FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Contact: Kristy Hammond, UA Staff; Chris Sinclair, UA Communications VP
Phone: (541) 636-4714
Email: info@uauoregon.org ; sinclair@uauoregon.org
Oregon Legislators Express Alarm About UO Leaders’ Planned Cuts,
UO Senate Prepares for Possible “No-Confidence” Vote in President Scholz
Amid a public outrage over planned cuts at the University of Oregon, Oregon state leaders and the UO Senate have issued letters rebuking the administration’s plans for program eliminations and faculty layoffs.
In a public letter to President Karl Scholz, Senator Floyd Prozanski, Senator James Manning, Speaker of the House Julie Fahey, Representative Lisa Fragala, Representative John Lively, and Representative Nancy Nathanson expressed their alarm that the university’s proposal could result in the termination of tenured faculty:
“We believe that this course of action would damage the University’s reputation as a premier institution for science and research and could impact its ability to attract the best and brightest minds in academia in the future.”
The letter further called upon the University to slow or pause planned cuts in order to engage openly with members of the campus community, including the UO Senate, faculty, staff, and students. This demand for a more democratic and transparent process of deliberation and collaboration has been echoed by both campus labor unions and the UO Senate.
The University Senate’s “Open Letter on Budget Cuts” (which has over 600 signatures) describes an “information vacuum” and “veil of secrecy” that has resulted from administrators’ lack of transparency concerning criteria for determining cuts, plans to mitigate impacts on students, and the nature of the budget deficit. The letter rejects the timeline for cuts, noting that the rushed process is “being used to push forward previously unthinkable changes to our University.”
The open Senate letter follows on the heels of an extremely contentious emergency meeting of UO Senate Executive Council on Friday, August 29th. During the open meeting, some senators and other faculty attendees began calling for a vote of “no confidence” in President Karl Scholz and CFO Jamie Moffitt. Those discussions have escalated, with UO Senators now being canvassed to determine whether they would support a no-confidence vote in President Scholz.
During the open meeting, Scholz and Long all but directly confirmed that the University still plans to make cuts to tenured faculty. Long stated, “There's a real loss of the core point about tenure, which is to pursue truth and not to be laid off for some political statement that you're making or for the truth that you're trying to articulate in that pathway. But these budget reductions are a different matter. And so the need to make them in the ways that we've done [i.e. by terminating tenured faculty] is the difficult pathway, but it's not one that undermines tenure itself as an institution.”
Laying off tenure-track and tenured faculty is an extraordinary measure that is virtually unheard of among top AAU universities like the UO. Although other peer R1 universities are currently facing greater financial challenges than the UO, none are currently laying off tenured faculty. They are instead pursuing less extreme solutions such as early retirement incentives, decreases in graduate admissions, hiring freezes, elimination of vacant positions, and reductions in non-personnel spending.
During the open meeting, faculty and senate members pressed the administration about problems with shared governance at the University of Oregon. President Scholz claimed that UO has met the legal burden of complying with University governance policies, without the need for consultation with the Senate. He argued that he has the direct authority to make these decisions under the supervision of the board:
“So the Oregon State law, I'm reading from it, ‘The board shall adopt the budget of the university. The board has the authority to establish, eliminate, control, or substantially reorganize academic programs and units of operation.’ And lastly, I'll read, ‘Subject to the supervision of the governing board, the president of the university has authority to direct the affairs of the university.’ So I do think we are operating within our statutory responsibilities to address what is a serious challenge for the university.”
The faculty union, United Academics, rejects this argument, insisting that UO leaders are not meeting their responsibility to co-govern with the full University Senate or their responsibility to follow UA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. Several grievances have been filed by UA already, as the faculty union believes UO leaders have failed to comply with requirements to give proper notice for layoffs, to provide information to the union regarding layoffs, and to follow Article 25 protections against the use of layoffs to meet cyclical financial challenges.
Pressure on UO leaders is mounting from other directions as well, including several major professional academic organizations. Notable letters denouncing the UO administration’s planned cuts have been issued by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the Academia for Equality Board, the American Association of Religion, and officers of academic associations in German, Scandinavian, Austrian, and Jewish Studies.
A group of distinguished UO alumni are also preparing a statement of opposition to the UO administration’s planned cuts. Rhodes Scholar Nayantara Arora and Gates Cambridge Scholar Alex Mentzel state: “As Rhodes and Gates Cambridge scholarship recipients, we know firsthand that UO’s investment in the humanities opens doors for students to thrive on the world stage. To dismantle that foundation now is short-sighted and contrary to the mission of a public university.
This is in addition to a resolution of condemnation issued by the Associated Students of the University of Oregon (ASUO), which was co-sponsored by eight student groups.
The faculty union, United Academics, is continuing to call upon supporters to take action through their website: strengthenuo.com/take-action. Community members can also speak out against cuts during the upcoming UO Board of Trustees public comments session, which will take place on the Portland campus on Tuesday, September 16 at 9am.
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For press inquiries or to be added to our press contact list, please email info@uauoregon.org. Press can also contact UA 3209 to request interviews with impacted faculty.
Press can find more information about planned cuts at the UO and the broader financial picture of the institution on the faculty website strengthenuo.org. Coverage and press resources are continuously updated at: strengthenuo.org/for-press. Press are also welcome to subscribe to our faculty union newsletter RSS feed here.
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United Academics AAUP/AFT Local 3209 of the University of Oregon is the exclusive union representative of faculty at the University of Oregon. As faculty representatives, stewards, and leaders, we work every day to improve our university and the state of higher education in Oregon. More info about UA Local 3209 can be found at uauoregon.org.