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When a math department lays off tenured staff, people cry out loud. But, 10 years later, such memories are no longer popular discussion subjects, and so the information doesn't always spread.

Those who lived through it will of course remember. But will the younger get to know of the troubled past of a given university?

I would like to record incidents of universities laying off tenured math faculty for financial reasons. If you know of such an event, please write the name of the university, the year when it happened, and the number of tenured faculty that got laid off. Other relevant information, such whether or not there was a lawsuit, aggravating circumstances, etc. should also be included.

(This is a follow up on this discussion about the VU Amsterdam laying off people.)

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André Henriques
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    Are you restricting to math departments or any department? Either way, I'm not sure this is appropriate for MO but if it's about any academic department, then I think it is way off topic. – Deane Yang Apr 28 '11 at 21:39
  • @Deane Yang. I meant math faculty. I fixed the text of the question. – André Henriques Apr 28 '11 at 21:43
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    Seems appropriate to me. I don't think Andre's plan will work as well as he hopes, but it's the sort of data that it is important to academics, and is hard to find in one place. Inside Higher Ed lists several schools that have recently done this http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/03/02/exigency , but they don't have a historic list. – David E Speyer Apr 28 '11 at 21:45
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    I also think it's an appropriate question. – Andy Putman Apr 28 '11 at 21:46
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    "name and shame" = retaliation, I really don't think that's appropriate for Mathoverflow. Even if such a list can be viewed as providing useful and important information to people – Michael Greenblatt Apr 28 '11 at 21:47
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    Voted to close. No math content. –  Apr 28 '11 at 21:57
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    I think that "name and shame" is really the only effective strategy our profession has to fight back. And it is woefully underused, IMHO. I agree in principle that this web site is not the appropriate forum, the right forum would be our professional organizations and societies, but are they interested? I have seen little evidence that they are. – Michael Renardy Apr 28 '11 at 22:01
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    Meta thread: http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1030/what-universities-have-laid-off-tenured-math-faculty-for-financial-reasons/ – David E Speyer Apr 28 '11 at 22:16
  • @Michael have you looked? A quick google of the AAUP's website http://www.google.com/search?q=tenure+layoff+site:aaup.org suggests that they are active, but doesn't give an obvious place to get involved. Of course, the AAUP is an american organization -- I don't know what the analogous European group is. – David E Speyer Apr 28 '11 at 22:20
  • Putting aside whether this question is appropriate for MO or not, I just don't think there are many, if any, examples. In the US the only case I know of tenured faculty being laid off is Bennington College in 1994. There might have been a math professor in the group, but I don't know. The current attempt by VU Amsterdam is, as far as I know, unprecedented. – Deane Yang Apr 28 '11 at 22:36
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    In the UK there are two math departments that got closed in the past 10 years or so: Hull and Bangor. I don't know exactly how or why this has happened. Someone with more knowledge on that may be able to give more details. Nijmegen (another math department in the Netherlands) nearly got closed but got away with renaming itself into something applied. – algori Apr 28 '11 at 22:55
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    There are things which happen long before it comes to departments being closed or tenured faculty being laid off. The presumption that positions vacated by retirement will be refilled disappears. The presumption that departments set their own agenda for future hiring disappears. And so on. What is discussed here is only the ultimate step, and, yes, it is still rare. The preliminary stages I mention above, however, are ubiquitous. – Michael Renardy Apr 28 '11 at 23:10
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    Should be closed. – SNd Apr 28 '11 at 23:58
  • algori: I don't know about Bangor, but the official excuse in Hull was the RAE score. However I think that there was more to it than that, it just that it was a while back and although I did hear the story first-hand, I'm hopeless at remembering political details. – José Figueroa-O'Farrill Apr 29 '11 at 02:00

9 Answers9

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Two tenured professors at the University of Uppsala, Oleg Viro and Burglind Joricke, were forced to resign in 2007. The reason seems to have been a disagreement with the rector of the University, Anders Hallberg, over an appointment of an applied maths professor. (As far as I know, there weren't financial reasons involved, but still I thought it might be worthwhile to mention this here.)

