The
Pied Pipers at LSU
(with apologies to Robert Browning)
D. Larry
Crumbley
President,
AAUP
On
May 1, 2000, the LSU Faculty Senate passed the following resolution:
Senate Resolution SR-00-14
The Executive Committee of the Senate is trying to force upon us a warmed over version of PM-35, originally prepared by President Bill Jenkins (who has tenure). Our state legislators have not passed a law demanding post-tenure review. That is, the state of Louisiana has not taken away tenure. But the Executive Committee of the Senate is trying to take away tenure at the urging of certain administrators who wish to keep their tenure. They have made no attempt to clarify the ramifications for tenured faculty by consulting non-university lawyers. Why is the Executive Committee trying to perform the Louisiana legislative function?
Post-tenure review policies that exist have primarily been forced upon universities by state legislatures, not by the administration of the university. The state legislators can remove tenure without much recourse, but if the university or Executive Committee removes tenure, a class-action lawsuit (by tenured faculty members) could be used to obtain monetary damages from the university (and Senators who vote to remove tenure). I believe that most tenured faculty members believe that tenure has a monetary value. (Please read the Tague document.) A class-action lawsuit by a large group of tenured faculty members (at say $200,000 per faculty member) would be a tempting lawsuit for most attorneys [300 times $200,000 equals $60 million]. We can point out in the courtroom that these same tenured administrators are exempted from dismissal for cause (PS 104) and the post-tenure review document (OAR). [See the attached diagram on back.]
Understand that tenure is being removed only from academic personnel. There is no triggering mechanism to remove tenure from an elite group of tenured administrators. Thus, tenured administrators have almost lifetime tenure with the right to terminate tenured academic people in about 4 ˝ years. There would be two-classes of tenured people at LSU: academic people with 4 ˝ years tenure and administrators with almost lifetime tenure. Thus, there is a strong incentive for faculty to forgo their research and teaching to become administrators, which harms the true mission of this institution.
The
OAR for faculty should not be considered by the Faculty Senate unless
a similar, complex, fair, but tough on-going administrator review (OAR)
is placed into law in Louisiana. Tenured administrators must be subject
to the same type of post-tenure review (e.g., removal of tenure) as academic
personnel and must be carried out by faculty. Otherwise tenure will have
a distinctive caste system.
Our Executive Committee is leading the faculty into the same dark cave that the Pied Piper did to the Hamelin children. Neil Kestner was quoted in the Reveille that “thousands of universities have adopted post-tenure review.” Not very truthful. There are probably not 1,000 universities in the U.S. (ca. 700). What other statements are untrue about OAR?
Although Dr. Kestner meets with Dr. Fogel every other week, he has refused to allow me (as President of AAUP) to speak to the Executive Committee about OAR. Since the Executive Committee seems to be representing the elitist administration and not faculty rights, I reluctantly suggest that they should resign and let some other senators represent faculty rights. They clearly are not objective!
If you would consider joining a class-action group for a possible lawsuit, please email me. What do you think tenure is worth to you? A possible approach is to take the number of years until you hope to retire, subtract 4 ˝ years and multiple times your current salary. Since tenure is being removed only from academic personnel and not administrators, maybe administrators (along with the university as a whole) could be the defendants (they have deep pockets too). What is tenure worth to someone who is striving for tenure? I do not know, so please help me here.
