, we have just started being asked to fill out a "political viewpoints" survey, created by the legislature last year.)

Here are some quotes from legislators which provide more context (from https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/04/19/desantis-other-state-officials-go-after-university-professors-tenure-protections/):

Sprowls, a Republican representing part of Pinellas County, implied that some tenured professors could hold a student's grade over their head for not believing in certain ideals.

"Are they (students) going to walk into a university system that's more about indoctrination than it is about getting a job some day and learning the skills necessary and the subject matter necessary to get a job?" Sprowls said. "Or is it about some sort of radical political agenda that a particular professor, who's been told they get a lifetime job, is going to tell them that they have to believe to get an 'A' in their class?"

He added:

"We want to make sure that when they walk into that classroom, and there's that professor who didn't really come to teach — And I want to say this, there are lots of professors who come to teach. There's lots of teachers who come to teach.

"But there are some who come to indoctrinate and they shouldn't have a life-time job. They shouldn't get a life-time job here in the state of Florida."

Sprowls also spoke on changes to syllabus and textbook transparency in the legislation, which requires that students be notified of course textbooks at least 45 days before the first day of class and course syllabi provide "sufficient" information on course curriculum, goals of the course and how student performance will be measured.

"How many of us went to a — you know, whether it's a high school class or a college class and you get the syllabus like two weeks into the semester. Right?" he said at the press conference located in The Villages. "And they start to tell you, 'well, we thought this was a class about, you know, western democracy, but really it's, you know, it's a class on socialism and communism.'"

Corcoran, who previously attempted a bid for Florida State University's president and didn't make the cut, added an anecdote about his college-aged kids and their experiences in classrooms.

"I have two in college, and the two in colleges are saying to me and they're telling me something that the professor said. And I'll say 'that's just like the most liberal, unfactual diatribe — why didn't you say something?' And they literally say 'I want to get a good grade,'" Corcoran claimed, prompting groans from the audience.

"That's a horrible institution. That's not free speech. That's not the beauty of an academic learning environment," he said.

[mahagonny]

This piece of the law is important to its supporters:

" The new law, which also requires colleges and universities to post "prominently" a searchable list of instructional materials for at least 95 percent of all courses, and includes major changes to how accreditation works, takes effect in July."

[pondering]

I will add that as a white Christian male of politically moderate views, who teaches and researches uncontroversial topics (far removed from today's hot button issues), I am not concerned about being personally targeted for my viewpoints by the political appointees on the Board of Trustees because of this law. My job performance is also good enough that I have little to fear from extra reviews.

But I object to this change on principle. I am concerned for my colleagues across the political spectrum who in one way or another may fall afoul of political loyalty tests, and may now find this counts against them at their five year review. This will chill free speech far more than any vague threat of cancellation by a Twitter mob or an overwrought club of students role-playing leftist radicalism.

If the five-year review makes it easier to lay off tenured people for perceived "under-performance" (whether related to actual work duties or as a pretext because of objectionable political views), it also makes a mockery of the notion of tenure in Florida. They might as well come out and say that they are abolishing it, and putting us all on rolling five-year contracts, with re-appointment contingent on performance. It would be more honest. Then they could dispense with the charade of the six-year tenure-track process and the exhausting tenure review process with external letters, committee votes and all the rest of it, since tenure will apparently be meaningless anyway.

[pondering]

This piece of the law is important to its supporters:

" The new law, which also requires colleges and universities to post "prominently" a searchable list of instructional materials for at least 95 percent of all courses, and includes major changes to how accreditation works, takes effect in July."

That part is so they can do to university courses what they have already done to K-12 school libraries: perform keyword searches for buzzwords they find objectionable ("critical" "race" "theory" "gender" "trans" etc.) then seek to ban those readings and/or hound the educators who assign them out of their jobs.

[mahagonny]

This piece of the law is important to its supporters:

" The new law, which also requires colleges and universities to post "prominently" a searchable list of instructional materials for at least 95 percent of all courses, and includes major changes to how accreditation works, takes effect in July."

That part is so they can do to university courses what they have already done to K-12 school libraries: perform keyword searches for buzzwords they find objectionable ("critical" "race" "theory" "gender" "trans" etc.) then seek to ban those readings and/or hound the educators who assign them out of their jobs.

You have a right to believe that, but I don't see how making the curriculum more available to the lay public for their viewing can be objected to.

ETA:

I will add that as a white Christian male of politically moderate views, who teaches and researches uncontroversial topics (far removed from today's hot button issues), I am not concerned about being personally targeted for my viewpoints by the political appointees on the Board of Trustees because of this law. My job performance is also good enough that I have little to fear from extra reviews.

As a white Christian male of politically moderate views, how do you feel about 'antiracism' having been redefined by a self-appointed elite? And can we still believe

'1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. 2 Male and female He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them "man."'

Without our own 'safe space?'

[Sun_Worshiper]

Obviously this has nothing to do with making FLA universities or professors better and, if anything, will have the opposite effect by driving good professors away.

[pondering]

You have a right to believe that, but I don't see how making the curriculum more available to the lay public for their viewing can be objected to.

