The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a request for review filed by three professors who challenged the University of Arkansas System's tenure policy.
The faculty members from separate UA System schools claimed that a revised tenure policy violated due-process rights, retroactively changing the contractual relationship between faculty member and employer.
U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. dismissed their case in March of last year, and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in November found "no basis for reversal" of Moody's order.
The petition to the U.S. Supreme Court listed three professors as filing the legal challenge on behalf of themselves and "others similarly situated," court documents state.
They are Philip Palade, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; J. Thomas Sullivan, a professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Bowen School of Law; and Gregory Borse, an associate professor of English and philosophy at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
Sullivan is retiring effective Nov. 5, according to a statement provided last month by a UALR spokesman.
"I am 70 and was contemplating retirement at the end of the 2021-22 academic year. The disclosure that even full vaccination does not ensure protection against infection with Delta variant expedited my decision. The effective date of my resignation is November 5, 2021," Sullivan said in a statement provided last month by UALR.