Faculty in South Dakota could lose their tenure status if they don’t meet expectations, per a new policy the South Dakota Board of Regents approved in December.

It requires tenured faculty at the state’s six public higher learning institutions to undergo a performance review every five years, beginning during the 2026–27 academic year. While all faculty members already receive an annual performance evaluation by their immediate supervisor, the new policy adds another layer of review and considers five years’ worth of those evaluations to rank a professor’s performance.

Approval of the policy makes South Dakota the latest state to enact a post-tenure review policy. Since 2020, numerous other states—including Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Ohio—have done the same, whereas many others have weakened tenure through various other means. Indiana, for example, passed a law in 2024 that requires colleges to conduct post-tenure reviews every five years and deny tenure to faculty unlikely to foster “intellectual diversity.”

South Dakota’s new tenure-review policy is part of the board’s response to the “immense pressure, from both internal and external forces,” on the national higher education landscape, according to an October board document. “These pressures include accountability (accreditors, state legislatures, and federal government), educational demand and market change, resource constraints, continuous improvement, incentivizing quality instruction, research, and service, etc.”

Under the policy, if a faculty member received an annual performance rating of “does not meet expectations” or was placed on a faculty improvement plan in the previous five years, “tenure will be non-renewed, and the faculty member will be issued a one-year term contract for the following academic year.” The policy notes that the employee would still be eligible to apply for nontenurable positions within the system.

“[The policy] really reinforces our commitment to excellence when it comes to our faculty, the work that they do in education, teaching, service and research, while also reinforcing our commitment to continued accountability and closing the loop,” Pam Carriveau, provost and vice president for academic affairs of Black Hills State University, told the board before it approved the measure. “When we have faculty that are performing well and continue to perform well even past receiving tenure, this process allows us to recognize and reinforce that.”

‘End of Tenure’ in South Dakota

But as Mark Criley, a senior program officer for the department of academic freedom, tenure and governance at the American Association of University Professors, interprets the policy, professors who don’t pass the post-tenure review don’t get a hearing in front of a panel of their peers, in opposition to the AAUP’s recommended regulations. (The board did not respond to a request for clarification about that interpretation, though the policy makes no mention of a hearing.)

“If [tenured faculty can be dismissed] without a hearing at which the administration has to make the case before an elected body of peers, then that’s effectively the end of tenure in South Dakota,” Criley told Inside Higher Ed Thursday. “Post-tenure reviews are becoming increasingly common, and for the most part, they’re redundant. Faculty are already reviewed. Being tenured doesn’t mean you can’t be fired. There is accountability, but there needs to be those types of due process protections.”

The erosion of tenure protections was on display this fall when universities across the country, including the University of South Dakota, suspended or fired dozens of professors who made public comments about far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk in the wake of his shooting.

However, the board was considering post-tenure review prior to Kirk’s death as part of a broader plan to help “align institutional compensation practices with higher education market standards and evolving best practices,” according to board documents. Last summer, it charged an advisory committee—composed of one faculty member and 11 administrators—with developing procedures aimed at “incentivizing quality faculty, while providing the accountability and assurances necessary to safeguard tenure,” which resulted in the post-tenure review policy.

While the policy does not specify the makeup of the review committee, noting that “composition and size may vary by institution,” it requires that a review committee “not be composed solely of academic administration” that completes annual performance evaluations. The rating scale for the post-tenure review includes three categories—exceeds expectations, meets expectations and does not meet expectations—though individual institutions are responsible for developing them within certain guidelines outlined by the policy.

Randy Frederick, board secretary, said the last part is designed to mitigate government overreach, acknowledging that different institutions and departments have varied expectations that the board doesn’t have expertise on.

“Make no mistake, this is government regulation, and over–government regulation is a waste and it is profligacy,” Frederick said at the December meeting. That’s why, he added “all the blanks of the review will be filled in by the individual institutions.”

Making sure the review metrics are specific and clear is also key to preserving academic freedom, Michael Card, a political science professor emeritus at USD, told South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

“The three categories or buckets of our responsibilities are, the obvious one, teaching, but we are also to do research and then the other one is service to the institution and or your profession,” Card said. “Those could be spelled out more, even on an annual basis, and they’re often not.”

But even with those details in place, the policy alone has the potential to incite fear and cheapen the learning environment at South Dakota’s colleges and universities, said Criley of the AAUP.

“Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions,” he said. “When you have perpetually probationary faculty without security constantly looking over their shoulders, fearful of teaching controversial subjects, doing controversial research or expressing unfavorable views about institutional governance, students are not well served.”