AAUP-TXST Reiterates Need for Due Process in Discipline of Faculty for Extramural Speech

After a tenured associate professor was summarily dismissed during the third week of the 2025 Fall semester, the Texas State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-TXST) called upon the Board of Regents for the Texas State University System (TSUS) to uphold the Summary Dismissal policies that are stated in the Rules and Regulations of the System.

Now, following the summary dismissal of a lecturer during the third week of the 2026 Spring semester, AAUP-TXST reissues its call that standing TSUS policies for Summary Dismissal be respected. As we pointed out in the Fall of 2025, the policies include:

• To begin the process of Summary Dismissal, a faculty member should be “provided with written notice of the allegations” along with “an explanation of the evidence” (TSUS Rules 4.531). Then the President designates an administrator to hold a hearing with the faculty member and submit a written determination (4.532).
• Faculty are then afforded the right to a Hearing Tribunal composed of faculty peers appointed by the President “from members of the faculty whose academic rank is equal to or higher than that of the accused faculty member” (4.54). But no member of the Tribunal may be an accuser of the faculty member. The faculty member may challenge “the alleged lack of fairness or objectivity” of Tribunal members, who can then decide whether to step aside. If a Tribunal member does step aside “the President shall appoint a substitute” [4.54 (1)].
• At the hearing conducted by the Tribunal, the faculty member “shall have a right to attend the hearing; confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses; present relevant evidence on his or her own behalf; testify or choose not to testify; and, be assisted or represented by counsel” [4.54 (2)].
• The Tribunal is then charged to “make written findings on the material facts and a recommendation” regarding the disposition of the case, with a complete record of the hearing “delivered to the President” and the faculty member [4.54 (4)].
• Following these steps, the System policy charges the President to “review the record, plus any additional written briefs the parties wish to submit, and render a decision” in writing. The President’s decision may include recommitting the case to the Tribunal “to hear additional evidence and/or to reconsider its findings.” After all these steps are completed, System policies call for a comprehensive file of the proceedings to be “delivered to the Board” (4.55)
• Furthermore, upon receiving the President’s decision, the faculty member has thirty days to file a written request with the System, specifically addressing “any defects in procedure or substance which require reversal of the President’s decision” to which the President may reply in writing (4.56).

According to System policy, only after all these steps have been completed does the Board majority decide what to do with the matter (4.56).

Since both dismissals were initially effected about one day after social media campaigns were initiated against the targets based upon comments made outside of class, AAUP-TXST also reiterates our attention to TSUS policies and AAUP Policy Documents regarding Extramural Speech. As we said in Fall 2025:

As professionals who shoulder “primary responsibility” for “faculty status,” the AAUP cautions fellow academics to behave in a manner that is mindful of their professional standing. The AAUP 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure reads:

When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. (AAUP 12th 14)

The above statement of principles serves as the template for System policy 4.74, which very nearly matches the AAUP 1940 statement word for word.

Subsequent to publication of the above advisory, the AAUP interpreted the 1940 admonition to mean that it would be appropriate for an administration to “file charges” against a faculty member who “has failed to observe the above admonitions and believes that the professor’s extramural utterances raise grave doubts concerning the professor’s fitness for continuing service” (AAUP 12th 34).

However, as members of a profession that takes “primary responsibility” for “faculty status,” AAUP requires that the administration’s charges should be referred to “an appropriate—preferably elected—faculty committee.” AAUP guidelines go on to advise that:

The controlling principle is that a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness to serve. Extramural utterances rarely bear upon the faculty member’s fitness for continuing service. Moreover, a final decision should take into account the faculty member’s entire record as a teacher and scholar. In the absence of weighty evidence of unfitness, the administration should not prefer charges; and if it is not clearly proved in the hearing that the faculty member is unfit to continue, the faculty committee should make a finding in favor of the faculty member concerned. (AAUP 12th 34)

Such are the guiding principles of our profession as they have been deliberated and codified for at least the past 85 years. And we ask the Board’s respect for our revered heritage of professional responsibility. As our trustees, Board members are bound to take responsibility for helping us to sustain our professional standards.

The pattern of issuing summary dismissals based upon social media campaigns within the first few weeks of a semester establishes a worrisome precedent that impinges not only on Constitutional principles of free speech and due process as codified in the first and fourth amendments, but also violates a key principle of shared governance based in a deep respect for longstanding professional principles that place primary responsibility for faculty status in the hands of University Faculty.

These principles were broadly established in 1915 and have been reaffirmed on a continual basis, including the “Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities” that was jointly formulated in 1966 by AAUP, along with the American Council of Education (ACE), and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), which states:

The faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of student life which relate to the educational process. On these matters the power of review or final decision lodged in the governing board or delegated by it to the president should be exercised adversely only in exceptional circumstances and for reasons communicated to the faculty. It is desirable that the faculty should, following such communication, have opportunity for further consideration and further transmittal of its views to the president or board (AAUP Policy Documents 12th 122).

A deeper respect for existing board policy would flow from its comportment to longstanding AAUP principles. Yet we will continue to point out that our principles would encourage the faculty election of faculty grievance committees, a commitment that appears to be contravened by last year’s passage of SB 37. A robust fulfillment of our professional status still depends upon repeal of SB 37 as well as repeal of SB 17 and SB 18 from the 2023 session of the legislature.

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