More details can be found here http://www.pdmi.ras.ru/~olegviro/Uppsala-8-2-2007.html

algori
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    I don't say this very often, but: OMG. The linked-to document is not for the faint of heart. It may give me nightmares... – Pete L. Clark Apr 29 '11 at 02:44
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    Wow. Pete Clark is not exaggerating. – David Roberts Apr 29 '11 at 06:08
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    I am not trying to defend the way the actions of the rector, but it seems disingenuous to say that they were fired over a disagreement over an appointment. I don't feel comfortable making any public allegations since I only have second hand knowledge of what went on at the UU, but if you read Swedish or put up with Google translate, there is a more impartial account (still strongly critical of the university) in this issue of the newsletter of the Swedish Mathematical Society: http://www.math.chalmers.se/~olleh/U18.pdf – Dan Petersen Apr 29 '11 at 06:56
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    Pete, David -- apologies. I do agree this makes a painful reading, but in a sense, this is the reason I think those documents deserve to be widely known. I'm probably being na"\ive, but I think only a public protest can prevent this from happening again. Dan -- apologies. I can read Swedish a bit, but not much, sadly, and Google translate isn't doing the trick, I'm afraid. I was wondering if you could elaborate on your statement on the reasons why Oleg Viro and Burglind Joricke had to leave the University of Uppsala. [By the way, I never hoped or claimed to have said anything "ingenuous".] – algori Apr 29 '11 at 09:28
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    I also am interested in reading a translation of the text of the SMS newsletter, but it doesn't seem possible to copy the text from that PDF; and directly pointing Google Translate to the PDF just produces garbage for most of it (I assume due font encoding issues). – Max Horn Apr 29 '11 at 16:53
  • @algori: First a small point: there was an infected conflict about the appointment of a professor in mathematical biology, but this was primarily internal to the math department, not between Viro/Jöricke and the rector -- the math department had been in a state of war for a long time before the rector got involved. Now when Viro/Jöricke were forced to resign they were presented with a litany of allegations from the rector. Some of these were clearly bogus, like a lack of scientific output, so you get the impression that the rector was grasping for straws for reasons to get rid of them. – Dan Petersen Apr 30 '11 at 08:56
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    But the main accusations leveled against them by the university was that they had been systematically harrassing colleagues at the department, and that they had been disloyal towards the university (spending too much time abroad, recieving salary from other places while still having a full-time position in Uppsala). Viro and Jöricke claim that it was in fact they who were harrassed by their colleagues. But what is absolutely clear is that they were forced to resign because of the hostile work environment in Uppsala, not for disagreeing about the appointment. – Dan Petersen Apr 30 '11 at 08:58
  • Dan -- thank you. I'm not fully aware of the details, and I would be very grateful if you or someone else chose to elaborate on that if appropriate. My impression was mainly based on the transcripts, and for all I know, they are real and have been correctly translated into English, and I must say, they evoke all sorts of analogies. – algori Apr 30 '11 at 09:24
  • Dan -- sorry, another point: re "they had been systematically harrassing colleagues at the department": this is very interesting; is there any evidence for that? – algori Apr 30 '11 at 09:42
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    Yes, the transcripts are real and accurate. Re: evidence, that's sort of the crux of the matter. About a month before the transcribed meeting, the rector had a similar surprise meeting (i.e. announce a meeting about X, it's actually about Y) with the entire department where he brought lawyers and announced that: (a) if there would be any more misconduct, he would try to have people fired and/or shut down the whole department; (b) there would be an external committee investigating the work environment at the department and interviewing staff members. The decision to force Viro and Jöricke to... – Dan Petersen Apr 30 '11 at 10:46
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    ...resign was then taken on the basis of the report of this committee. This report was never made public, though, allegedly out of respect for the privacy of the people involved. (This makes me a bit uneasy but it is hard to argue against the principle that workplace conflicts should be handled discreetly.) But what makes it a real scandal is that the findings of the report were never made available to Viro or Jöricke either, so they found themselves in the Kafka-like situation of having to respond to accusations that they weren't themselves privy to! (I agree about the analogies this evokes.) – Dan Petersen Apr 30 '11 at 10:46
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The maths department at Bangor university in Wales was closed in only the past 10 years. This was, if I recall rightly, because they scored relatively poorly on a national 'research quality' exercise, one that has since been redesigned somewhat (though perhaps not so much, as Jose points out in the comments, for mathematics).

