With Tenure on the Chopping Block, Wisconsin Regents Try to Protect It

The University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents voted unanimously on Friday to add tenure protections to system policy as the state’s Republican-led government appeared ready to remove them from state law, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Proposed legislation, crafted by the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance as part of the state budget, would strip shared-governance guarantees and tenure protections from state law. It is expected to pass and be signed into law by Gov. Scott Walker.

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“This resolution we are passing does what we can do,” said one regent, Mark Bradley, during the board meeting. “It doesn’t address what only the Legislature can address. What we’re doing is what we’re able to do, and that is to affect our policy.”

The policy approved on Friday is temporary and would take effect only if the state government enacts the legislation stripping tenure protections. A system task force is set to devise a permanent policy on tenure protections.