Texas layoffs shady: report

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston and the University of Texas System (UTS) violated established and widely accepted guidelines on academic freedom and tenure when it laid off more than 2,400 faculty and staff in the wake of 2008's Hurricane Ike, according to a linkurl:report;http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/C0EC99D4-04EB-419D-8614-5541817D4972/0/UTMBReport.pdf released today by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

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More than 120 faculty members, 43 of whom were tenured or tenure-track, linkurl:fell under the axe;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55187/ in late 2008, after Ike ripped through UTMB's island campus, visiting destruction on hospitals, labs, and teaching facilities. Administrators at the UTS declared financial exigency, claiming that the hurricane damage put the facility in such dire economic straits that severe cuts to the faculty were necessary for it to remain solvent. Critics have claimed that the declaration of financial exigency and decisions about who and where to cut the faculty were made behind closed doors with no broad-scale faculty input. UTMB administrators may have been justified in declaring financial exigency when the hurricane hit, the AAUP's Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland told __The Scientist__. "But in a remarkably short time, monies were found, facilities were put back into operation, the worst case scenario never really materialized, and by the end of the winter, they were already hiring new people." Kurland, who supervised the staffing of the investigative committee that compiled the report, stressed this last point -- the UTMB's hiring of new faculty members mere months after firing others -- as a key disappointment to the AAUP. "Those in charge took advantage of the 'flexibility' that had come from the initial lay-offs to move as soon as it was clear to do so to engage new people who would best meet current desires at the medical branch." The UTS responded to the findings of a preliminary AAUP report in a letter from Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs linkurl:Kenneth Shine;http://www.utsystem.edu/hea/shinebiography.htm and Vice Chancellor and General Counsel linkurl:Barry Burgdorf,;http://www.utsystem.edu/Ogc/vicechancellor.htm both of whom have been involved in quelling the ensuing dust up over the firings at UTMB. "To broadly condemn UTS's commitment to tenure based on this one-sided report concerning the handling of an extraordinary once in a lifetime crisis is at best irresponsible," the two wrote. Asked if the UTS would respond to the final report, a UTS spokesperson said "the UT System has no additional comment beyond what we stated in our formal response to the AAUP." Overall, Kurland said that the report called into question "whether it was really necessary to lay-off permanently a relatively small number of tenured faculty members," especially since the University of Texas System is "one of the wealthiest systems in the land." UTMB administrators, Kurland continued, gave priority to new hires, with external grants or the potential to will such grants, placing an "emphasis on making and favoring appointments that would pay for themselves and produce revenue in the long run." Kurland added that the UTS's system for deciding on when financial exigency can be declared and how and where faculty cuts should be made were "minimal compared to the way you'll find it at other major universities. It was a disappointment," he said. The question now is whether or not the AAUP's report will land UTMB on the association's "censure list," which includes more than 45 institutions that ran afoul of standard guidelines regarding academic freedom or tenure issues. The AAUP's Committee A, which authorized publication of the report in the linkurl:__Bulletin of the AAUP__;http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/ and on the organization's linkurl:website,;http://www.aaup.org/aaup will meet in early June, before the AAUP's annual meeting in the middle of the month. Committee members will formalize a statement about the report to present at the meeting and may choose to impose censure, according to Kurland. The committee could also choose to recommend that the body forgo censure until the organization's next annual meeting in 2011, giving the UTS time to make improvements that might keep UTMB off the censure list. "It's not a done deal," Kurland said, adding that he's not sure what the committee will decide in June. Kurland said that staying off the AAUP's censure list is largely in the hands of administrators at the UTS. He noted that changing the policies that seem to have failed UTMB faculty in the wake of Ike and continuing to deal with laid-off faculty -- for example recalling them or inviting them back -- "would be a consideration as well." The letter from Shine and Burgdorf mentioned that a UTS committee was convened to look into improving the system's financial exigency policies. "That committee has finished its work and has recommended changes to enhance the role of faculty and faculty governance at all stages of a financial exigency and has proposed revisions to ensure the transparency of the process," Shine and Burgdorf wrote. The UTS declined to elaborate on what measures it may be taking to improve policies at its Texas institutions and how these changes may land it back in the good graces of the AAUP. Several calls and emails to members of the AAUP's Committee A, to the authors of the AAUP report, and to attorneys involved in the UTMB case were not returned as of press time. __Editor's Note (03/03/2010): A UTS spokesperson pointed out to __The Scientist__ that the letter written by Shine and Burgdorf does mention plans to revise existing UTS financial exigency policies. The original version of this story has been amended to reflect this fact. __The Scientist__ regrets the oversight.__
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[23rd June 2009]*linkurl:Texas school under investigation;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55747/
[1st June 2009]*linkurl:Texas med center to lay off 3,800;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55187/
[13th November 2008]