Murray State University is soon to see the effects of Kentucky HB 490. News staffers Harper Spaulding and Shelby Bloomer discussed the bill and what it could mean to faculty. This two-way audio interview between a host and a reporter was recorded before the state legislature overrode Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto and passed HB 490 into law.
Shelby Bloomer: Hi. This is Shelby Bloomer, a student here at Murray State University. Joining me today is Harper Spaulding, a fellow student and news writer for The Murray State News.
Harper Spaulding: Hello. Happy to be here.
Shelby Bloomer: So you’ve done some recent reporting on Kentucky House Bill 490 for our listeners. Could you give an overview of the bill?
Harper Spaulding: So House Bill 490 was a bill introduced on January 27 of this legislative session seeks to amend Kentucky’s tenure system to allow for universities to fire professors on means of financial emergency or low program enrollment. It was introduced by representatives Aaron Thompson and James Tipton.
Shelby Bloomer: Can you explain for those who may not know what tenure is and why it’s important for professors?
Harper Spaulding: Academic tenure is a system that’s been in place in most universities since about the 1940s. It gives professors that stands for a semi-permanent position in their field following an extended period of probation. It’s meant to kind of give academic freedom prevent professors from being fired for what they research or what they do, and is supposed to ensure a measure of job security in their position.
Shelby Bloomer: I know that Murray State News has spoken about this legislation with some faculty members at Murray State. Where does the university stand on this bill, and how do professors feel about it?
Harper Spaulding: When it comes to House Bill 490, the general opinion among professors and staff that I have talked to has been pretty negative. They seem to see it as kind of an attack against tenure, against their position, and against academic freedom itself. The United Campus Workers of Kentucky came out with a statement after the bill’s introduction, going against it, calling for some protest against it, saying that it would sell academic freedom and sideline shared governance on campuses, and it would focus on cost-cutting rather than student education. So overall, the reception among professors has been rather negative.
Shelby Bloomer: So you’ve mentioned academic freedom. So, how exactly does tenure ensure academic freedom in a university environment?
Harper Spaulding: One of the professors I was talking to, Michelle Panchuk, spoke on this that as a professor, you want to study some topics that might be controversial, that might be rather blase for the university you’re working at, um, tenure gives you the ability to do that without fear of losing your job. With tenure, the university needs specific reason for terminating you, and those reasons can be pretty strict. This new law, however, allows for pretty much any reason, she says, for removing a professor, given that the language of the bill is rather vague when it comes to exact reasons other than financial exigency and low program enrollment. Low program enrollment was also a pretty big talking point, as many of the humanities or smaller departments on campus do face pretty low enrollment while still providing a pretty fundamental curriculum for the university. She said it would be a problem for those departments to get cut as they do provide kind of core curriculum for the university as well.
Shelby Bloomer: So with this new legislation, would this effectively get rid of tenure for professors who already have it, or would it just keep new professors from obtaining tenure in the future?
Harper Spaulding: Professors who already have tenure, or those who are looking to get tenure, wouldn’t affect them directly in that way. They could still keep tenure. It would just open up new avenues for the university to remove that tenure outside of kind of the strict laws already in place regarding that. It would kind of get rid of the job security, the job stability that they were promised as part of tenure by making it easier to remove them.
Shelby Bloomer: So you said that this bill was introduced back in January, and it’s been making its way through the committees. Where does the bill stand now?
Harper Spaulding: On March 27, it passed the Kentucky Senate. It is currently on its way to Governor Beshear’s desk . He is expected to veto it, but with the Republican super majority and the Kentucky Congress, it is also expected that the veto could be overridden and the bill passed into law anyways.
Shelby Bloomer: Would you say that this bill is a particularly Republican backed legislature?
Harper Spaulding: The two sponsors of the bill are Republican. It’s definitely gotten a lot more tracks than among the Republican Party. It passed in the Senate 32 to 6 showing that there is very strong Republican support for the bill.
Shelby Bloomer: What other bills affecting education should listeners know more about?
Harper Spaulding: During this legislative session, House Bill 490 is the main bill. Kind of attacking faculty, tenure and education, though there have been others in past years, others that might be expected to come back a lot, attacking DEI in 2024. Representative Tipton, who sponsored House Bill 490, also sponsored House Bill, 228, which introduced tenure review under strict performance criteria. While that bill did not pass, tenure review has been a continued hot topic among professors and legislators.
Shelby Bloomer: You say that this bill is something that’s kind of been a hot topic in the past before. Why exactly is tenure such a controversial issue?
Harper Spaulding: When it comes to tenure, it kind of connects with a bunch of other attacks against higher education. The status of higher education has become increasingly politicized in recent years, as you have certain narratives about higher education being used for propaganda, or students enrolling into fields that have no real economic output, no real utility. You see a lot of political partisanship, a lot of negative depictions of higher education, especially among the right. So many states, including Kentucky, have introduced bills like this, mostly among the Republican Party, challenging higher education and higher education status as kind of a way to attack other more liberal ideas, liberal leanings, especially among college professors and college students. So it’s part of just an ongoing political controversy and narrative among the right,
Shelby Bloomer: Well, Harper, is there anything else that you would like to bring up about House Bill 490 we have not discussed yet that you think listeners may need to know.
Harper Spaulding: One thing for readers to know is that the United Campus Workers of Kentucky does have a petition out against the bill. It currently has 215 signatures of the 1,000 they are hoping for. You could find more about that on their website.
Shelby Bloomer: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. If anyone listening wants to know more about state legislation, you can visit legislature.kentucky.gov, or you can keep up with reporting from the Murray State News at murraystatenews.org or find them on social media.
