Tenure Bans: An Exploratory Study of State Legislation Proposing to Eliminate Faculty Tenure, 2012-2022

Abstract

This article explores introduced tenure bans, meaning state-level legislation proposing eliminating tenure protections within all or part of a public higher education system. We describe such bills 2012-2022 and explore state-level political, economic, social, and higher education conditions associated with introducing a tenure ban. Tenure bans were linked to underlying political and social conditions, not to economic variation, suggesting that efforts to undermine faculty tenure reflected underlying mistrust in higher education rather than efforts to cope with financial uncertainty.