LINCOLN- On Tuesday, faculty groups and administrators from the University of Nebraska lined up to oppose Sen. Loren Lippincott's LB1064, which would end faculty tenure in Nebraska. Lippincott said his goal in introducing the bill is not to stifle academic freedom, but to put benchmarks in place to allow for more transparency.

"A lot of these horses plowed the field very straight when they were young and they were earning their tenure," Lippincott told the Legislature's Education Committee, "But then those horses ended up staying in the barn and just simply eating hay." Interim NU President Chris Kabourek was the first to testify, arguing that tenure is something NU need in its "toolbox."

"It takes years of work and a proven record and scholarly performance and productivity, and that's good news for Nebraska," Kabourek said. Should LB1064 pass, Kabourek added, it would put NU at a "great competitive disadvantage." Colby Woodson, a UNL graduate student, argued that the institution of tenure has become a sort of academic caste system, and that it's not necessarily what it used to be.

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