This is the news (as reported by AP), and this is what Ashley Morris says about it. Morris’ post includes a copy of Tulane President Scott Cowan’s comments on the matter.
Cowan says Tulane followed its Faculty Handbook very closely. But I have read Tulane’s Faculty Handbook (in its pre-Katrina version). It was a very thin and, I would even say, amateurishly written document. You could “follow it closely” and still do more or less as you pleased. At the time, I thought the ambiguities were meant to protect the institution. It appears that instead, they have come back to bite it.
Way to go, AAUP! Poor response, Cowan! If you denied someone tenure and they reacted as you have here, I doubt you would call them “professional.”
Also pathetic is LSU system spokesman Charles Zewe’s perception that the AAUP is a union. Zewe has two advanced degrees and is working on a third, but it would seem to me that even a with only a high school education he should be able to understand the difference between a union and a professional association. Being system spokesman it seems to me he should also look up words before he uses them, and check facts before stating them. But we remember, of course, that a person in his position would not be interested in presenting a dignified face to an educated public, but in disseminating spin.
There is a website opposed to Tulane corruption and cronyism. I cannot vouch for its reliability, but its content is rather interesting.
What is the AAUP for, some may wail, if its censure is merely its carefully researched and considered opinion, and it has no power to enforce any of the recommendations it makes? Well. Universities are increasingly run by people without research degrees or advanced academic experience. They are more and more like trade schools with corporate research parks. The AAUP is interested in the maintenance of actually professional standards. The statements and guidelines it issues are classic in the best sense, and they are respected.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
While Tulane may appear to have engaged in academic tyranny, it did have the support of powerful political interests and, what is more important, the law was on its side.
Tulane’s legal position is that “the Faculty Handbook and Statement of Qualifications for Tenure and Promotion are merely guidelines set out by Tulane with no input from [faculty]. These guidelines can be changed by Tulane at any time, and do not create a contract” [1].
In an earlier case of fired professor Stephen Schwarz (http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/schwarz_98a.htm), Judge Max N. Tobias Jr. (a Tulane adjunct faculty member at the time!) ruled that the “Grievance procedure [as set forth in the] handbook is unilateral expression of company policy, and publishing of that policy does not evidence meeting of minds necessary for formation of enforceable contract; terms of such handbook are not bargained for, and any benefits conferred by it are mere gratuities” [1].
Professors who believe they have been unfairly terminated need to ask themselves how they responded when the earlier cases of Schwarz and other unfairly terminated professors came to their attention. Their vulnerability should be a wake-up call to all faculty who may now question the security of their own positions.
Other references to AAUP’s censure can be found on my Web site, together with copies of AAUP’s report on Tulane and its recent press release. See: A Flood of Censure (http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/floodofcensure_box.htm) and Tenure, Tulane Style (http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/tenure_06a.htm).
Carl Bernofsky, Ph.D.
Shreveport, Louisiana
[1] Schwarz v. Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund, 699 So.2d 895 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1997).
[2] Tulane Law School Catalog 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98.
Thanks for writing, Carl! My point: Tulane’s Faculty Handbook gives no protection / is not very good / etc. – so saying they “followed the Faculty Handbook” hardly means they followed good practice, standard professional practice, or state / federal law very closely. Having bad policies in the first place does not make bad practices better, in my humble view.