On today’s episode, we’re talking with Barrett Taylor, professor and coordinator of the higher education program at the University of North Texas. He studies the ways in which higher education interfaces with society, investigating topics including state politics and policy, the organization of academic work, and institutional inequality. Outside of his professorship, he is a fellow in the Center for the Defense of Academic freedom, a project housed at the AAUP, funded by the Mellon Foundation and directed by Isaac Kamola.
Together with Kimberly Watts (currently a doctoral candidate at UNT), he is the co-author of a new article in The Review of Higher Education entitled “Tenure Bans: An Exploratory Study of State Legislation Proposing to Eliminate Faculty Tenure, 2012-2022”
This article, as you might guess, surveys ten years of proposed legislation across the United States aiming to restrict tenure in higher education, and offers observations on the underlying motives and meanings behind these legislative efforts, as well as some recommendations for educators and administrators interested in protecting academic freedom.
