Recent caterwauling by the University of Alabama chapter of the American Association of University Professors (UA-AAUP) in response to legislative efforts to regulate university governance would have you believe UA’s faculty numbers have dwindled after anti-DEI legislation, but the numbers tell a different story.
Recently, the UA-AAUP decried a bill currently under consideration by lawmakers to regulate university governing bodies and allow the removal of tenured professors.
The bill is still waiting on a vote in the Senate before it can be signed into law. However, UA-AAUP was swift to denounce the bill after it passed the House of Representatives last week, claiming it could be used to target already demoralized faculty.
House Bill 580 (HB580) by State Rep. Troy Stubbs (R-Wetumpka) would require a university that establishes a faculty senate to develop policies on the body's membership and responsibilities. A faculty senate would serve only an advisory role, thereby negating any "final decision-making authority on any matter of representing institutional positions." It would also require polices that would include periodic post-tenure reviews and authorize the removal of tenured professors after due process.
In its response, UA-AAUP claimed the legislation would lead to faculty members leaving the state university system and also pointed to the state’s 2014 DEI ban, arguing that faculty members were already suffering from low morale over the law.
The law prohibits agencies, local boards of education, and public colleges and universities from maintaining a DEI office or department or sponsoring any DEI program or program that advocates for a divisive concept.
“Studies have shown that [a] combination of anti-DEI legislation and the prospect of an ideologically-driven post-tenure review process has led to a significant decrease in faculty morale, resulting in what many observers have called a ‘brain drain’ of talented and productive faculty out of the state university system,” UA-AAUP said in a statement
“The introduction of HB580, in combination with anti-DEI legislation (SB129) passed two years ago, has already led to a significant decrease in faculty morale at the University of Alabama. Many of our colleagues have left for other jobs or are actively applying elsewhere.”
Despite claiming so-called “brain drain,” records of UA staffing in tenured and non-tenured positions tell a different story. UA’s total number of university employees has steadily increased since 2018, with the only decline occurring from 2019 to 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which did not negatively affect professors, tenured professors, or full-time faculty. The school’s total faculty has increased since 2018. UA’s full-time faculty has increased from 1,441 in 2018 to 1,755 in 2025. Likewise, the number of tenured positions grew from 593 to 709 over the same timeframe.
No matter the category: professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, or lecturer, the numbers have increased year over year since 2020. In 2025, the year after the DEI ban, the number of tenured professors rose from 697 to 709 from the previous year, while regular full-time faculty rose from 1,678 to 1,755, and professors rose from 363 to 391.
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