BY JOHN K. WILSON

There have been a lot of evil and stupid bills proposed by state legislators to abolish tenure and destroy academic freedom, but North Dakota’s House Bill 1446 sinks to new depths of depravity in the attacks on higher education.

The Tenure with Responsibilities Act, introduced on January 18 by North Dakota Republican House Majority Leader Mike Lefor (R-Dickinson), would create a pilot program at Bismarck State College and Dickinson State University imposing a radical redefinition of tenure that effectively destroys academic freedom.

To avoid being arbitrarily fired at two North Dakota colleges, tenured professors would need to teach and advise more students than average, obey all directives from administrators (even the illegal ones), never disparage any staff on social media, and never cause any harm to the institution.

Lefor wanted to impose these radical changes at all public universities, but was persuaded to initially implement them only at two politically weaker state colleges. According to Lefor, “This isn’t about firing people, it’s about accountability…and that’s reasonable.” In reality, this is all about firing people. It’s the opposite of accountability. And it’s completely unreasonable.

The bill provides five possible reasons for firing a tenured professor. The first is that a tenured professor can be fired if their total compensation in any year exceeds the “tuition or grant revenue” from their students taught or research conducted. It’s requiring all tenured professors to turn a profit. As horrifying as that concept is, the truth is that virtually all faculty generate more revenue than they’re paid. The other provisions are even worse.

The second rule is that faculty must “comply with the policies, procedures, and directives of the institution, the institution’s president and other administrators, the state board of higher education, and the North Dakota university system.” It’s important to note here that any violation of this law requires tenured faculty to be fired without any hearing or judgment about the severity of the violation. Violating even the smallest policy or directive from an administrator is grounds for dismissal.

The third rule is that faculty must “effectively teach and advise a number of students approximately equal to the average campus faculty teaching and advising load.” By definition, about half of all faculty teach a below-average number of students. Another half of the faculty advise a below-average number of students. Altogether, this means that most tenured faculty could automatically be fired merely for teaching a slightly below-average number of students. 

The fourth rule compels faculty “exercising mature judgment to avoid inadvertently harming the institution, especially in avoiding the use of social media or third-party internet platforms to disparage campus personnel or the institution.” This amounts to a total ban on faculty criticism of campus issues or staff. Any statements that might harm an institution or disparage staff on the internet are forbidden, even if done “inadvertently.”

The fifth rule states that faculty may be fired if they fail to “perform all other duties outlined in any applicable contract and position description,” an extraordinarily broad and vague rule.

As terrible as these individual rules are, the process of enforcing them is even worse. According to the bill, the president of an institution may act “at any time the president deems a review is in the institution’s best interest.” The review “may include a written assessment,” which means no written report is needed to fire a professor. A report is only required if a president finds that a professor has violated one of these rules (as most professors will), at which point the president “may not renew” the professor’s contract unless the president “specifically articulates why” a renewal is “in the interest of the institution….”

The bill specifically prohibits faculty from having any role in evaluating tenured faculty and determining if one of these rules has been violated. Faculty committees are banned from any review or appeal of the president’s decision. Finally, the bill declares that “no complaint, lawsuit, or other allegation is allowed against a president” for firing a tenured professor under this bill.

No one imagines that a president will actually fire most of the tenured faculty. But presidents under this bill will have discretion to decide who they want to review, giving the administration near-total arbitrary power to fire almost any tenured faculty on a whim with no faculty oversight. Ironically, because this law would only apply to tenured faculty, it would mean that at these two colleges, firing a tenured professor would become easier than firing an untenured professor (for whom normal campus policies would still apply). 

This is not a bill proposed by some random legislator, but by the second most powerful leader in the North Dakota House of Representatives, where Republicans control 82 out of 94 seats. When an influential leader proposes a bill, there’s a strong possibility that it could pass and turn North Dakota legislators into national leaders at destroying tenure.

Shockingly, Steve Easton, the president of Dickinson State University, endorses this bill: “I believe that it is important to turn tenure from what it has unfortunately become as a practical matter, a lifetime appointment absent outrageous behavior, to a job that, like almost all other jobs, carries with it certain duties and responsibilities that are enforceable by supervisors.” It’s outrageous that any college president would endorse an attack on academic freedom as egregious as this bill. Easton even wrote the original draft of the bill, including some provisions (requiring faculty to generate “significantly more” revenue than they are paid) that were worse than the final bill.

A news story about this bill did note that “the bill has received backlash from the academic community, with some calling it an ‘anti-whistleblower bill in disguise’ and raising concerns over the potential infringement on academic freedom and the legal rights of tenured faculty.” That’s all true: this bill is plainly unconstitutional, immoral, illogical, and just plain dumb. But the desire among some Republican legislators (and even college presidents) to destroy tenure, annihilate academic freedom, and attack higher education trumps any concept of constitutional rights, effective colleges, shared governance, or common sense.

John K. Wilson was a 2019-20 fellow with the University of California National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and is the author of eight books, including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies and the forthcoming work The Attack on Academia.