I'm not sure about the number of staff, but at least two: Tim Porter and Ronnie Brown, both considered senior category theorists (among other things). (Edit by Tim: There were three members of staff Gareth Roberts, Chris Wensley and myself. Ronnie had retired normally a few years ago, but was still research active (very!). The RAE was partially to blame, and its methodology was too open to highly subjective judgements, but the causes were ultimately a shortfall in funding for the overall system together with power struggles within and between universities. The replacement REF (see later comments) will use bibliometrics that are highly contentious and unproven.)

(Since this is CW, I invite Tim or Ronnie to freely edit this answer and supply more details)

Tim Porter
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David Roberts
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    Another victim of the same research assessment exercise was the maths department at Hull University. By the way, not that I'm disagreeing, but where is the evidence that the RAE "has since been seen to be quite flawed"? – José Figueroa-O'Farrill Apr 29 '11 at 00:03
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    Jose -- well, if one of the outcomes was laying off Ronnie Brown and Tim Porter, the results speak for themselves, don't they? – algori Apr 29 '11 at 02:21
  • @Jose - as far as I know, the methodology for said exercise in the UK has been completely changed and called something else. I doubt if the government (or relevant department thereof) would come out and say 'it was rubbish', but such actions show that at the very least something 'better' has come along. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Assessment_Exercise#Criticism – David Roberts Apr 29 '11 at 02:33
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    No relation, by the way, to the author of the so-called 'Roberts report' :) – David Roberts Apr 29 '11 at 02:35
  • algori: I'm sorry, but it does not follow that the system is flawed. The ultimate decision what to do after the RAE is the university's. Faced with a unit of assessment (UoA) which obtains a "low" score (and low just means not the highest possible score) the decision can be made to axe the UoA or, on the contrary, to invest in it. I'm sure that in Hull and Bangor, not every UoA with the same score as the Pure Maths UoA was closed. Hence you have to look elsewhere for the real cause of the closures. – José Figueroa-O'Farrill Apr 29 '11 at 02:39
  • David: Yes, I'm painfully aware that the methodology has changed (although probably not so much in maths). The only "flaw" that the change in methodology addresses is the fact that the RAE was extremely labour intensive for the reviewers. The new framework (REF = Research Excellence Framework) makes heavy use of bibliometrics; although maths seems to have been treated differently than other exact sciences and will retain a system closer to the RAE. – José Figueroa-O'Farrill Apr 29 '11 at 02:42
  • @Jose, hmm, ok. I'll edit the answer to be a little less unsubstantiatable :) – David Roberts Apr 29 '11 at 04:16
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    @Jose you ask: where is the evidence that the RAE "has since been seen to be quite flawed". The Roberts report by Sir Gareth Roberts was highly critical of the methodology and suggested some improvements. These seem not to have been accepted by the main research universities and I suspect that is because of their own self-interest. No system is perfect and the old RAE did feed more money into maths. In the process I lost my position ...., but that is not what this comment is about. Probably universities used the RAE as an excuse to settle internal battles. We lost. – Tim Porter May 02 '11 at 17:16
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    A third maths department that closed as a consequence of a not-so-stellar result at the RAE was Nottingham Trent University. The department was very small, so damage was fortunately limited. I know of one person who was actually out of a job for a few months, the other research active members of NTU had just enough time to find other jobs before they would have been forced out. – Martin Hairer Jan 04 '14 at 16:21
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It would be a mistake to get the impression from these answers that the phenomenon of tenured mathematicians being fired for dodgy political reasons is purely a new thing. For instance in the early 1950s (under McCarthyism) Oklahoma A&M instituted a loyalty oath; Ainsley Diamond, a quaker, refused to sign it and was fired and Nachman Aronszajn resigned in protest. Both moved to the University of Kansas.

