Tenure ban for North Dakota colleges withdrawn, but policy debate continues 

A bill in the North Dakota Legislature is again taking aim at tenure policies at the state’s public colleges, but an amendment offered Friday would allow tenure to remain.

House Bill 1437 proposed to eliminate tenure at two-year colleges in the North Dakota University System.

Sponsor Rep. Mike Motschenbacher, R-Bismarck, added an amendment that instead calls for guidelines on tenure, something the State Board of Higher Education says it has already been working on. 

House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, said he has not been impressed by the board’s efforts on tenure policy. 

“I think they put lip service to it,” Lefor told the House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee. 

Tenure in the North Dakota University System is generally awarded after six years of service for full-time faculty, in part to ensure academic freedom, providing some protection for teaching, writing or researching on controversial topics. Tenured faculty can still be removed for cause.

It has been a topic of discussion in recent months, with the board also considering eliminating tenure at two-year schools, but ultimately voting that down. 

Motschenbacher said Friday that tenure “virtually guarantees a university professor will never be fired.” 

“Why does any employee, at any level, in any industry, deserve this type of protection?” he asked. 

Motschenbacher said the only reasonable answer he has gotten to that question in North Dakota is that it makes recruiting faculty easier. 

Vice Chancellor Lisa Johnson defended the North Dakota University System and said studies have shown that professors with tenure become more productive, counter to public perception. 

Johnson said she was supportive of the amendment but would suggest additional changes. 

One point of contention is how often tenured faculty should go through post-tenure review, a more rigorous process than the annual review. 

The bill requires post-tenure review every three years instead of the current policy of every five years. 

During a meeting this week to discuss the legislation, State Board of Higher Education member Casey Ryan of Grand Forks said he feared the more frequent reviews would eat up too much time for administrators, especially at the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University, the state’s two research universities. 

“It needs to stay at five years,” Ryan said. “It would clog up the research universities.” 

During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers considered a bill that proposed to make it easier for presidents at Dickinson State University and Bismarck State College to remove tenured faculty. The state Senate rejected the bill.