MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – UW faculty tenure protections are one step closer to being removed from state law.
A committee of the university’s Board of Regents voted in Milwaukee Thursday to endorse a budget measure from the legislative finance panel to move the issue of tenure to the UW Regents.
One of the regents, state school Superintendent Tony Evers, tried but failed to get the committee to suggest that non-fiscal items like tenure be removed from the final state budget this month.
Instead, the UW committee endorsed a proposal by Regent Gerald Whitburn to create a task force to consider a layoff policy for faculty, as part of the university’s new tenure policy. The full board is expected to take it up Friday.
Hundreds of UW professors have signed petitions opposing the change. They said losing tenure would cause them to lose the freedom to express ideas.
About a dozen faculty carried protests signs and wore blue tape over their mouths to show how they could be silenced without tenure.
Madison professor David Vanness drew loud applause when he told the regents’ committee that the “whole world is watching” to see what happens to Wisconsin’s long standing faculty tenure.
(Story courtesy of Wheeler News Service)