David Eppstein
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    Chandler Davis is another famous example here. – thel Apr 29 '11 at 17:12
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    Chandler Davis, Mark Nickerson, and Clement Markert were fired by the University of Michigan in 1954 for McCarthyist reasons. They firing has not, however, been forgotten: http://www.umich.edu/~aflf/history.html – mephisto Apr 30 '11 at 02:30
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In the early 30s, André Weil was fired from Aligarh Muslim University ostensibly for not cooperating in holding elections to the students' union. Read his own account of the whole episode in his Souvenirs d'apprentissage.

Chandan Singh Dalawat
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In the late 1970s Yeshiva University in New York closed down its Math graduate program and fired a couple of tenured professors. I don't recall the details, but I remember that the matter came up before the Council of the AMS.

Dick Palais
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    The details are given here: http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/988DD473-7C14-458A-A8F8-962FAAC5DD02/0/yeshiva.pdf – Deane Yang Apr 30 '11 at 02:21
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    Two of Yeshiva refugees (Leon Ehrenpreis and Don Newman) then came to Temple (I suppose a natural progression from Yeshiva...) Both of them were extremely strong mathematicians. – Igor Rivin Apr 30 '11 at 04:10
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Quoting from http://www.euro-math-soc.eu/node/3833, posted on May 29, 2013.

As result of a restructuring plan published two years ago, the Free University Amsterdam (VU) has now formally terminated the Geometry/Topology research programmes. The VU did not dismiss the members of the Geometry Section as originally planned, but the development has had serious consequences for several VU researchers: Tilman Bauer was allowed to stay on in his junior tenured position, relabelled as an "algebraist". However, he felt he could not continue working at the VU and he resigned from his position without having another job lined up. Fortunately, Tilman quickly got a position at KTH Stockholm. Jan Dijkstra was demoted from Professor to Lecturer. Jan has decided to leave the VU and The Netherlands later this year when he becomes eligible for early retirement. Dietrich Notbohm was demoted from Professor to Associate Professor on a temporary (5 years) contract.

André Henriques
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  • While this is certainly an unfortunate event, actually, it seems to me nobody was laid off. So it is not clear to me how this is an answer to the question. –  Jul 01 '13 at 12:56
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    @quid: Moving someone from a permanent position to a temporary one comes pretty close though. – André Henriques Jul 01 '13 at 15:28
  • Yes, actually, your example seems better than several others given so far. But, quoting you quoting from dep. closure qu. 'I heard from a colleague that "all this fuss in the international community" is because people don't understand or don't know that "there is no notion of tenure in the Netherlands" (I'm quoting).' So, the situation might not match 'tenured math faculty.' And since this is your question after all, it would seem natural that the standards of answering what is asked are followed precisely, in particular since this is delicate matter. Or, to make more constructive sugg.: –  Jul 01 '13 at 16:23
  • You could seize the opportunity that the question got reactivated to reformultate (broaden) the question in such a way that it better fits the existing answers. What happened is problematic enough no need to exaggerate. Exaggeration in such matter in my firm opinion at least in the long run does a lot more harm than good. –  Jul 01 '13 at 16:26
  • @quid: • The words "tenure" and "tenure track" do get used in the NL. See for example http://www.mathjobs.org/jobs/jobs/4782 • I consciously tried to remain factual, by just quoting a source. • Feel free to reformulate the question so that it better fits the existing answers. – André Henriques Jul 01 '13 at 18:16
  • I know the word is used; due to this linked thread I informed myself (then) about the relevant system (reading what the relevant institution writes about this, the general matter of employement there and so on), indeed, I knew before you quoted this person that this was like so, and in fact found it a bit odd then it was communicated so late here. The question is whether it means the same thing most people reading it will think. I assume you quoted a credible source then. I do not intend to edit the question, as this would likely result in more heat than progress. –  Jul 01 '13 at 18:26
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A Google search of "tenured faculty layoffs" returns several instances in the US, in particular in the state of Florida, where layoffs of tenured faculty were planned. In a number of instances, e.g. Florida State University, these plans were rescinded after public brouhaha and legal fights.

