Simon Quach (USC; Google Scholar) & Zhengyi Yu (USC; Google Scholar), Fight or Flight: The Impact of Post-Tenure Evaluations on Faculty Productivity and Selection:
This paper examines the labor market effects of Florida’s 2022 post-tenure review policy, which weakened tenure protections at public universities. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we compare faculty outcomes in Florida to nearby states. We find the policy increased faculty exits-particularly among high-performing researchers-indicating a brain drain rather than improved selection. Additionally, we detect no productivity gains among incumbents and observe a decline in the research output of new hires. Overall, the findings suggest that reducing tenure protections negatively affects the research capacity and competitiveness of public universities.
Conclusion This paper provides the first empirical evaluation of a major policy reform that weakened tenure protections at public universities by introducing mandatory post-tenure reviews. Leveraging detailed data on faculty employment histories and research output, we find that the policy led to a significant increase in faculty departures from Florida’s public universities, primarily driven by highly productive and younger scholars. These exits occurred even before the first review cycle was implemented, indicating anticipatory behavior rather than formal dismissals.
Contrary to the reform’s stated goals, we find no evidence that the policy improved academic productivity among incumbent faculty. Measures of publications, citations, and preprints remained flat, including for those most at risk of failing post-tenure evaluations. Moreover, the quality of new hires, as measured by pre-hire research output, declined following the policy’s enactment, suggesting a deterioration in the attractiveness of Florida’s public universities to top talent.
Taken together, these findings challenge the assumption that weakening tenure improves university performance. Instead, the evidence points to unintended consequences: a loss of top-performing faculty, no gain in research output, and a drop in the caliber of incoming scholars. As other states consider similar reforms, our results underscore the need for caution. Efforts to increase accountability in academia should be carefully designed to preserve institutional competitiveness and long-term research capacity.
Inside Higher Ed, Study: Post-Tenure Review Pushed Researchers to Leave Florida:
Florida’s controversial post-tenure review policy has led tenure-track faculty members at public institutions to leave the state, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Southern California. At the same time, the policy resulted in no improvement in professors’ productivity, the researchers found.
After the policy was implemented in 2022, the percentage of tenure-track faculty at public institutions who left Florida increased one percentage point, from about 4 percent to 5 percent. There was no such increase among Florida’s non-tenure-track faculty, who are not impacted by the policy, nor among tenure-track faculty at private colleges and universities, which are not subject to the policy, suggesting that the departures were caused by the policy.
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