A Kentucky Senate committee approved a bill Monday that would provide another way for public universities to fire tenured professors, after defeating a Democrat’s attempt to amend the bill.
House Bill 424 already cleared the opposite chamber by a party-line vote, and could make its way to the governor’s desk by Thursday if the full Senate passes the bill.
Sponsored by GOP state Rep. James Tipton of Taylorsville, HB 424 would require university presidents and faculty members to have performance and productivity evaluations at least once every four years, using a process approved by each college’s board. Under the bill, failure to meet the performance and productivity standards may result in removal “regardless of status.”
This would add one path to the firing of any tenured professor, as state law already allows universities to remove any professor for “incompetency, neglect of or refusal to perform his duty, or for immoral conduct.”
Tipton says the bill is needed because current law limits universities from firing professors who aren’t meeting the expectations of their jobs. It is not an attempt to limit academic freedom, he said.
“It does not protect faculty members from not showing up to work on time, from refusing to teach an online class or refusing to teach an in person class,” Tipton said. “And that's the gist of what I wanted to get to with this performance and productivity review.”
The evaluation process of each board must be established and provided to all faculty members by the beginning of 2026 and become effective that July. Neither the bill nor existing Kentucky statutes make a specific reference to tenure.
Democratic Sen. Gerald Neal of Louisville attempted to pass a last-minute committee substitute to HB 424, which would have added a line stipulating the measure used to evaluate performance must relate directly to the responsibilities stipulated within their employment contract.
Ray Horton, an associate professor of English at Murray State — and member of the United Campus Workers of Kentucky, which is organizing against the bill — said the amendment would safeguard against faculty being judged by criteria outside the scope of their job.
“I'm an English professor, I'm evaluated very differently than a physics professor, very differently than a med school professor,” Horton said. “This just keeps the evaluation strictly to the employment contracts.”
Horton added the amendment would ensure that standards for evaluation remain anchored to contracts no matter what party is in power, “so that there can't be any imposition of any arbitrary evaluation or even unintended evaluation that isn't germane to their employment.”
Tipton was not in favor of the amendment, noting that he was told that at least one university did not have contracts with faculty, but instead had letters of employment.
Republican Sen. Gex Williams of Verona added that university boards do not typically sign employment contracts for faculty members, so Neal’s proposed version may have removed the power intended for boards in Tipton’s bill.
Republican committee members voted down Neal’s proposed committee substitute, followed by every member of the committee voting to advance HB 424.
The full Senate could pass HB 424 as early as Thursday, which is the second to last day of the 2025 legislative session before the governor’s veto period begins. Any veto from Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear during the veto period can receive an override with just a majority vote by the Republican-dominated General Assembly.
Legislatures in other states across the country have already pushed or successfully passed legislation to weaken or outright eliminate tenure. According to Inside Higher Ed, such proposals have popped up in at least 10 states in the last couple of years, with Florida essentially eliminating tenure protections.
Reporter Sylvia Goodman contributed to this story.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
