Tenure in higher education isn’t some cozy perk faculty get for free. It’s the framework that keeps academic freedom from turning into a slogan.
Tenure changes spread across multiple states
What’s happening now, according to Misryoum newsroom reporting, is a wave of efforts—legislative and executive—aimed at loosening or removing the procedural guardrails tenure is supposed to guarantee.
In Tennessee, a proposed bill is awaiting Governor Bill Lee’s signature.
If it’s signed, tenured professors at the state’s public colleges and universities could lose their jobs based on a single official’s decision, with no contractual protections.
The changes, if enacted, would take effect July 1.
Oklahoma’s direction has already moved ahead.
Misryoum newsroom reported that Governor Kevin Stitt signed an executive order in February eliminating tenure at regional universities and community colleges across the state.
Legislators are now advancing a bill to extend that ban to research universities.
North Dakota’s tenure protections, meanwhile, have faced sustained legislative assault for years. Lawmakers have repeatedly advanced bills intended to concentrate termination authority in administrators while stripping committee review from the process.
And in late March, Misryoum newsroom reported the Kentucky Senate passed a bill that would allow university governing boards to terminate tenured faculty for low enrollment or “misalignment of revenue and costs,” with just 30 days’ notice.
The details differ from state to state, but the underlying message—administrative power gets to expand, procedural accountability gets to shrink—keeps showing up.
Why the chilling effect matters in the classroom
Tennessee’s proposal, Misryoum editorial team stated, has an unusually explicit mechanism: a faculty member facing termination would be entitled only to written notice and a hearing before the terminating administrator.
That “only” matters.
It functions like a statutory ceiling, actively stripping away peer review and any other institutional policy, contractual provision or professional standard that might otherwise apply.
The bill’s sponsor, State Senator Adam Lowe, said the legislation “addresses those who might use tenure as insulation from actions that are
detrimental to the brand and code of conduct for the college.” Misryoum analysis indicates that word “brand” does a lot more than tidy up messaging.
Academic freedom was built to protect faculty from institutional pressure to align scholarship, teaching and public speech with what administrators find convenient.
For a sense of how faculty read this, Misryoum newsroom reporting points to Pellissippi State Community College, where a faculty senate voted to oppose the bill—unanimously—as faculty unified around the idea that peer review is the thing that keeps the process honest, not just fair in theory.
The moment is almost ordinary: someone rolls open a classroom door and you can hear the echo of chairs scraping, like the semester hasn’t changed, even as policy threatens to.
This is where the consequences start to get messy.
The Tennessee Divisive Concepts Act expanded to higher education in 2023, and faculty across the state began assessing syllabi, seminar discussions and public statements against a law threatening complaint, investigation and unspecified corrective action.
No terminations were necessary for the threat to land.
Misryoum editorial desk noted that the possibility was enough—so now, where due process can’t be relied on, professionals may “calibrate” behavior the same way.
A professor who knows a single administrator could end a career based on undefined “misconduct,” with no obligation to meet an evidentiary standard, may hesitate before publishing research, challenging institutional direction or speaking plainly on matters of public concern.
That’s the structural logic of the chilling effect.
The possibility does the work.
Misryoum newsroom reported that even Tennessee’s own record sharpens the contradiction: a state that championed free speech is stripping protections that make it possible.
The Campus Free Speech Act of 2017 established that the free exchange of ideas, “offensive, unwise, immoral, indecent, disagreeable, conservative, liberal, traditional, radical, or wrong-headed,” is the essential purpose of its public campuses.
The new bill, as described in Misryoum reporting, ensures a professor’s exercise of that free exchange can be grounds for termination at an executive’s discretion—with no meaningful procedural check on whether the motivation was ideological.
It’s not hard to see why faculty governance leaders are warning that the fight doesn’t end when a bill is signed—because the bill’s own text, Misryoum editorial team stated, contains leverage.
Its preamble says “academic tenure serves as an important safeguard for academic freedom, the advancement of knowledge, and the protection of intellectual independence.” It also codifies that tenure must remain categorically separate from disciplinary proceedings.
And it leaves key terms—“cause,” “misconduct” and “professional standards”—undefined.
Governing boards across Tennessee are now drafting policy with a July 1 deadline.
The definitions they write will determine how far the law reaches.
There’s also an angle built into the broader legal framework.
Misryoum analysis indicates that constitutional guardrails—the due process, free speech protections for public employees, and academic speech protections courts have long recognized—can be used at the policy table.
For students, the stakes are pretty straightforward, even if politics isn’t.
They’re building their future, and they’re owed professors who can follow evidence, ask honest questions, and teach without measuring every conclusion against what the state has decided to permit.
Misryoum editorial desk noted, too, that the classroom is worth defending. The policy table is where that defense happens now, and honestly—this story doesn’t feel finished yet.
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