An email from faculty senate leaders to UT faculty on March 12 targeted a new Tennessee bill, saying it’s based on “a fundamental misunderstanding.”

The Tennessee House of Representatives passed a bill streamlining university termination policy during its March 9 session. HB 2194, proposed by Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville), requires the termination of faculty to be “made by the institution’s chief executive officer or chief academic officer without any recommendation or vote by another faculty member at the institution.”

The bill passed on a 72-21 vote, with one abstention.

“We must state plainly that this bill is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how research universities function and why tenure exists,” the email from faculty senate leaders, including President Charles Noble, President Elect Jud Laughter, and former Faculty Senate President Derek Alderman, said.

The email called out the bill’s erasure of faculty senate inclusion in termination proceedings. Current policy requires input from senate leadership and the Faculty Senate Appeals Committee and gives faculty members the opportunity for a pre-termination hearing.

“These procedures are not bureaucratic obstacles; they are essential safeguards that protect both individual faculty members and the integrity of the university,” the email said. “All of these opportunities for important faculty input would be wiped away by this bill.”

UT administrators have spoken minimally about the bill. At a March 2 faculty senate meeting, Provost John Zomchick said the administration is “aware of concerns that the faculty had about this bill and are doing their best to protect tenure in what is a very difficult environment.”

“It seems the state legislature (with complicit support from our system and campus administrations) is willing to unwind years of impressive gains for the sake of suppressing faculty input in rare situations and to allow terminations of undesired, tenured faculty to occur as expeditiously as possible,” the email said.

The bill comes months after the termination of assistant professor Tamar Shirinian, who faces termination proceedings after commenting online about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, saying “the world is better off without him in it.”

Shirinian has since filed a complaint against Chancellor Donde Plowman, President Randy Boyd and Noble in both their personal and official capacities.

Shirinian’s termination, which Chancellor Plowman carried out, raised questions in the UT community about the university’s commitment to shared governance, something senate leaders think the bill threatens.

“While this change would not directly affect all faculty on campus, it represents a blow to the involvement of faculty in shared governance, which affects us all,” the email said. “Shared governance is not an internal preference of faculty — it is a foundational principle of successful universities across the United States and enshrined in our board of trustees policy.”

The bill also rids current policy of distinctions between termination policy for tenured and non-tenured faculty, holding all faculty members to the same process regardless of their tenure status.

“Tenure is a protection for educators,” Rep. Ronnie Glynn (D-Clarksville), who voted against the bill, said. “Because in their duty of educating our young folks, their job is to generate thoughtful debate.”

The bill comes at a time when UT’s reputation as an employer is crucial to the administration’s goal to recruit more top scholars, as Chancellor Donde Plowman looks to take on more research faculty.

“When you go back and you look at why tenure was actually instituted in universities and colleges, it’s because it was able to recruit the brightest minds across the country,” Glynn said. “The brightest minds across the country want to go where they’re going to be protected, especially given their first amendment right.”

The senate leaders’ email describes the bill as a shift in the way the university views faculty members.

“Faculty are not interchangeable employees who simply carry out administrative directives,” the email said. “They are central partners in the academic enterprise and stewards of the intellectual mission of the university.”

On March 11, the Tennessee Senate Education Committee recommended the bill’s senate counterpart, SB 2259, for passage. The Senate Calendar Committee has yet to set a date for the bill’s review.

“We remain concerned that the absence of clear institutional opposition to this bill at the system or campus levels has led legislators to believe that these changes are broadly supported within higher education and our campus,” the email said. “From a faculty perspective, this is certainly not the case.”