rich 1.0 Action Network https://actionnetwork.org <link href='https://actionnetwork.org/css/style-embed-v3.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><script src='https://actionnetwork.org/widgets/v6/form/petition-for-governor-beshear-to-veto-house-bill-424?format=js&source=widget'></script><div id='can-form-area-petition-for-governor-beshear-to-veto-house-bill-424' style='width: 100%'><!-- this div is the target for our HTML insertion --></div> United Campus Workers of Kentucky: CWA Local 3365 https://actionnetwork.org/groups/united-campus-workers-of-kentucky-cwa-local-3365 https://actionnetwork.org//images/generic_facebook.jpg Dear Governor Beshear, We, the undersigned faculty members at Kentucky’s public universities, along with the administrators, staff, students, and community supporters who have signed this letter in support, urge you to veto House Bill 424. If passed into law, HB 424 would fundamentally weaken Kentucky’s world class public universities by eroding critical protections for tenure and academic freedom. These protections, as Senator Cassie Chambers Armstrong (District 19) argued in a Senate floor speech on March 13, 2025, constitute “the very foundation of free thought in the Commonwealth.” House Bill 424 would erode that foundation, causing incalculable damage to the Commonwealth and its institutions of postsecondary education. As House Bill 424 advanced through Kentucky’s legislature along party-line votes, its primary sponsor, Representative James Tipton (District 53), repeatedly argued that because the word “tenure” is absent from the bill, it is therefore “not about tenure” or academic freedom but merely about “employment contracts.” Nevertheless, the substance of the bill as written grants the governing boards (or, by delegation, University Presidents) of Kentucky’s public universities the power to fire tenured professors who fail to meet unspecified “performance and productivity” criteria established by the boards themselves. Should it become law, HB 424 will grant university governing boards and, at the boards’ discretion, university Presidents, the full authority to determine performance and productivity standards for tenured faculty members, with no guardrails in place to preserve the peer-driven academic review processes that have long protected academic freedom and tenure protections from partisan political interference. Although Representative Tipton’s stated that the aim of this bill is not to weaken tenure or academic freedom but merely to hold faculty, regardless of tenure status, accountable to reasonable standards of employment, like showing up to class on time, teaching necessary courses, and other job duties that contribute to a functioning university, the absence of faculty protections in the bill is deeply concerning, as is the fact that mechanisms to dismiss faculty for the reasons mentioned above already exist in statue. By adding an exclusively board-driven performance and productivity review to the existing avenues by which universities can fire tenured faculty, House Bill 424 will effectively end tenure in all but name at Kentucky's public universities. While faculty at Kentucky’s universities will be the first to experience HB424’s impact, its reach will extend much farther, damaging our universities and the students and communities they serve. Similar attacks on tenure and academic freedom in other states have caused significant reputational damage to the affected universities. In 2022, for instance, the entire University System of Georgia was put under censure by the AAUP after it imposed post-tenure review policies which neglected to prioritize peer-driven evaluation by disciplinary experts in favor of similarly top-down, board-driven assessments. Should Kentucky follow Georgia down this path, such negative publicity would drive many of our universities’ most talented teachers and researchers to seek employment elsewhere, where they will feel confident that they can conduct their teaching and research free of the partisan political interference of government appointed boards. It would likewise lead promising candidates for faculty positions at Kentucky’s state universities–institutions which, in many communities, serve as the region’s economic hub and largest employer–to reconsider offers of employment. We believe that the impact of such “brain drain” on all academic initiatives and on student success will be severe, and we urge you to take action against House Bill 424 in order to prevent this self-inflicted injury to our Commonwealth. For further explanation of the severity of HB424’s impact on academic freedom, please see the attached statements of support we have received from PEN America’s Freedom to Learn team and from the American Association of University Professors. PEN America and AAUP are recognized as two of the leading advocates for free speech, academic freedom, and tenure protections in higher education. Both organizations share our interpretation of HB424 as an attack on tenure, and we urge you to heed their concerns as well as ours as you weigh whether to issue a veto. Sincerely, Dr. Annie Adams, President of the Coalition of Faculty Senate Leadership, KY Dr. Michael Cunningham, President of AAUP, University of Louisville Chapter Dr. Ray Horton, Treasurer of the United Campus Workers of Kentucky Dr. Nancy McKenney, President of AAUP, Kentucky Conference Dr. Jerry Nachtwey, Chair of the United Campus Workers of Kentucky Dr. Karen Petrone, President of AAUP, University of Kentucky Chapter https://actionnetwork.org/forms/petition-for-governor-beshear-to-veto-house-bill-424