An investigation has found Vermont Law School violated conditions of academic freedom and shared governance when the administration terminated 14 of 19 tenure positions last July without faculty input.
The American Association of University Professors board is expected to vote in June whether to put VLS on the sanctioned schools list, which could hurt efforts to attract any future faculty.
“Essentially the entire faculty has now been ‘contigent-cized’ at VLS,” said AAUP Senior Program Officer Anita Levy.
The AAUP investigation was launched last November after several members from the VLS Tenure and Faculty Committee wrote letters and sent documents to the AAUP. Three AAUP board members visited Vermont last December and interviewed more than 20 people.
Tenure faculty said VLS administration told them last spring that their positions would be terminated on July 1, 2018. The tenure faculty were then presented options to keep teaching — they could stay at the school for another year under a new contract, they could sign a six-month contract with varying teaching requirements and salaries, or they could leave.
The faculty said their input into the matter wasn’t considered seriously. Those who chose to stay were required to sign non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from speaking with anyone but their spouses.
A lengthy report from the AAUP’s investigation found that the goals of higher education had been violated.
“Put inelegantly, VLS laid off a majority of its most expensive faculty members and then outsourced the work they did to a much cheaper contingent labor force, with no intention, it seems, of looking back,” the report said. “Left in the dust pile of this type of corporate restructuring are the primary goals of higher education: to serve the common good and advance the progress of society through teaching and research, which goals are the very reason for academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance.”
The report also cited a comment VLS Dean Tom McHenry made to a local newspaper, where he compared VLS faculty to children.
McHenry told The Herald of Randolph last July that faculty “can’t be, as a whole, in the position of deciding how people are restructured. It’s like asking kids at a playground who is going to get the ball—it just doesn’t work.”
The report says McHenry’s statement highlights the administration’s view that “faculty members could be manipulated into thinking they were making decisions for themselves, when all along the grown-ups had made the decisions for them. This is the antithesis of shared governance.”
McHenry, who was an environmental law attorney in private practice, became dean of Vermont Law School on July 1, 2017.
The AAUP acknowledged McHenry made some attempts to comply with AAUP standards.
A few months after he was hired, McHenry held a meeting with VLS faculty where he presented them a memo told them that the school was in “dire” financial straits. McHenry said VLS was facing a potential operating deficit of around $2 million in fiscal year 2018-19 and needed to take immediate action to reduce costs.
VLS never formally declared financial exigency however, and the report says the investigation committee was “troubled” to learn that despite the claims of financial distress, VLS “continued to invest a significant sum” in its strategic plan and authorized salary increases for some on the lower end of the salary scale.
“Such expenditures during supposed financially exigent circumstances raise the question as to whether terminating tenured faculty appointments was more a matter of preference than necessity,” the report said.
The report said there has been a “breakdown of trust” within the community from the administration’s “failure to comprehend why providing data and asking for input do not, by themselves, constitute meaningful collaborative decision-making.”
Emily Houh, an AAUP board member and professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law who led the investigation at VLS, said the process was difficult as many shared concerns about the school’s future.
“It was very clear to me and the committee that people really care about VLS and cherish VLS and are really proud of what it’s accomplished,” said Houh. “It’s always been the premier program in environmental law. Nobody wants to see that go away.”
The report highlights concerns that the school’s respected reputation will be tarnished by the administration’s practices. Vermont Law School’s accreditation with the American Bar Association could also be in jeopardy. The ABA is expected to review the law school’s accreditation in 2020.
“We’d hope they’d be concerned about issues of shared governance and academic freedom,” Levy said.
In an email, McHenry said he was under pressure to find savings last year. McHenry said he has kept the ABA informed about the steps that were taken at VLS to reduce costs.
“We believe that we are in compliance with their standards,” he said.
“VLS remains deeply committed to the principles of shared faculty governance and academic freedom,” McHenry said in a statement. “The steps required to resolve our financial challenges were painful and by their very nature could not be accomplished to the satisfaction of everyone involved.”
Levy said the AAUP board will likely vote in favor of putting the VLS on the sanctioned school list next month. There are six schools currently on the sanctioned list. Levy said schools may be removed if they make efforts to improve under AAUP standards.
“That’s always our hope—that conditions for academic governance and the conditions flagged in the report will be resolved,” Levy said.
