Academic non-profit calls Emporia State layoffs an 'assault on tenure and academic freedom'

EMPORIA (KSNT)- Four professors who lost their jobs as part of Emporia State University's recent workforce restructuring were set to be reinstated. On Tuesday night, the university instead put them on administrative leave and told them to vacate their offices.

Next week, the American Association of University Professors is expected to decide whether Emporia State should be placed on its censure list, which would name it among the 58 worst-run colleges in the country. This comes after the non-profit published an investigative report on the university's termination 30 tenured and tenure-track professors.

“It means that they would be unable to recruit faculty of quality. Nobody of any quality will want to come to Emporia State and serve as a faculty member," AAUP Co-Chair Ron Barrett-Gonzalez said. "Good faculty members will tend to leave, and then they will have a difficult time recruiting good students because if you have no good quality faculty, why would students want to come there?”

Barrett-Gonzalez said while the university's decision to terminate the professors is confusing, the way the professors were terminated brings up its biggest questions.

“Being called to dark rooms on the corners of campus, going through locked doors set in rooms alone except for a police officer and then dismissed as if they had committed some sort of crime.” Barrett-Gonzalez said.

Four of the terminated professors won their appeals, and the Office of Administrative Hearings directed ESU to reinstate them. However, after reinstatement, ESU filed a petition with the court to review the case.

Max McCoy is a tenured professor who is set to lose his job at the end of the semester. He's been outspoken about his termination.

“We appealed under the system that the university set up. We followed it to the letter, and in the case of four individuals so far, they have had their appeals confirmed. They have been reinstated, yet they must now personally face a suit in district court?” McCoy said.

As an ESU graduate, McCoy said and other alumni are worried the workforce restructure will forever tarnish their degrees.

“As an alumni, I am worried about the reputation of Emporia State. If the university is censured by the AAUP, this will really be a black eye for the university. It’s heartbreaking really because so many of us have given so much of our lives to Emporia State.” says McCoy.

The AAUP is expected to decide whether to censure Emporia State after they meet next week, but one member of the organization says the move the university made Tuesday night will almost certainly put them on the list.

Emporia State referred 27 News to a written statement when asked for a response to this investigation:

Emporia State University does not agree with the report published by AAUP. ESU is committed to moving forward with strategic reinvestments that deliver elevated, best-in-class programs to today’s students and will ultimately benefit Kansas families and the Kansas workforce.

Gwen Larson, Emporia State University Director of Media Relations