For the majority of researchers, obtaining a tenured position usually signifies career stability, widespread academic freedom, and considerable financial security. However, the reality may not always be so optimistic. A recent lawsuit at Tufts University School of Medicine in the United States has challenged this traditional notion.
The lawsuit involved eight tenured professors who sued the school because they felt the new salary policy infringed their economic and academic rights. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts ultimately ruled on the case, revealing in disclosed documents that the professors’ base salaries had been substantially reduced due to policy adjustments by the school, with decreases ranging from $4,500 to $95,500.
Tufts University introduced a “salary plan” for tenured professors in basic sciences in 2017, which required the professors to secure enough external research funding to pay for at least half of their salaries. Professors who failed to meet this criterion not only faced the risk of reduced pay but could also lose their full-time status or see their labs closed. Such policies are gradually increasing in medical schools across the United States.
In 2019, Tufts University revised its earlier salary plan, retaining most of the content, but adjusted the Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) benchmarks. If professors had an FTE index below 0.75 for four consecutive years and failed to meet other requirements, they might face a review regarding the revocation of their tenure.
The eight professors affected by this filed a lawsuit against Tufts University, claiming the new policy infringed on their tenured faculty rights. Although the preliminary judgment supported the university, the professors appealed to a higher court, pointing out that the university’s own policies about securing tenured faculty positions indicated a need to ensure sufficient economic security to attract talented individuals. They highlighted the significant reduction in wages caused by the new policy, while the university argued that it had the right to adjust salaries based on the professors’ performance.
The hearing of this case is expected to take place in 2025, and its outcome may serve as an important precedent for other courts handling similar legal disputes. Without a doubt, this lawsuit not only reflects the economic and policy pressures in the realm of modern higher education but could also have a profound impact on the traditional tenured faculty system.
The plaintiffs pointed out that they were hired for research, teaching, and service, and that writing funding applications was not their primary responsibility. One of the plaintiffs, who requested anonymity, rebutted questions about the value of medical school faculty work, asserting that they had indeed made contributions.
The eight plaintiffs stressed that many funding agencies have restrictions on the use of funds for paying academic leaders’ salaries. Their lawyers argued that forcing faculty to choose unrestricted funding infringed on their academic freedom. In March of this year, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts revisited the case, preliminarily affirming the plaintiffs’ claims, mentioning that without a promise of salary, the promise of tenure becomes meaningless.
In legal documents submitted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Cornell University’s professor of labor and employment law, who is also the chief legal counsel for AAUP, Risa Lieberwitz, believed that Tufts University’s policy was fundamentally at odds with the principles of tenure, economic security, and academic freedom.
The defense attorney from Tufts University argued that the statements about economic security in the tenure document were merely an idealistic vision and lacked the specificity required to be legally binding due to their lack of details. This statement originated from the “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure” proposed by the AAUP, which is a common element in the documents of many American universities. However, even if the court supports the plaintiff’s claims about economic security, the court sided with Tufts University regarding the issue of lab space, stating that attaining tenure does not equate to a guarantee of a certain amount of lab space.
Although tenure is regarded as an important safeguard for academic freedom, it faces challenges under the influence of policies, financial pressure, and legal requirements, and the number of tenured faculty has been in a gradual decline over the past decades. According to the “Snapshot Report on Tenure and Contingency in American Higher Education” released by the AAUP in March 2023, the academic workforce in the United States has become increasingly reliant on contingent faculty members and graduate students.
