The University of North Florida faculty union filed a class action grievance against the university on Friday, alleging that UNF violated the union’s agreements on post-tenure review guidelines. 

In its grievance, the United Faculty of Florida at UNF requested the university acknowledge that it used peer comparisons in faculty members’ post-tenure review evaluations and that the use of comparisons be discontinued from now on. UFF-UNF also requested compensation for any employees who were “adversely affected” by peer comparisons.

In May of 2023, Gov. Ron Desantis signed a bill requiring the tenured faculty of Florida’s public universities to undergo post-tenure review evaluations every five years. According to the law’s language, PTR evaluates faculty on  “accomplishments and productivity,” among other criteria. This is the same law that cut the state funding of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

Previous to the 2023 law, tenured professors had job protection for the duration of their careers at the university where they worked. 

Under the new UNF policy, if a tenured professor receives an unsatisfactory post-tenure review, the university can terminate employment. 

Since the Board of Governors approved the PTR amendments last September, college professors across the state of Florida have been in and out of negotiations with university administrators to agree upon more specific evaluation criteria. 

UNF’s faculty union is not the first to take legal action over PTR. Three professors from across the state of Florida filed a lawsuit against the BOG and Florida government in August, challenging the law’s constitutionality. 

Below is language from the union’s statement of grievance:

Statement of grievance (must include date of acts or omissions complained of):

On Friday, September 6, 2024, the Employer, via its Office of the General Counsel, sent an all-faculty email contending that peer comparisons are a necessary component of Post-Tenure Review (“PTR”). The Employer specifically asserted that “peer comparison was [‘require(d)’]  for Post-Tenure Review.” The email further asserted that deans could “consider the Average Annual Comprehensive Score (a measure of 5 years of annual evaluation scores) of a department.” 

By these assertions, among others, the Employer takes the position that peer comparisons are embedded in the PTR process, and in turn, necessarily violates the parties duly negotiated MOU and the CBA.  The MOU plainly states that terms like “average performance of faculty” and other related terms “mean holistic performance that meets expectations.” Further, the parties in MOU negotiations understood that peer comparisons would not be used in the PTR process, with, among other things, the UNF chief negotiator repeatedly acknowledging that peer comparisons would not be conducted; for instance, on August 25, 2023, he stated, “there’s no step where there is a weighing in comparison to other faculty in the department.”

Accordingly, the UNF violated the CBA and the UFF/UNF Memorandum of Understanding (Post-Tenure Review Procedures) by asserting the applicability of and utilizing peer comparisons in the PTR process.

Remedy Sought:

UFF-UNF requests that the University acknowledge that peer comparisons, including the comparison of faculty according to their AACS scores, are not permitted in the PTR process.  And, to the extent comparisons have been utilized in the PTR process thus far that it be rescinded, and any adversely affected employees be made whole and otherwise appropriately remedied.  To the extent there is compensation necessitated by the remedy, it should be with compound interest.

The Union reserves the right to amend or supplement this Grievance as it deems appropriate.

UNF’s media relations assistant director said the university still stands by the assertions made in the General Counsel’s Sept. 6 email referenced in UFF-UNF’s statement of grievance. View the full email here or below:

This is a breaking news story. Stay with Spinnaker as we continue to update you on this developing story and provide more specifics on UFF-UNF’s legal action against UNF.  Read more about PTR and collective bargaining here.