A piece of legislation that was filed in the Texas Senate last month looks to eliminate tenure for college professors.

Austin NPR affiliate KUT reported that Senate Bill (SB) 18 targets professors the bill’s Republican sponsors assert are inappropriately expressing their ideologies using “academic freedom” as a cover.

According to KUT, State Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) said that tenured professors will lose “guaranteed lifetime employment” under SB 18.

“We’ve seen the brand and the reputation of several of our colleges and universities, including our flagships, that certainly have been damaged because of the actions of a few vocal and fringe tenure faculty,” Creighton, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education, said in the report.

Citing the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), KUT reported that tenure was first issued during World War II in an effort to protect academic freedom.

The AAUP defines tenure as “an indefinite appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances.”

KUT reported that should SB 18 pass the Texas Legislature and be signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, universities across the Lone Star State won’t be able to offer tenure to professors beyond Sept. 1.

Per the report, the measure doesn’t affect professors who already have tenure.

Spectrum News reported that critics of the bill would discourage critical discourse among students and teachers. 

Dr. Matthew Wilson, an associate professor of political science at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, told Spectrum News that SB 18 is politically motivated. 

“To suggest that people's job security would be affected by ideological considerations, by the potential that they would be judged too far left or too far right is, I think, really kind of chilling when we think about free speech and intellectual freedom on college campuses,” Wilson said. 

According to LegiScan, the bill “reported from subcommittee favorably without amendments” on Monday.