Academic Freedom and Tenure: Meharry Medical College (Tennessee)

Removing Faculty: Patterns and Processes of Retrenchment and Restructuring

“…At Meharry Medical College, the president noted, “We have declared no financial exigency. Budgetary challenges are another matter altogether” (Poston et al, 2004, p. 75). A faculty member paraphrased him as saying, “It’s not that we don’t have the money, it’s because we want the money for other things” (p. 75).…”

“…In most medical schools, administrators retained faculty who could generate clinical revenues, even though cutting basic science faculty harmed the educational purposes of the institution. At others, they dismissed faculty who could not generate their salaries through grants (e.g., O’Neil et al, 2007; Poston et al, 2004; Poston et al, 2010).…”

“…A subset of these cases involved faculty behavior related to the retrenchment events themselves. At Meharry Medical College, there was “prima facie evidence” (Poston et al, 2004, p. 77) that two faculty were chosen for their intramural speech critical of the administration; one was chosen specifically because he disagreed that retrenchment should occur and whom it should affect. At Benedict College, the three faculty members who publicly criticized the announcement that faculty would be laid off were dismissed; at least one was likely in violation of academic freedom (Kliever & White, 1994).…”