‘No guard rails’: KY university performance evaluation bill passes despite tenure concerns
A bill requiring public colleges and universities to implement a performance evaluation system — which critics have said could threaten the role of tenure in Kentucky — received final passage Thursday.
House Bill 424, sponsored by Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, passed in the Senate on Thursday evening and now goes to Gov. Andy Beshear.
The bill would require public university presidents and faculty members to undergo a performance evaluation at least once every four years. It gives schools the ability to fire employees who fail to meet “performance and productivity” standards, and applies to all public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System.
Critics of the bill — many of them university professors — have said they worry the bill could put tenure promotion and the jobs of tenured faculty at risk in Kentucky, and say it could make recruiting new university faculty to the state more difficult.
The bill passed 30-7 in the Senate, with six Democrats and Sen. Rick Girdler, R-Somerset, voting against it.
Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, spoke against the bill. An assistant professor at the University of Louisville, Chambers Armstrong said there are already existing evaluation systems at universities, and allowing governing boards to set those standards threatens academic freedom with “no guard rails.”
“The reason that this is a big deal is because these boards are inherently political organizations that are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the members of this body,” Chambers Armstrong said. “All of our board members that I know of are wonderful, well-acting folks, but there are no guard rails in this legislation that require that the policies or procedures that they set actually be tied to an employee’s employment contract or to their work obligations.”
An amendment proposed by Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, would have added specifics related to employee’s job criteria to the evaluations. Many professors were in favor of the amendment and said it added protections to tenure, but the amendment didn’t pass.
Chambers Armstrong said this “leaves open the door that this can be used to ill intent.”
“I hope that no one will abuse this system or this law, but the way it’s written, there is a huge, gaping hole that threatens the very foundation of free thought in the Commonwealth, and for that reason, I will vote no,” Chambers Armstrong said.
Tipton has repeatedly said the bill is “not about tenure,” but about giving universities the ability to remove under-performing employees. Tipton introduced similar legislation last year, but the bill did not pass out of the House Education Committee.
“We have a lot of great faculty members at our public institutions across the state, but unfortunately, sometimes in every institution, we may have individuals who are not doing the job they need to do,” Tipton said at a House Postsecondary Education Committee meeting last month.
“There may be reasons it’s in the best benefit of the university to be able to remove an individual,” he said. “This sets up a process about how this would work.”
What is tenure?
Receiving tenure is a lengthy — sometimes yearslong — process for faculty, designed to help protect faculty’s academic freedom. Tenure allows faculty “to pursue research and innovation and draw evidence-based conclusions free from corporate or political pressure,” according to the American Association of University Professors.
Tenure is an indefinite appointment at universities, meaning tenured employees can be terminated only for cause or under specific circumstances.
Bills that could impact tenure have been introduced in seven states this year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education: Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Texas.
If the bill becomes law, schools would have until Jan. 1, 2026, to establish an evaluation method, and the process would go into effect on July 1, 2026.