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).
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...
Interested in reading more?
Become a Member of
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!