The University of Wisconsin (UW) system could, within the month, no longer have a nationally recognized tenure system.

Recently Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee announced a plan to slash state spending on education in the 2015-2017 budget (UW System will receive a $250 million cut) and modify the state laws on tenure and shared governance.

Walker has said that the proposed tenure changes will provide “more autonomy” for the UW system’s Board of Regents (the governing body that oversees the UW system) and for chancellors to manage the cuts. It would do so by allowing tenured faculty to be laid off at the discretion of the chancellors and Board of Regents.

As a faculty member at UW-Madison, I am heartbroken that my state government has seemingly decided to undermine, instead of prioritizing, the K-16 education system.

As a researcher whose work examines the politics of education in the U.S. and around the world, I am deeply concerned by the threat this legislative shift poses to the ability of public university faculty to conduct research about politically inconvenient facts and teach in politically disfavored fields: the core purposes of faculty tenure and shared governance in public universities.