Michael Renardy
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Since other answers mention cases which were not financially motivated, here is another one:

Gutkin v. University of Southern California (2002)

The document below concerns the complaint Eugene Gutkin filed in 2001 against University of Southern California, which dismissed him in 2000. He appealed the decision and sought damages, but lost the case. I will quote the paragraph describing the circumstances of his dismissal; the full text is here:

http://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/4th/101/967.html

"Gutkin's complaint alleged that he was a tenured professor of mathematics at the University. In the wake of a dispute over the University's requirement that Gutkin teach extra classes to "make up" for classes he had not been able to teach in the fall 1995 semester, the University initiated dismissal proceedings against Gutkin in October 1996. But Gutkin's dismissal hearing was not scheduled to take place until early December 1998, because, according to Gutkin, "[i]t took [the University] longer than anticipated to effectuate the deceptive alterations to the [faculty] [h]andbook" that would govern the "rigged [dismissal] procedures," and the University "dragged its feet." Gutkin further alleged that by December 1998, "[the University] had not finished its tampering, so the deceptively altered [h]andbook was not ready for posting on the Internet by the time of the scheduled hearing. . . . Consequently, [the University] unilaterally postponed the hearing until February 26, 1999."

The dismissal procedure outlined in the faculty handbook required a hearing before a panel of Gutkin's faculty peers. According to Gutkin, the panel selection process set out in the revised faculty handbook constituted a "charade of impartiality" that resulted in a "sham dismissal procedure." In March 1999, the faculty panel issued a recommendation to the president of the University that found that Gutkin had engaged in "serious neglect of duty," a ground for termination in the faculty handbook. The president of the University terminated Gutkin in March 2000 for "serious neglect of duty," as found by the faculty panel."

Margaret Friedland
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    Dear Margaret, this is an interesting case and I certainly don't mind recording ones that were not financially motivated. I recommend, however, to record some more information (e.g. in the form of copy-paste from your link) in the body of your answer. As you can check in the case of my answer related to the VU affair, links are not permanent. – André Henriques Oct 30 '14 at 10:27
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    I'm not even sure what the implication is here. The move for dismissal was based on Gutkin's refusal to teach a course his employment required. His complaint was about the procedural execution of said dismissal. The rulings sound pretty damning against him, and points out that his argument seems largely predicated upon a belief that you can't fire someone with tenure. So this isn't a dismissal with financial, political, or any reasons at all external to faithful execution of one's position. He didn't do his job and didn't like the obvious consequences. – zibadawa timmy Oct 30 '14 at 11:04
  • @Andre: Done. Hard to cut through all this legalese; hopefully this citation is enough. @zibadawa timmy: You are entitled to seek whatever "implications" you see fit; I didn't want to offer any. Certainly this is about a recent dismissal of tenured faculty. While the OP is interested mainly in cases happening for financial reasons, he did not restrict his interest to ``only wrongful dismissals,please", however one may interpret such a phrase. – Margaret Friedland Oct 30 '14 at 18:58
  • @MargaretFriedland Since it seemed far afield of what I figured was an already broad interpretation of the question, I assumed you had some particular opinion to push in linking to the case. If not, ok. – zibadawa timmy Oct 31 '14 at 13:01
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Going a little further down in history is pretty easy to find examples of great mathematicians being fired by political reasons like D. Egorov in 1929 for being "a sectarian" and defending the church or E. Noether in 1933.

Reimundo Heluani
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