Colorado lawmakers have no business interfering with the tenure process at state colleges and universities – even if Ward Churchill remains on the University of Colorado payroll.
The House Education Committee wisely reversed itself Tuesday and killed Rep. Keith King’s watered-down tenure-review bill on a 7-6 vote. (The committee narrowly approved an even more over-reaching King bill last month that would have made it easier to fire professors.)
Democratic leaders sent the bill back to the committee after King amended it, removing several specific reasons for terminating professors in hope of winning bipartisan support. But the amended bill was pointless – it would have turned a Gov. Roy Romer executive order mandating tenure review for professors into a state law.
It wouldn’t, as Rep. Jack Pommer pointed out, make it any easier to fire Churchill – the one man whose name always surfaces in these discussions.
Rep. Wes McKinley, a Democrat from Walsh, surprised his colleagues last month by siding with Republicans to pass the original measure. Tuesday, he reversed course and voted to kill the bill, saying schools already have tenure-review processes. He’s right, and those schools already have procedures in place to remove those who aren’t up to snuff.
And the University of Colorado, home to the Churchill investigation, is undergoing a massive, unprecedented review of its tenure policies that would have been unfairly disrupted by any legislative action. (Separately, a university committee also is investigating Churchill and plans to issue a report in May.)
The state does partially fund higher education, but governor-appointed boards and regents elected by the people have been given the authority, and have the political will, to ensure that tenure is carried out fairly and appropriately. That’s where these decisions should be made.
For faculty, tenure is a privilege that protects them from arbitrary administrators or the prevailing political winds. Had lawmakers (who have term limits, not tenure) passed King’s bill, no matter how benign, it could have had a chilling effect on recruiting professors to the state. Colorado would have been the first state to impose legislative standards on tenure.
Tenure-review policies, much like Churchill’s status as a CU employee, are best left to those on campus or their governing boards, not state lawmakers sniffing the political winds.
