## Facts

- New Jersey higher-education officials were concerned that state colleges had an excessively high proportion of tenured faculty and that tenure reforms were needed.
- After study and consultation, the New Jersey Board of Higher Education adopted statewide “general guidelines” on September 15, 1972 for tenure and periodic evaluation of tenured faculty at state colleges.
- The guidelines sought to limit overall tenure levels by requiring restrictions or more intensive review for reappointments that would increase the tenure rate and by requiring periodic evaluation of tenured faculty.
- On October 20, 1972, the Board adopted a similar guideline resolution for county colleges.
- Faculty associations representing public college faculty alleged that tenure rules and standards are “terms and conditions of employment” under New Jersey’s public-sector bargaining statute and therefore could not be imposed unilaterally without collective negotiations.
- Litigation challenging the resolutions was filed and consolidated for review by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board’s statewide tenure and evaluation guidelines are mandatory subjects of collective negotiations as “terms and conditions of employment,” or instead are nonnegotiable educational policy decisions within managerial prerogative.
2. Whether the Board of Higher Education had statutory authority to adopt statewide tenure and evaluation guidelines for state and county colleges.

## Decision

- The New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the Board of Higher Education’s authority to adopt the challenged tenure-guideline resolutions.
- The Court held the guidelines were not subject to mandatory collective bargaining as “terms and conditions of employment.”
- The Court rejected the unions’ request to invalidate the resolutions and left the guidelines in effect.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory duties to negotiate over public-employee “terms and conditions of employment” do not require bargaining over matters that the Legislature has placed within a public body’s exclusive policy-making authority.
- Statewide educational policy determinations that affect institutional planning and academic mission—such as the overall structure of tenure and requirements for evaluation of tenured faculty—may be treated as nonnegotiable managerial prerogatives.
- Broad, system-level guidelines adopted by a governing board may be distinguished from negotiable, institution-specific employment arrangements, even though the policy affects job security and personnel outcomes.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the Board’s statewide tenure and evaluation guidelines, treating them as educational policy within the Board’s statutory jurisdiction rather than mandatory subjects of collective negotiations under public-sector labor law.


Ass'n of N.J. State Coll. Faculties, Inc. v. Dungan, 316 A.2d 425 (N.J. 1974)