The American Association of University Professors at UT responded on June 7 to the statement UT President Jay Hartzell released about Senate Bills 17 and 18.

The House version of SB 18, which the Texas Senate adopted and later passed with approval from Gov. Greg Abbott, allows for modified tenure practices in Texas public higher education institutions.

In his statement, Hartzell said, “I am pleased with the outcome of SB 18, which affirms tenure at Texas universities.” The University’s AAUP response said that Hartzell’s satisfaction with the bill concerned them since the tenure system the bill codifies has “harmful implications.”

According to the AAUP’s statement, the bill’s contents outline “dangerously broad grounds for terminations” with no adequate due process provisions. 

“SB 18 preserves tenure, but it weakens it, and the areas that are of most concern are that there are now more reasons why a tenured professor could get fired,” pharmacy professor Andrea Gore said. “There also is the ability to fire a professor for being unprofessional. You can imagine the definition of unprofessional is very much in the eyes of the beholder.”

Tenure is awarded to full-time faculty members and gives people the freedom to teach and research extramural activities with sufficient economic security, according to the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure released by the AAUP. The organization states that tenure is important for all those who teach and conduct research in higher education as it helps protect faculty members from losing their positions based on speeches, publications or research findings.

“The whole reason tenure exists is to protect academic freedom,” Gore said. “Academic freedom lets us take chances in our research. It lets us attempt things that may fail, but if we don’t get to attempt them, we don’t know that they’re going to fail.”

Karma Chávez, a professor of Mexican American and Latino studies, said the bill would not affect every institution equally. According to the College Factual website, UT has about 1,471 tenured faculty and 361 on the tenured track.  

“At Texas A&M, for example, they’re not losing a lot in SB 18 because SB 18 was modeled on Texas A&M tenure and the systems, but UT or UT System tenure was much much stronger than A&M,” Chávez said. “So for us, we’ve already had protections eroded, and my fear is that this is the first step in a journey to eliminate tenure altogether.”

Chávez said although it is too late to stop SB 18 from becoming law, AAUP and its supporters will still ensure the legislation is fairly enforced.

“The next step is to be vigilant as faculty to try to get faculty, students and staff involved,” Chávez said. “And understanding why tenure is important, the only thing that guarantees a world-class research university and gets the message out, gets people organized, that’s going to be the focus into the next few years before the next session.”