Straws in the Wind - Part 392

From Inside Higher Ed: The Kansas Board of Regents... formally defined the terms “DEI” and “CRT,” paving the way for state-mandated curriculum changes that will eliminate gender-, race- and ethnicity-focused courses from general education requirements at public universities. Free speech advocates called the definitions “vague and confusing” and say they leave faculty and students “on shaky ground.” Public university faculty have mixed feelings on the definitions. Some said they could have been worse, and others said they pave the way for serious infringements on academic freedom.

In compliance with House Bill 2513—which passed the Legislature in March and which Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly grudgingly signed—the board of regents defined “DEI-CRT” as “diversity, equity, inclusion and critical race theory” and stated that a DEI-CRT course is one whose “title, course description or learning outcomes include DEI-CRT-related content.” That content is defined as anything which “intentionally establishes and promotes the preferential treatment of groups based on race, color, gender, ethnicity or national origin,” according to board documents. CRT content also includes anything that “presents racism as systemic within laws, policies, or institutions and promotes acceptance of that viewpoint rather than presenting it as a subject of scholarly, historical, or legal study.” Discussion of race, racism or the history of the civil rights movement is not considered DEI-CRT–related content under the policy...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/academic-freedom/2026/06/24/some-kansas-faculty-uneasy-over-vague-dei-definitions.

Straws in the Wind - Part 238

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...The Kansas Board of Regents directed ...that tenured professors must now develop work plans that will be used for annual evaluations and undergo post-tenure review every five years, down from every seven. Those who receive an “unsatisfactory” annual evaluation will be “subject to dismissal, reassignment, an additional one-year improvement plan, or other personnel actions.”

Meanwhile, all full-time faculty members will be expected to teach a set number of credit hours per semester: six to nine for those at the state’s three research institutions — the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and Wichita State University — and 12 for professors at the regional institutions — Pittsburg State University, Emporia State University, and Fort Hays State University. Each institution will determine the percentages of time faculty members should devote to teaching, research, and service, within ranges provided by the regents.

The new policies come one year after a bill allowing tenure to be “at any time revoked, limited, altered or otherwise modified by the awarding institution” or by regents was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives. While that bill stalled, it signaled increasing legislative interest in tenure reform.

This year’s policy changes, which passed unanimously, were Kansas regents’ proactive attempt to placate Republican lawmakers who might continue to seek drastic changes, Rusty Monhollon, the board’s vice president for academic affairs, told The Chronicle. “That was our motivation: Having a stricter tenure or workload policy was preferable to not having tenure at all,” he said...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/another-states-public-universities-are-tightening-post-tenure-review-and-dictating-teaching-loads.