Senate Higher Education Committee tables amendments, favorably refers SB1 to Rules and Reference

The Senate Higher Education Committee voted 5 to 2 to favorably report substitute Senate Bill 1, the Advance Higher Education Act, to the Committee on Rules and Reference after tabling multiple amendments that would have limited administrative authority or preserved faculty protections.

The bill’s third hearing centered on a set of amendments offered primarily by Ranking Member Ingram and Senator Weinstein that would have changed or removed provisions on faculty strikes, retrenchment definitions, workload specifics, intellectual-diversity language, post-tenure review, program-elimination triggers and syllabus posting. Each amendment was described on the record, then met a motion to lay it on the table; the motions carried by roll call votes of 5 to 2.

Ranking Member Ingram described several amendments as restoring or protecting faculty collective-bargaining and academic standards. On Amendment 85, Ingram said, “This amendment removes provisions which ban faculty from striking faculty working conditions and…