Democrats on the House Education Committee on Tuesday killed a controversial proposal to reform tenure at public universities.
Colorado State University political science professor Steve Mumme asked lawmakers on the committee Tuesday not to allow the bill to carry partisan rancor into academia.
The expansion of state authority over tenure would chill academic freedom on the state’s campuses, he said.
“Any change we make at this point sends the message of politicization,” he said.
The tenure issue has been a political hot-button since the Ward Churchill controversy erupted last year.
Last week, University of Colorado President Hank Brown accused lawmakers he refused to name of threatening to cut CU funding if he didn’t publicly oppose the tenure bill.
Monday, Democratic lawmakers accused a Colorado Commission on Higher Education staffer of misleading them about the bill when she testified in support of it last month.
Though the sponsor of House Bill 1284, Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Keith King, said it was not about Churchill, the embattled CU ethnic studies professor’s name came up several times during Monday’s hearing.
It was the bill’s second time in House Education. Majority Democrats sent it back from the House floor last week.
Republican committee member Rep. Josh Penry of Grand Junction accused Democrats of using parliamentary tricks to make the bill go away.
“I’m disappointed, because I think this bill was sent back to this committee so we didn’t have to have this same debate on the floor,” Penry said.
Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.
