Earlier this month a bill was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives to ultimately change the very foundations of tenure in post-secondary educational institutions.
Steven Lovett, legal counsel at Emporia State University, proposed House Bill 2348 as an individual citizen on Feb. 7 to the Kansas House of Representatives and the bill was immediately sent to the Committee on Judiciary for further hearing.
The committee heard HB2348 on Feb. 11 along with spoken testimonies for and against the bill. Opening with Lovett’s testimony, he repeatedly stated that HB2348 was a bill to abolish the property right of tenure, not tenure itself.
“In fact, a non-tenured faculty member enjoys as much legal protection to pursue academic freedom as a tenured faculty member,” Lovett said.
At the end of Lovett’s testimony, he made the decision to renounce and surrender the tenure that was awarded to him by Emporia State University. This decision granted many reactions from both the audience and committee members present at the hearing.
An immediate question was brought up by Representative John Carmichael asking if Lovett was going to resign from his position of legal counsel at Emporia as well as surrendering his tenure.
After stating that Emporia State University hadn’t encouraged or instructed Lovett to write or submit the bill, Lovett said he would not be resigning from his position at Emporia State University.
Opponents of the bill consisted of faculty and students from multiple Kansas universities. Two notable opponents were George Burdick, Washburn Student Government Association (WSGA) president and Kim Morse, president of the Washburn University chapter of the American Association of University Professionals.
“While I can speak as a Kansan and a student of Washburn, I can’t speak for every postsecondary institution in our state. So I called each of the other student body presidents. Every single student body president represented at the Kansas Board of Reagents is in opposition to HB2348,” Burdick said.
Other members of WSGA were also present at the hearing to show the committee that students care about what happens with this bill.
At the beginning of her testimony, Morse asked students and faculty in the room to stand, thanking them for their presence and for their roles in universities before quoting Washburn University’s handbook.
“Existing university governing documentation defines tenure to be ‘discretionary and conditional.’ Given the binding documentation already in place, we understand HB2348 to be unnecessary,” Morse said.
However, another issue brought up by Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, Committee A co-chair of the State of Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, is that there is a case currently being litigated before the U.S. District Court of Kansas (Case No. 23-4056-JAR-GEB) that is in conflict with HB2348.
“The principal author of HB2348, Steven Lovett, has a personal stake in the Bill, as he is named defendant in the litigation, giving him a gross conflict of interest,” Barrett-Gonzalez said.
After hearing the bill, the committee referred HB2348 to the Committee on Federal and State Affairs for further deliberation.
Students are encouraged to attend committee meetings and call their representatives to let their voices be heard. If you wish to watch the recording of the hearing on HB2348, check out the Kansas Legislature YouTube channel.
Edited by Morgan Albrecht
