Academic Freedom and Tenure: Nichols College

Published in the May 1980 issue of Academe.

The administration of Nichols College dismissed a faculty member from his position as a member of the faculty prior to the expiration of his term of appointment, without providing him with the basic safeguards of academic due process This report further concludes that no discernible issue of academic freedom was raised by the decision to deny the professor tenure and reappointment. The administration's prompt action to dismiss him, however, after he presented his complaints to the student newspaper and members of the Board of Trustees, deprived him of his academic freedom and speaks poorly for the climate of academic freedom at Nichols College.