Dive Brief: 

• Kentucky’s Senate passed a bill Friday that would allow public college boards to terminate faculty members for broadly defined financial reasons, including when the programs or majors they teach have low enrollment.
• The Senate passed the bill over objections from the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers. Those groups slammed the bill as a threat to students and their education, arguing it contains vague language that could enable boards to shut down departments and silence faculty speech they disfavor. 
• The Senate passed the measure by a 30-7 margin. The bill now heads back to the House, where lawmakers are expected to vote next week on whether to approve minor changes made by the Senate. 

Dive Insight: 

The measure, HB 490, would allow governing boards of public colleges to terminate faculty members when colleges declare financial exigency, if the programs or majors they teach have low enrollment, or if those offerings have a “misalignment of revenue and costs.” Under the bill, faculty members would receive 30 days’ written notice of the reasons for their termination and would be given an opportunity to respond. 

The bill doesn’t define “low enrollment” or revenue and cost misalignment. It directs the governing boards of the state’s colleges to develop policies for removing faculty members for financial reasons by Oct. 1. 

AAUP and AFT decried the bill Thursday, contending it would create “political volatility” on college campuses. 

“HB 490 could be weaponized for purposes that have nothing to do with genuine fiscal emergencies,” the groups wrote. “It could be invoked to shut down research programs whose findings go against the financial interests of board members, to eliminate academic departments that have become easy ideological targets nationwide, and to silence faculty members whose speech board members dislike.” 

The House passed the bill 72-21 in mid-February. At the time, Republican state Rep. Aaron Thompson, sponsor of the bill, said on the House floor that while various policies exist across the state’s public colleges for removing faculty members for financial reasons, those processes aren’t consistent. 

“HB 490 gives these boards an additional tool in their toolbox to be a good steward for each institution’s future, their students and for the taxpayer,” Thompson said. 

Republican state Sen. Steve West echoed those comments on the Senate floor Friday, arguing that the bill would give colleges “another tool in their toolbox” when they’re realigning or shedding programs. 

Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Reginald Thomas spoke against the bill Friday, noting that the state’s colleges already have financial exigency policies that allow them to remove tenured faculty members during financially turbulent times. 

“This provision is really not necessary, because every state university has this in existence,” Thomas said. 

However, he argued that the bill effectively weakens tenure protections “under the guise of financial exigency.” 

“Those tenured faculty now — once this bill is passed and becomes law — will not have the same kind of freedom to teach,” he said.