Gov. Beshear vetoes university performance evaluation bill amid concerns about tenure
Gov. Andy Beshear has vetoed a bill that would have required universities to implement a performance evaluation system, legislation which critics have worried could threaten the role of tenure and professors in Kentucky.
House Bill 424, sponsored by Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, 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.
Beshear said “in a time of increased federal encroachment into the public education,” HB 424 would limit employment protections and academic freedom at higher education institutions in the state.
“Team Kentucky’s goal should be to attract, recruit and retain the best and brightest minds at Kentucky’s universities and colleges,” Beshear said. “One way to do that is to trust our university administrations and faculty to negotiate and offer competitive employment contracts. House Bill 424 does the opposite.”
On Monday, university faculty members from around the state delivered a petition to Beshear, asking him to veto the bill. Organized by the United Campus Workers of Kentucky, the higher education union in the state, and the Kentuckians for Higher Education Coalition, more than 500 people signed the petition, the groups said.
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.
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.”
If the bill becomes law, which could still happen under Kentucky’s Republican supermajority in both chambers, schools would have until Jan. 1, 2026, to establish an evaluation method, and the process would go into effect on July 1, 2026.
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.