Kentucky Bill Threatens Quality College Education

The following statement on Kentucky House Bill 490 was issued today by AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten:

Kentucky House Bill 490 poses a direct threat to students, faculty, high quality college education, and the prosperity of the people of Kentucky. The bill would allow political appointees on university governing boards to fire teachers in Kentucky's public universities when educational programs allegedly have low enrollment or low revenue.

The bill's vagueness leaves the door open for pretextual terminations that would shut down departments and majors, closing doors for students and eliminating their opportunities to learn about a wide variety of topics. It prioritizes profit over education and partisan interests over academic achievement. Students who enroll at a Kentucky university intending to study a particular subject could find their education interrupted and their tuition dollars lost if their program is suddenly shuttered.

In other words, HB 490 replaces academic stability with political volatility. In the current political climate, HB 490 could be weaponized for purposes that have nothing to do with genuine fiscal emergencies. It could be invoked to shut down research programs whose findings go against the financial interests of board members, to eliminate academic departments that have become easy ideological targets nationwide, and to silence faculty members whose speech board members dislike.

The AAUP and AFT oppose the abrupt, chaotic, and destabilizing dismissals and shut-downs that HB 490 would allow. An excellent college education depends on a workplace where faculty-as academic workers-have the primary role in determining instructional priorities and teach in conditions that are conducive to engaged critical thinking and problem-solving.

We urge the Kentucky Senate to reject HB 490. Kentucky needs a college-educated workforce that includes graduates who have learned to consider difficult questions from multiple angles. Their education in turn depends on a stable workplace in which instructors are not subject to censorship and retaliation. HB 490 strips away guardrails that prevent partisan interference and weakens protections for academic workers. Removing faculty from the decisions about the curriculum will not strengthen public higher education in Kentucky. Instead, it will diminish educational attainment for students and development for all of Kentucky.