Idaho State University: Suspension of Faculty Senate

Following a series of disputes over academic freedom and shared governance between the ISU faculty and senior administration, ISU President Arthur C. Vailas and the Idaho State Board of Education ordered the suspension of ISU's Faculty Senate. A provisional senate was elected by the faculty, which returned most of the former senators to the new body, but ISU has refused to recognize its activities. FIRE and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) have raised serious concern over the implications of the unilateral dissolution of ISU's representative faculty body, and the AAUP opened a formal investigation into ISU's suspension of the Faculty Senate. The report from the AAUP investigation heavily criticizes the ISU administration for its actions against the faculty. On June 11, 2011, at the AAUP's annual meeting, its members voted unanimously to sanction ISU.