Kentucky Senate Passes Bill Allowing Easier Faculty Layoffs

Kentucky public college and university boards would be able to lay off faculty—regardless of tenure—for low enrollment in a major or, more broadly, “misalignment of revenue and costs,” under legislation that has almost passed the General Assembly. And these terminations could happen fast: The legislation only requires 30 days’ notice to the professor so they can defend their job to board members.

The House had passed the legislation in mid-February, but the Senate took no action on House Bill 490 until Tuesday of last week, when Republican leaders suddenly hit the gas on the bill. They repeatedly removed it from and sent it back to the Senate Education Committee, giving it the required official readings on the full Senate floor early to allow it to pass quickly whenever it escaped the committee.

Then, on Thursday, the committee brought out the bill, heard brief comments for and against it, and passed it—all in roughly 15 minutes. During the meeting, two faculty public commenters opposed the bill, saying public higher ed isn’t a business. Republican representative Gex Williams told them, “If it’s not a business then maybe, respectfully, you could take some pay cuts or volunteer your time. It is a business.”

The national presidents of the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers union then issued a joint news release Thursday afternoon urging the full Senate to reject the legislation. They noted governing boards are largely gubernatorial appointees and argued that the bill’s “vagueness leaves the door open for pretextual terminations that would shut down departments and majors, closing doors for students and eliminating their opportunities to learn about a wide variety of topics. It prioritizes profit over education and partisan interests over academic achievement.”

“HB 490 could be weaponized for purposes that have nothing to do with genuine fiscal emergencies,” wrote AAUP president Todd Wolfson and AFT president Randi Weingarten. “It could be invoked to shut down research programs whose findings go against the financial interests of board members, to eliminate academic departments that have become easy ideological targets nationwide, and to silence faculty members whose speech board members dislike.”

But the Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill the next day. Now, if the House approves a minor amendment this week, the legislation can make it to Democratic governor Andy Beshear’s desk in time for the General Assembly’s Republican supermajority to override his veto, if he decides to try to shoot it down. The governor hasn’t said what he plans to do.

It’s another example of a Republican-controlled State Legislature passing bills that could weaken tenure protections and eliminate small degree programs. Last year, Indiana, Ohio and Utah passed laws that push institutions to eliminate programs that graduate few students. Ohio and Kentucky also both passed legislation last year requiring post-tenure review policies at public universities that can lead to faculty firings. Kentucky Republicans also rushed that bill through near the end of the annual regular legislative session and overrode Beshear’s veto.

In a Friday news release, Aaron Thompson, a relatively new state representative and one of HB 490’s two sponsors, said it’s “not about firing faculty—it’s about establishing a clear, fair standard for common sense decisions when institutions face legitimate financial pressures. We’re giving each entity’s board of trustees or regents a tool to help strengthen their ability to educate and serve students.”

But HB 490 does focus on laying off faculty. If it ultimately becomes law, it would add to state law provisions saying an institution’s governing board can remove them “for bona fide financial reasons,” including but not limited to “financial exigency,” “low enrollment in a particular program or major,” or “misalignment of revenue and costs in a particular college, department, program, or major.” 

The AAUP has long recognized financial exigency as a legitimate reason to lay off even tenured faculty. Its seminal 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which it wrote alongside the American Association of Colleges and Universities, says that, after a probationary period, faculty should have “continuous tenure, and their service should be terminated only for adequate cause, except in the case of retirement for age or under extraordinary circumstances because of financial exigencies.”

In a set of related recommendations, the AAUP defines financial exigency as “a severe financial crisis” compromising a whole institution’s “academic integrity” that “cannot be alleviated by less drastic means.” But HB 490 doesn’t define the term and would allow universities to lay off faculty for financial and low-enrollment reasons without ever declaring themselves to be in financial exigency.

Mark Criley, a senior program officer in the AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, said the bill’s “misalignment of revenue” language particularly allows for “pretextual” layoffs. He said it could be used to “punish academic programs that pursue research, explore ideas, get students to study topics that are disfavored, or [are] easy ideological targets.”

But Thompson, the bill sponsor, told Inside Higher Ed his bill’s “language is already being used at some of our universities.” He told the Senate Education Committee that “language in this bill is modeled after Faculty Senate–approved handbook language” at the University of Louisville and Western Kentucky University, and that his bill “makes it consistent across all of our universities.”

What’s Already on the Books

Western Kentucky University’s faculty handbook already includes provisions for laying off faculty due to financial exigency and program discontinuations. But Daniel Clark, chair of WKU’s Faculty Senate and a tenured associate professor, criticized HB 490’s allowance for a university to lay off a professor with as little as 30 days’ notice. 

“There’s certainly nothing in our handbook that says that you can be fired for financial reasons within 30 days,” Clark said, adding that that wouldn’t allow enough time for due process and could further harm faculty recruitment to the commonwealth.

“We should really do our best to keep to AAUP standards of shared governance” and what tenure means, Clark said.

A University of Louisville spokesperson said in an email that “this legislation would require the university to codify” its existing dismissal process. “If HB 490 is enacted, university and faculty leadership will work together to formalize our policy,” the spokesperson wrote.

Gerald Nachtwey, a tenured Eastern Kentucky University professor who also chairs the statewide steering committee for the United Campus Workers of Kentucky, said universities already had many of the powers the bill deals with, but faculty fear it will accelerate layoffs because it gives administrators more legal protections.

“It’s been a slow process and a sort of arduous process” for administrators to lay off tenured faculty or end programs “that they saw as being unprofitable, and this legislation, as it’s worded, is really going to make that process a lot easier,” Nachtwey said.

Asked about the allegations that his bill will lead to political firings, Thompson said universities aren’t “self-governed” and instead are governed by their boards. But he added that HB 490 is “purely focused on the financial aspect of things and fiscal responsibility”—and on ensuring a consistent process that a board ultimately approves.