This petition challenges serious violations of public sector workers’ due process rights, shared governance, attacks on academic freedom and academic integrity at a public HBCU.

On December 16, 2025, Dr. Harbans L. Bhardwaj, Dr. Adnan Beker Yousuf, Dr. Vitalis W. Temu, Dr. Maru K. Kering, Dr. Toktam Taghavi, and Dr. Molla Fentie Mengist were abruptly removed from Virginia State University’s Agricultural Research Station (ARS) without cause and without the basic procedural protections that tenure, VSU’s Severance Policy, Administrative Procedures Manual (APM 15) on termination of tenured and tenure track faculty, the Termination Authority Policy of August 1, 1998 as reviewed September 1, 2000 and policies of the Faculty Handbook guarantee.

That day, they were called individually into meetings framed as discussions about ARS transformational efforts, then told their research programs were being sunset and their employment was ending immediately. They were given no meaningful notice, no written grounds for termination, and no formal hearing. They were pressured to sign severance agreements on the spot without adequate time to review the documents or consult legal counsel and warned that refusal would mean forfeiting any severance. When they declined, they were escorted off campus by university police, required to surrender IDs, keys, and equipment, and issued trespass warnings despite no misconduct. The fact that some of the tenured ARS faculty terminated were replaced with recently hired more junior research scientists who were assigned immediate leadership roles, is also concerning.

The harm is immediate and severe. Collectively, they represent decades of service to VSU, including more than thirty years in some cases, and their work supports applied agricultural research, student mentorship, and community serving programs central to VSU’s land grant mission. Locking researchers out of labs, offices, and data disrupts ongoing projects and collaborations, jeopardizes grant obligations, harms students and partners, and inflicts serious reputational damages.

The VSU college of agriculture leadership had previously communicated that ARS transformation would be phased and respectful, with realignment of faculty to systems research and exploration of new directions, yet the December 16 removals contradicted those commitments and violated widely accepted standards and norms for program discontinuation and changes. Internal appeals were filed on December 19, 2025 within the handbook deadlines. As of February 19, 2026, the Faculty Senate has engaged only to gather information regarding the December 16 removals, listening to the affected faculty members’ accounts and collecting background materials, but no formal action has been initiated under the established appeals procedures. The University’s refusal to follow its own procedures is a deliberate denial of due process. If this is allowed to stand, tenure is meaningless at VSU, and it tells every faculty member that job security can be destroyed without cause, without transparency, without governance, and without a hearing. Virginia State University is currently the only Virginia institution on the AAUP censure list for violation of tenure rights.

Sign this petition to demand reinstatement and accountability.

Individual signatories will be made public once a majority of faculty at Virginia State University have signed.

This petition addresses matters of public concern and signature is legally protected from any retaliation or adverse employment actions according to U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), and Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri, 564 U.S. 379 (2011).