Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said he wants to end professor tenure for new hires at Texas public universities and colleges.
At a press conference on February 18, Patrick said he intends to introduce bills during the next legislative session that would make it more difficult for professors to attain tenure.
Tenure essentially guarantees lifetime job security for professors. Tenured professors can only be fired under extreme circumstances such as program cancellation or financial constraints. They are guaranteed academic freedom and freedom of speech no matter how controversial or nontraditional their research or teachings are.
Every institution for higher education has unique requirements for how professors can be granted tenure. According to federal data, around 53% of full-time faculty members at UT Austin are tenured.
Patrick said he wants to end the practice of granting tenure to stop what he called “indoctrination” through the teaching of critical race theory.
Critical race theory (CRT) is a university-level discipline that examines how race and racism intersect with the legal structures of the United States. Conservative lawmakers across the country have shown extreme opposition to the educational framework. Last year, Governor Greg Abbott signed House Bill 3979 into law, limiting how race, slavery, and history can be taught in K-12 classrooms.
“Go to a private school, let them raise their own funds to teach, but we’re not going to fund them,” said Patrick. “I’m not going to pay for that nonsense.”
Patrick is currently running for reelection. He also said he intends to propose a bill that would revoke tenure from professors who already have it if they teach CRT. As lieutenant governor, Patrick is the head of the state senate, meaning he can influence what legislative agenda gets advanced during congressional sessions.
Patrick also stated his proposals have the support of state Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe), who is the chairman of the Senate Higher Education Committee.
The Lieutenant Governor’s press conference came after UT Austin faculty passed a resolution on February 14 that affirmed educators’ freedom to teach about racial justice issues, including CRT.
The resolution noted that some legislators have sought to limit the “academic discussions of racism and related issues” because they believe those discussions “would be ‘divisive,’ suggest ‘blame,’ or cause ‘psychological distress.'”
The UT Austin faculty continued by saying that opponents of those types of teachings “fail to recognize that these criteria chill the capacity of educators to exercise their academic freedom and use their expertise to make determinations regarding content and discussions that will serve educational purposes.”
One day after the resolution’s passage, Patrick let his displeasure be known on Twitter.
“I will not stand by and let looney Marxist UT professors poison the minds of young students with Critical Race Theory,” Patrick tweeted. “We banned it in publicly funded K-12, and we will ban it in publicly funded higher ed. That’s why we created the Liberty Institute at UT.”
The Liberty Institute is a conservative-backed center still in the planning stages at UT Austin. According to the school, the institute will be “dedicated to the study and teaching of individual liberty, limited government, private enterprise, and free markets.”
Some UT Austin faculty were unhappy with Patrick’s indication that he had a role in creating the institute, saying it contradicts what school officials have stated.
“We were told that the idea for the institute originated with faculty on campus,” said Domino Perez, the president of UT Austin’s Faculty Council.
“Either the Lieutenant Governor is just speaking out of school, or he’s reinforcing the very narrative that has provoked individual concerns,” Texas law professor Steve Vladeck told The Texas Tribune.
Now, Patrick’s threats to go after professor tenure have drawn even further concern from academics.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this egregious. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Irene Mulvey, the American Association of University Professors’ president.
“For someone who’s been a proponent of limited government, it’s really laughable. Now he wants to put the heavy hand of the government into a classroom,” Mulvey added.
Michael Harris, a professor at Southern Methodist University who studies higher education, said ending tenure would lead to an exodus of talented professors leaving the state.
“Your top-tier talent has lots of options,” Harris said. “And if you hurt your ability to hire the best, you’re not going to do that. I guarantee you there are university leaders across the country that are making a shopping list of who they’re going to try to steal from the University of Texas if this goes through.”
Texas Faculty Association President Pat Heintzelman released a statement in response saying that the academic freedom tenure provides a professor is an essential part of “the process of helping students develop the critical thinking skills they will need for future success.”
“Patrick is continuing his attack on education, which began with the public schools and, if not stopped, will undermine Texas’ future,” Heintzelman wrote.
However, Patrick insists professors need to be held accountable. He also suggested that tenured professors be reviewed annually to determine if there is cause for their tenure to be revoked.
“They don’t understand that we in the Legislature represent the people of Texas,” Patrick said. “We are those who distribute taxpayer dollars. We are the ones who pay their salaries. Parents are the ones who pay tuition. Of course, we’re going to have a say in what the curriculum is.”
