Academic Freedom and Tenure: Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Published in the May-June 1989 issue of Academe.

The board of trustees and the president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, in interfering with faculty appointments, in virtually eliminating the appropriate faculty role in making new appointments, and in disregarding existing procedures and the unanimous faculty will in the selection of a new academic dean, have acted in ways inimical to the principles set forth in the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. Additionally, a number of actions by the board of trustees and the president, foremost among them restricting further faculty appointments to those holding a particular and narrowly construed ideological stance, have placed academic freedom in peril at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.