In principle I am also in favor of making the curriculum public - and in a normal political climate no professor ought to have anything to fear from doing so. I even voluntarily post some of my syllabi to academia.edu. But I'm just letting you know that there is a context here. If you lived in Florida, read the local newspapers, watched the local news channels, saw posts on the Nextdoor app and read the local politicians' Facebook pages, etc., you would know that there is currently a manufactured moral panic about educators "indoctrinating" the youth, which has already given rise to book bans in schools and harassment campaigns against librarians, school board members, and teachers. Colleagues in several universities in the state have been pre-emptively advised by their supervisors to take the words "critical" and "race" out of course titles just to avoid attracting the ire of Republican politicians and their media attack dogs.

As a white Christian male of politically moderate views, how do you feel about 'antiracism' having been redefined by a self-appointed elite? And can we still believe

'1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. 2 Male and female He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them "man."'

Without our own 'safe space?'

I would prefer not to derail this thread, which is about the erosion of tenure in Florida and its implications, with a political and theological excursus. Suffice to say that while I do not share all the opinions and philosophical predicates of colleagues at both ends of the political spectrum, I have found that we can respectfully disagree, and I do not feel threatened by the questions you raise (which are in some ways des questions mal posées, the products of social media outrage rather than concrete experience in the workplace). I have never been made to affirm something contrary to my conscience in order to teach or do research.

[mahagonny]

You have a right to believe that, but I don't see how making the curriculum more available to the lay public for their viewing can be objected to.

In principle I am also in favor of making the curriculum public - and in a normal political climate no professor ought to have anything to fear from doing so. I even voluntarily post some of my syllabi to academia.edu. But I'm just letting you know that there is a context here. If you lived in Florida, read the local newspapers, watched the local news channels, saw posts on the Nextdoor app and read the local politicians' Facebook pages, etc., you would know that there is currently a manufactured moral panic about educators "indoctrinating" the youth, which has already given rise to book bans in schools and harassment campaigns against librarians, school board members, and teachers. Colleagues in several universities in the state have been pre-emptively advised by their supervisors to take the words "critical" and "race" out of course titles just to avoid attracting the ire of Republican politicians and their media attack dogs.

And let me take a wild guess. Who should get the right to decree what a normal political climate is? Of course, the politically progressive academic community, who were never elected by popular vote.

ETA:

Obviously this has nothing to do with making FLA universities or professors better and, if anything, will have the opposite effect by driving good professors away.

Maybe they'll go teach in Oregon where the right books are being banned.

[Parasaurolophus]

What he meant is that our present regime of post-tenure faculty evaluation is similar to what is being proposed (therefore it is largely unnecessary), and that the present regime differs only in that it does not take "political reasons" into account when evaluating us.

Currently all Florida faculty undergo annual evaluations that rate our research, teaching, and service. For tenured faculty, several "unsatisfactory" evaluations in a row can lead to being put on a performance improvement plan and, ultimately, being terminated. (Admittedly, I have never heard of this happening in practice, but it is written into our contract.)

Thanks for the clarification.

[mahagonny]

What he meant is that our present regime of post-tenure faculty evaluation is similar to what is being proposed (therefore it is largely unnecessary), and that the present regime differs only in that it does not take "political reasons" into account when evaluating us.

Currently all Florida faculty undergo annual evaluations that rate our research, teaching, and service. For tenured faculty, several "unsatisfactory" evaluations in a row can lead to being put on a performance improvement plan and, ultimately, being terminated. (Admittedly, I have never heard of this happening in practice, but it is written into our contract.)

Thanks for the clarification.

So in pondering's experience, one method never leads to termination, but the new one could.

ETA: Sincere question - did you people with tenure or about to get tenure honestly not see this coming? Considering that some of the most reviled public figures in American life today are known, and influential either primarily or only because of their tenure. Examples, Ibram X. Kendi, Robin Diangelo, Nicole Hannah-Jones, Michael Eric Dyson, Eddie Glaude, Brittney Cooper.

I mean, I find the situation a bit extraordinary. Imagining a trade school and street educated adjunct like me getting to tell a bunch of published PhD's "I told you so." It's not my field expertise. It's just, like 'keep your eye on the ball for god's sake.'

[Golazo]

I wonder if this is legal under the contracts clause--if you offer someone a tenured contract during good behavior and then later add a review process that greatly reduces the security of the contract, this is arguably illegal (see North Carolina Association of Educators v. State).

[mahagonny]

I wonder if this is legal under the contracts clause--if you offer someone a tenured contract during good behavior and then later add a review process that greatly reduces the security of the contract, this is arguably illegal (see North Carolina Association of Educators v. State).

If that's true then maybe the tenure review process already in place is just a dog and pony show. Never expected to result in terminations.

Pondering: Where does it state in the new law that a person can be terminated for their politics?

I was looking forward to being able to relax just a little and enjoy teaching and research for their own sake after over a decade of precarity. Oh well.

Everything I've ever read in these fora claims that as soon as you get tenure your workload increases. (Not saying I believed it.)

ETA:

Having a contract with extreme job security guarantees creates a disincentive for hiring, which is why we have so many 'temporary' faculty. But if the door is opened to terminating tenured faculty when circumstances warrant, and in fact a few are  terminated, then this should result in more tenure lines, which is what these faculty say they want....(?)