On Tuesday, January 27th, Rep. James Tipton and Rep. Aaron Thompson filed HB 490, an anti-tenure bill that gives university boards additional powers to remove faculty for financial reasons, regardless of tenure status. This is yet another example of our state government attacking public sector workers' right to good jobs and freedom in the workplace.

HB 490 adds additional grounds that a university's board of trustees can remove faculty based on financial reasons. This bill defines “financial reasons” as including the following but not limited to:

• Financial exigency;
• Low enrollment in a particular program or major;
• Misalignment of revenue and costs in a particular college, department, program, or major.

Further weakening faculty tenure undermines the core mission of our public universities. When faculty can be removed for shifting financial reasons, academic freedom is chilled, shared governance is sidelined, and decisions about education are driven by cost-cutting rather than student learning. This approach will only harm student and worker outcomes on campus and lead to the further corporatization of our universities. Contrary to what these representatives may say, faculty tenure makes our universities stronger by protecting independent teaching and research for the public good. Further eroding the independence of our university as the house education committee did with its anti-DEI, viewpoint neutrality, and last anti-tenure bills only weakens academic freedom and the long-term health of our institutions.

We call on Rep. James Tipton and Rep. Aaron Thompson to stop their attack on faculty tenure and withdraw this bill.

Join your fellow campus workers for a Legislative Impact Call on Thursday, February 12 at 6pm to build a statewide, cross-campus strategy to fight back against HB490, an anti-tenure bill that gives university boards additional powers to remove faculty for financial reasons, regardless of tenure status. RSVP for the call here: tinyurl.com/UCWKYZoom

As campus workers and allies, you are building a strong, democratic organization that makes our universities accessible to all Kentuckians through statewide action--let’s make this vision a reality!