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AAUP Censures 3 Black Colleges

By Mercy Chikowore
Black College Wire

An association created to guard professors' rights has put an uncomfortable spotlight on three black colleges -- Benedict College, Meharry Medical College and Virginia State University -- along with other colleges where administrations allegedly kicked faculty to the curb.

On June 11, the American Association of University Professors put Meharry and Virginia State on its censure list. In addition, the AAUP condemned Benedict, which already had been on the list since 1994 because of practices regarding faculty appointments.

When a college is censured, "In brief, the administration is one which has been found to have seriously violated the principles of academic freedom and academic due process," said Jonathan Knight, director of AAUP's office of academic freedom, tenure and governance. As of June, 47 colleges were on the censure list.

Benedict was condemned because it dismissed Milwood Motley and Larry Williams, two professors who refused to adhere to a controversial grading policy.

Photo credit: Meharry Medical College Meharry Medical College was criticized for dismissing 11 professors

A charge of dismissing professors unfairly or with no notice, or not following dismissal procedures, can also put an institution on the censure list. A censured institution does not lose its accreditation, and censure does not affect its students academically. But according to Knight, "For most universities and college administrations, that is not a happy place to be." It can affect school spirit, faculty relations and recruitment, including student recruitment.

Institutions can be removed from the AAUP censure list by resolving the cited issue and making the policies at the institution consistent with standards in the larger academic community, Knight said.

Spokesmen for all three institutions said their colleges were willing to work with the AAUP and set matters right, but they also claimed the colleges were not given a fair review.

Benedict College

"We don't feel that we've done anything that was against faculty freedom," said Kymm Hunter of the office of public relations at Benedict. "In some ways, I don't think it can be resolved unless we do it the way they want us to."

Benedict, in Columbia, S.C., has been on the censure list before, in 1960. This year, the school held the spot where it has been since 1994, because of college policies that didn't meet AAUP standards regarding professors' rights.

The professors objected to President David H. Swinton's "Success Equals Effort" (SEE) policy, which applies to first- and second-year students. Freshmen's final grades are allocated 60 percent for effort, 40 percent for content knowledge. Sophomores are graded 40 percent for effort and 60 percent for content knowledge.

Motley and Williams were ordered to change their grades or be dismissed. They lost their jobs in June 2004.

The AAUP objected to the dismissal because it affected the professors' rights. The college defends its policy.

"The students understand the SEE policy, and it benefits them," said Hunter, the college spokeswoman. "People may not understand that each department comes together to come up with milestones to measure student efforts. They have accomplished that," Hunter said.

Tyrone Jefferson, a senior, said, "It doesn't bother me" that the college is on the censure list. "I think it's a big misunderstanding because a lot of people don't understand the SEE policy." Of the grading policy, he said "I agree with it for the simple fact that some people are not that motivated, so they need the extra boost."

Hunter declined to comment about Motley and Williams because she said the dismissal was a legal matter.

Both professors were leaders in the college faculty's chapter of AAUP, which on June 11 received the association's Beatrice G. Konheim award, "given to a chapter for outstanding achievement in advancing the association's objectives in academic freedom."

Virginia State University

"Virginia State University also strongly disagrees with the AAUP's findings," Thomas Reed, university relations director, said in a June 15 statement, "and offers to work with that organization, to the extent permitted by law, to present an accurate and transparent account of the circumstances and procedures involved in the cases cited in its report."

Being put on the censure list is supposed to alert the academic community to an alleged flaw in the institution, but some Virginia State students said they were unaware of the censure list.

Student Maurice Coblyn commented, "A lot of things go down here that are good and bad, nobody even really knows about it."

The Petersburg, Va., school dismissed two faculty members after post-tenure reviews, which sent red flags to the AAUP. The organization censured the university because its investigators alleged the professors were judged unfairly, and were denied fair review and due process after their evaluations, a violation of the AAUP's standards.

Reed, the university spokesman, said the AAUP disregarded input provided by the university and failed to review the complete circumstances and procedures involved in the two cases.

According to the university's news release: "Virginia State University is confident that these procedures were correctly followed in each of the cases the AAUP used as the basis for the action. The university corresponded this to the AAUP before that organization issued its initial report, but was ignored."

In response, AAUP spokesman Knight said, "It may well be that we agree to disagree."

Meharry Medical College

"We're always open to working with the AAUP but we disagree with their findings," said Jill Scoggins of Meharry's office of public relations.

The Nashville college was criticized by the AAUP for dismissing 11 professors who had lengthy service with the college, including some who had disagreements with school administrators in 2003.

"Your investigation placed too much credence upon the statements of a few disgruntled former faculty members," John E. Maupin Jr., president of Meharry, wrote in a statement to the AAUP in June.

Being on the censure list has not harmed the college, Scoggins said. "Business is usual at Meharry. It hasn't affected the school or our ability to operate. We've recruited some star faculty during the time it was going on."

Scoggins describes the new recruits as a 'world class faculty,' which includes Rhodes Scholars and directors from the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Meharry has recruited 40 new faculty members over the last three years, said Scoggins.

The AAUP, founded in 1915, is a network of faculty and academic professionals, organized into chapters and state conferences and backed by national and some state-level staff. Six faculty members from historically black colleges and universities are on the AAUP's 30 committees.

"I do find it interesting that most of the schools (on the list) are either HBCUs or religiously affiliated schools," said Scoggins, the spokeswoman from Benedict College.

Since the AAUP's censure list was begun in 1930, 14 of the 105 historically black colleges and universities recognized by the U.S. Department of Education have been censured.

Joan W. Scott, chairman of the AAUP committee on academic freedom, was quoted in June in Inside Higher Ed as saying "a culture of autocracy" at some historically black colleges and some small religious colleges caused their placement on the censure list. "Too many presidents at these institutions have a sense of being outside the general rules of shared governance," she said.

Mercy Chikowore is a student at Claflin University.

Posted Aug. 1, 2005