VSU Terminates 6 Professors Without Due Process

At midnight on Dec. 12, Vitalis Temu, a professor at Virginia State University’s Agriculture Research Station, noticed a mandatory meeting placed on his calendar a few days later to talk with the dean of the College of Agriculture and his director of research, Ronald Howell. Temu thought he knew what they wanted to discuss; in July, university officials had shared plans to reorganize research at the station into “system-oriented” programs rather than siloed individual programs, he said.

“I thought they wanted to know how my research could fit into those systems,” said Temu, a professor of small ruminants and forage ecology. “I went in and found it was not just the dean and the research director, but the director of human resources was there, too.”

As part of the reorganization effort, the university was sunsetting the goat program, on which Temu worked. They also terminated his tenured position, effective immediately, he told Inside Higher Ed. He had worked at VSU, a historically Black university just south of Richmond, for more than 14 years. Four other tenured professors—Harbans Bhardwaj, Adnan Beker Yousuf, Maru Kering and Toktam Taghavi—and one tenure-track professor, Molla Fentie Mengist, were also let go that day under similar circumstances. Yousuf had worked at VSU for 17 years. Bhardwaj had spent 34 years at the university and taught Howell.

“We have a combined 90 years of service to the Commonwealth,” Temu said. The six professors also brought in $10 million in grant funding this year alone.

None has received written documentation about their termination, according to Temu and the American Association of University Professors, which hosted a press conference about the situation Tuesday.

“We have nothing written that tells us that we have been terminated because of this reason or that reason, because of changing programs or whatever. Nothing. Not an email, not a letter,” Temu said. “We even submitted a [Freedom of Information Act] request for that … and they only gave us copies of our past contracts.”

The AAUP is circulating a petition, calling on the VSU administration to fully restore all six professors with pay, benefits and access to their research facilities and data.

“The University’s refusal to follow its own procedures is a deliberate denial of due process,” the petition states. “If this is allowed to stand, tenure is meaningless at VSU, and it tells every faculty member that job security can be destroyed without cause, without transparency, without governance, and without a hearing.”

Some of the fired faculty members were replaced with “recently hired more junior research scientists who were assigned immediate leadership roles,” according to the petition.

No Signature, No Severance

At the Dec. 16 meeting with the administrators, Temu was given a buyout package and asked to sign it on the spot.

“They said … ‘There is a package here. If you sign it today, you can take it and read it, and if you don’t agree, you have seven days to rescind it. But if we don’t hear from you in seven days, we’ll take that to mean you have accepted it,’” Temu said. “‘But if you don’t sign it, that takes this offer off the table.’”

Temu said he read through the document as quickly as he could. One clause stated that, by attaching his signature, he was affirming that he’d been given ample time to read, understand and consult with an attorney about the buyout. Another page stated he should have 45 days to review and return the package. Neither was honored, and Temu declined to sign.

“They said … ‘OK, so you don’t want it. So you will now have to turn in your office keys and work truck keys to the director, as well as your ID and your computer, and you will be escorted by the VSU police [to your car]. You can reach out to the director later to arrange to get your personal belongings,’” Temu said.

Temu said VSU campus security escorted him to his car and issued him a no-trespass warning, though he was not accused of any misconduct.

“I am not allowed on campus or any VSU property without requesting first and getting authorization,” Temu said. “And if I do, when I come, I have to go first to campus police and get escorted to wherever I want to go.”

A university spokesperson declined to answer questions about the terminations, citing university policy not to comment on individual employment actions.

“However, I can share that Virginia State University recently implemented programmatic adjustments within the College of Agriculture to align academic/research offerings and operations with the University’s strategic priorities,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “The College remains fully operational and continues to provide high-quality instruction, research, and outreach.”

It’s unclear how the programmatic changes at the College of Agriculture clash with Temu’s and the others’ research. “They want to focus on nutraceuticals, agroforestry—which is exactly what I’m doing,” Temu said. “My project is already in agroforestry.”