AAUP’s Wolfson and AFT’s Weingarten on the Elimination of Tenure at Oklahoma Regional Universities and Community Colleges

WASHINGTON—American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in response to the governor of Oklahoma’s signing of Executive Order 2026-07, which immediately eliminates the conferral of academic tenure at the state’s public regional universities and community colleges.

“By eliminating tenure at the public regional universities and community colleges that anchor local economies and provide affordable pathways to education, Executive Order 2026-07 strips away core protections for academic freedom and faculty stability. As a result, this action will have far-reaching consequences not only for higher education, but for students across Oklahoma’s public colleges, for the families who depend on those institutions, and for the long-term economic health of the state.

“The principal purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom—and American innovation—the foundation of rigorous teaching, independent research and honest inquiry. In service of American society and broad-based opportunity, tenure enables faculty to pursue evidence-based scholarship and teach challenging subjects across the ideological spectrum without fear of political, ideological or economic retaliation. With this order, the state of Oklahoma has sent a clear and deeply troubling message that academic freedom and American innovation are no longer valued.

“This decision must also be understood in a broader national context of democratic backsliding. When political leaders use executive power to weaken independent institutions, silence professional expertise and punish those who produce inconvenient knowledge, democratic norms erode. Public colleges and universities are among the last remaining institutions dedicated to truth-seeking and civic education, and attacks on academic freedom are attacks on democracy itself.

“The removal of these protections will directly undermine educational quality, weaken faculty recruitment and retention, and deprive students of learning environments grounded in intellectual rigor and open inquiry. Over time, it will accelerate brain drain, reduce institutional stability and diminish the public trust that strong colleges and universities help sustain.

“Targeting regional universities and community colleges reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of tenure—as if it were a privilege reserved for a select few rather than an essential working condition for all faculty responsible for teaching and research. It also rests on the false premise that tenured faculty are unaccountable. In reality, tenured professors are already subject to regular evaluation, post-tenure review and professional standards, including the very accountability measures this order claims to advance elsewhere.

“With this decision, Gov. Stitt has made Oklahoma less attractive to highly qualified educators and has weakened the institutions that provide the most accessible and affordable education to its residents—at a real cost to students, communities and the democratic and economic future of the state.”