Professors Remain Defiant as Conservative States Move to Restrict Tenure

Legislation remains in at least four Southern states taking aim at 'woke' ideology

Students sit on the steps of Wilson Library on the campus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 20, 2018. (Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

Professors in North Carolina and other red states are lashing out against bills moving through Republican-led legislatures that would remove or weaken academic tenure and counter divisive political ideology.

Hundreds of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) professors signed a letter published on April 24 in the university’s student newspaper opposing a tenure bill and another bill requiring the teaching of the Constitution and America’s founding.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, 673 professors who complained that the bills violated their “academic freedom” and constituted government overreach signed the letter.

“Woke” university policies and teaching is commanding increasing attention in conservative states where critics say colleges have been taken over by social justice ideologies that stifle education.

Protestors angry about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's vigorous "anti-woke" initiatives pose for a photo at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee on March 13, 2023. (Dan M.Berger/The Epoch Times)

In particular, conservative states have gone after benign-sounding Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies and Critical Race Theory (CRT), which critics say is a form of Neo-Marxism.

Conservatives argue that these race-based discriminatory policies targeting whites and anti-American political theories are embedded in DEI practices and university classes.

North Carolina, Texas, Florida, and Louisiana are also moving bills on restricting or removing tenure from higher education institutes.

Proponents say universities are about the free exchange of ideas and professors should be free to teach what they want.

However, most colleges and universities employ professors and faculty who are liberal or even openly communist and hostile toward the United States.

Antifa members and counter-protesters gather during a rightwing No-To-Marxism rally on Aug. 27, 2017, at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Berkeley, California. (Amy Osborne/AFP/Getty Images)

A recent Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) survey of 1,491 professors at four-year U.S. colleges and universities found that 54 percent of professors identify as liberal, 17 percent as moderate, and 26 percent as conservative.

FIRE’s report said pressure from students and staff increasingly led to “hard authoritarianism” in institutions censoring or disciplining a scholar for his or her viewpoint.

North Carolina’s House Bill 715 would eliminate tenure at UNC and its affiliated campuses, establish minimum class sizes, and require colleges to report “all non-instructional research performed by higher education personnel at the institution.”

State-approved courses are not currently required in North Carolina colleges and universities.

HB 96 would change that by requiring students to earn three credit hours of instruction in American History or American Government to graduate from The University of North Carolina system or community college.

The NC Chapel Hill professors called teaching about the founding documents and Constitution “ideological force-feeding.”

This isn’t the first effort from North Carolina conservatives to push back against liberal universities.

Students and protesters surround a plinth where the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier nicknamed Silent Sam once stood on the University of North Carolina campus after a demonstration for its removal in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Aug. 20, 2018. (Jonathan Drake/Reuters)

In January, the board of trustees for UNC-Chapel Hill voted unanimously for the university administration to accelerate its development of a School of Civic Life and Leadership (pdf).

The school would feature for-credit courses on history, literature, and political science from diverse viewpoints and offer “freedom of expression, intellectual diversity and open inquiry,” according to the  American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

The proposal sparked outrage from UNC faculty, who huffed that it is their responsibility to determine the curriculum—which illustrated the conservative viewpoint as to why the new school is needed.

Texas and Florida political leaders are also in a showdown with academia in their states.

Travis Ballie holds a sign in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 10, 2012, in Washington, during arguments for and against affirmative action in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas (UT) at Austin. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

In February 2022, in response to CRT bans in Texas and nationwide for K-12, the University of Texas at Austin Faculty Council challenged anyone to stop them from teaching CRT.

The council passed a resolution stating it will stand against any future intrusions on faculty authority by the Texas Legislature or UT System Board of Regents.

Since then, Texas lawmakers have been building support to outlaw DEI and CRT at the college level.

Earlier this year, Gov. Greg Abbott notified Texas universities that DEI policies used to hire minorities to the detriment of white candidates were illegal, race-based discrimination.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick speaks at a press conference at the state capitol in Austin, Texas, on June 16, 2021. (Mei Zhong/The Epoch Times)

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, has been an outspoken critic of universities adopting CRT and DEI for over a year, vowing legislation to stop it.

“When you are teaching our students that America is evil, and capitalism is bad, I’m sorry, that will destroy our country long term,” he said in January. “We’re going to push for it.”

Texas Senate Bill 18 passed 18-11 last week, mainly along party lines, that would bar schools from granting tenure to newly hired professors.

Likewise, Texas SB 16 would ban DEI and CRT in higher education and is still being considered in the Senate.

But the tenure bill could see an uphill battle in the Texas House, where Republican Speaker Dade Phelan, who has come under fire from conservatives for giving chairmanships to Democrats, has expressed skepticism about eliminating tenure.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has waged war on “woke” that has outlawed CRT in the workplace and K-12 schools.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs the "Stop Woke Bill" in Hialeah Gardens, Fla., on April 22, 2022. (The Florida Channel/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

In January, he shook academia to its core when he demanded that universities account for DEI expenditures and announced a conservative takeover of New College of Florida.

Those moves came days after The Epoch Times reported university student complaints of an anti-American, anti-white, anti-Christian campus environment at a major Florida university.

DeSantis championed a plan to turn the liberal, failing New College into a model of classical education. He appointed conservatives to the board, which hired a conservative university president to remake the college.

New College of Florida trustees, now dominated by conservatives, voted to deny tenure to five professors this week.

Shouts from the audience of “Shame on you!” came after the vote. New College professor Matthew Lepinski, a holdover trustee not appointed by DeSantis, quit the board after the vote and walked out of the room.

Christopher Rufo, who exposed CRT in schools, was appointed to the New College board. (Courtesy of Christopher Rufo)

House Bill 999 and a similar Senate Bill 266 (pdf) are an extension of those efforts. The bills, which are moving through the chambers, would ban any funding for (DEI) initiatives at Florida institutions, take faculty hiring out of faculty hands, and give governing boards the power to review the tenure status of college faculty under certain conditions. The Florida Senate is eying similar legislation in SB 266.

Louisiana is considering SB 174, introduced by Sen. Stewart Cathey, who told news outlets some professors abuse tenure.

The bill puts some stipulations on tenure but does not remove it.

“I feel like there is degradation of the collegiate experience, and a lot of it has to do with the political activities of professors,” Cathay told Higher Ed Dive.

Meanwhile, local Louisiana publications quoted professors as worrying that restricting tenure would irreparably harm higher education in Louisiana.

AP contributed to this report.