The full statement can be found here.
I am deeply disturbed by reports that the University of Louisiana System has embarked on what appears to be an unprecedented and unwarranted assault on its faculty. In 2010, Southeastern Louisiana University discontinued its undergraduate major in French, dismissing its three tenured professors with a year’s notice.
... no reason was given for the decision, and the French program was not underenrolled in comparison to majors such as Spanish; but we are especially alarmed by SLU’s subsequent action, in which the administration proceeded to offer a temporary instructorship to one of the tenured professors it had just fired.
This year, the AAUP has learned that the University of Louisiana at Monroe is planning to do the same, or slightly worse, to its four tenured professors of Chemistry: dismiss them with six months’ notice, then offer to re-hire them at the rank of instructor without tenure. We believe we do not have to wait to hear a third report from the UL system before concluding that we see an emerging pattern....
These practices violate so many AAUP principles that it is hard to know where to begin. But we should probably start by remarking that if senior professors with tenure can be fired and then immediately offered employment as short-term instructors, then tenure is essentially meaningless in the University of Louisiana System....
[We] acknowledge that many institutions are facing financial hardship, and will have to make difficult and painful decisions. The University of Louisiana System, however, appears to be going well beyond anything that can be justified by economic hardship, launching a capricious assault on tenure as well as minimal standards of job security for the untenured.
Faculty nationwide should be advised that the UL System has effectively nullified its tenure procedures; and students in the UL System, and their parents, should be advised that maintaining the quality of core liberal arts programs is no longer a priority of the UL System administration.
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