Story by Lilly Behbehani
Photos by Ally Rabon
When the debate about tenure first began, Mark McNeilly, a professor with conservative views at UNC-Chapel Hill, wrote a column arguing the benefits of the tenure system.
“Conservatives have to think about who the first people that are going to be gone if they get rid of tenure,” he said in an interview. “If conservative legislators want to make sure that there are still some conservative faculty on campuses, then it doesn’t make sense for them to remove tenure.”
His position, outlined in a column for the James G. Martin Center, may surprise some people in light of the efforts nationally of conservatives to limit or remove the tenure system in higher education.
In academia, essentially, an instructor with tenure can only be terminated for cause or in case of financial exigency.
Last spring, Republicans introduced House Bill 715 to remove tenure for faculty members at UNC system schools and community colleges hired after June 1, 2024. Instead, tenure would be replaced with at-will employees or employees working under one-to-four-year contracts.
The bill didn’t make it out of committee, but it has created debate in legislative and academic circles. At UNC-Chapel Hill, the debate breaks down into three areas: academic freedom; faculty recruitment; and the business model case.
Academic Freedom
Conservative faculty are significantly more likely to self-censor in all settings compared to their liberal colleagues, according to a survey of faculty opinions on free speech and expression by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit that focuses on protecting free speech rights on college campuses.
Of non-tenured conservative faculty surveyed, 72% reported being “somewhat” or “very” worried about losing their job or harming their reputation because of misunderstandings over something they said or did, statements taken out of context, or online posts from their past.
McNeilly, professor of the practice at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, said that even though he isn’t protected like a tenured professor, he has expressed opinions about the news, landing him the label of an outspoken conservative among his colleagues and even praise from tenured ones.
“The few conservative faculty that are there who have outed themselves and are willing to speak up will be the first ones gone,” he said.
However, Marty Kotis, a member of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees, doesn’t agree with the argument that removing tenure would threaten academic freedom: “I just don’t think it really holds up.”
“I haven’t heard of anyone, non-tenured, graduate students or adjuncts, being terminated over academic freedom issues,” he said in an interview. “If someone is terminated for their views unjustly, they likely would file a suit saying they were unjustly terminated.”
Termination might not be the sole concern, however, with some faculty members censoring themselves to prevent the possibility of putting their jobs at risk.
Michael Palm is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and is tenured. He said he feels protected to be able to speak out on issues, such as faculty rights and campus governance at UNC.
“I feel like it’s my obligation to be vocal on issues that a lot of my colleagues, both faculty and staff at UNC, don’t feel like that they’re able to speak out on publicly because they don’t have the job security that comes with tenure,” he said.
For faculty without tenure, colleagues sometimes advise that they remain silent and look interested in faculty meetings to prevent any risk to their jobs, said a teaching professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Science who requested to remain anonymous.
“When I first started here, I was intimidated by some of the individuals,” the teaching professor said. “I would think, ‘I’m not going to say anything, even though I think something, I’m not going to say something because I don’t feel comfortable in that space and I don’t want to make enemies.’”
Retaining Professors and Top-Heavy Departments
The Trustee Policies and Regulations Governing Academic Tenure in the UNC-Chapel Hill states that the “protections of academic tenure to faculty members are to secure their freedom and to aid this university in attracting and retaining faculty members of the high quality it seeks.”
Critics of tenure say it also creates top-heavy departments.
As student academic interests change, departments might experience a decrease in the number of students in their courses. But, the tenure system doesn’t allow administrators to move teaching resources or reallocate resources like salaries to the departments with more students.
“It creates a disparity that we wouldn’t have in a system without tenure,” Kotis said.
McNeilly, however, said removing tenure could also remove incentives to attract someone to UNC who is on a tenure track at another state, especially if they would lose their ensured academic freedoms and job security received through tenure.
“I think the efforts that are ongoing to make UNC a hostile work environment for progressive faculty is underway and has already been successful to a large degree,” Palm said. “Don’t be surprised when more and more progressive faculty, and particularly faculty of color, continue to seek and find employment elsewhere.”
Palm believes such attempts to remove freedoms make UNC look less attractive as more faculty consider leaving the university not only because of attacks on tenure, but because of a variety of restrictions to the freedom and autonomy of faculty at UNC.
An American Association of University Professors survey found 20% of respondents in North Carolina said they have interviewed for other teaching jobs since 2021. More than 86% of those respondents said they were applying outside of the increasingly red-leaning south or southeast with Republican majority governments.
Out-of-Touch with Private Sector
Kotis has voted against awarding tenure since 2013 as a member of the Board of Governors for UNC-Chapel Hill before joining the school’s Board of Trustees in 2021. He said he believes a tenure system is not necessary in the academic field as it binds employees to their employers.
“The concept of tenure or lifetime employment doesn’t exist in the private sector,” he said. “It creates a bit of a challenge in the education sector, because it’s harder to respond to student demand or consumer demand.”
Chris Kirkman has been an adjunct instructor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media for 15 years. He is unable to get tenure because he doesn’t have a masters degree.
“I don’t feel that it’s fair that you need a masters degree to get tenure at UNC,” he said, “I wasn’t getting a master’s degree because I was working, I was in the field. I feel like being in the field is commensurate for a master’s degree.”
Palm said working conditions at a public research institution like UNC should not be compared to the private sector: “I don’t think the labor policies need to reveal that. I don’t know that that is necessarily a model that we want to aspire to for the labor politics of the university.”
Tenured faculty undergo a job evaluation every five years. Palm said it’s a common misconception that once faculty get tenure, they’re able to stop contributing to the department.
“It’s actually the reverse, where once you get tenure, you’re usually asked to take on more and more service work for your department and for the university by serving on committees and taking on administrative and leadership positions,” he said.
The House bill is likely to come up again next year. McNeilly cautioned against changing the system.
“We have these traditions, we have norms, we have laws and after a while, we think, what is that thing there? Let’s just get rid of it,” McNeilly said. “Go ahead and think about getting rid of it. But think about why it was put there in the first place and what would happen if it was removed.”
