Facts
- Denny Carley was a fifth-year, untenured assistant professor of art at Northern Arizona University, subject to a retention/tenure decision under university policy.
- The Art Department Committee on Faculty Status reviewed Carley’s submitted materials and several years of student teaching evaluations.
- The committee voted 3–2 to recommend nonretention; the department chair disagreed, but the dean and higher administrators supported nonretention.
- The university president issued Carley a one-year terminal appointment for 1984–1985 and decided not to renew his contract thereafter.
- Carley sought internal review through the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT), claiming the decision violated academic freedom and constitutional rights.
- CAFT voted 6–3 that Carley’s academic freedom had been violated and recommended retention, but the president rejected CAFT’s majority recommendation after reviewing the record.
- Carley characterized his pedagogy as unconventional, including leaving students unsupervised to encourage independence; student evaluations criticized his availability, supervision, and teaching methods.
- Carley contended the university unconstitutionally relied on student evaluations that targeted protected academic freedom.
Issues
- Whether nonrenewal of an untenured professor based substantially on student evaluations criticizing teaching methods violated constitutional academic freedom or protected expression.
- Whether the university president acted arbitrarily, capriciously, or abused discretion under the Arizona Administrative Review Act by rejecting CAFT’s recommendation and relying on the evaluative record.
Decision
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the superior court’s judgment upholding the nonrenewal decision.
- The court held the nonrenewal did not violate academic freedom because the decision rested on teaching effectiveness and performance concerns, not suppression of ideas or viewpoints.
- The court held the president did not act arbitrarily, capriciously, or abuse discretion in rejecting CAFT’s majority recommendation and considering student evaluations and other evidence.
Legal Principles
- Academic freedom protects expression of ideas and viewpoints but does not exempt teaching performance and teaching methods from institutional evaluation.
- A public university may use student evaluations, along with other evidence, to assess teaching effectiveness in retention decisions absent proof the process penalized protected expression.
- Under the Arizona Administrative Review Act, courts defer to university academic judgments and will not reweigh educational assessments without a showing of arbitrariness, caprice, or abuse of discretion.
- Internal academic-freedom/tenure committee recommendations are advisory; the university president is not legally bound to accept them when making the final decision on retention.
Conclusion
The court sustained the university’s nonrenewal of an untenured professor where the record supported performance-based concerns about teaching effectiveness, and where reliance on student evaluations and rejection of an internal committee’s recommendation did not show unconstitutional retaliation or administrative arbitrariness.