(Radio Iowa) – A majority of the Republicans on the Iowa House Education Committee have voted to get rid of the tenure system at Iowa’s three public universities. Representative Skyler Wheeler, a Republican from Orange City, says tenure protects bad professors.

“Tenure was originally designed to protect diversity of thought on college campuses, however as we have seen clearly in our Regents universities, there is no longer diversity of thought,” Wheeler says. “According to a study of the top 40 colleges, this is about four years ago, on average for every one Republican college professor, there are 12 Democrats.”

Representative Mary Mascher, a Democrat from Iowa City, says Iowa would become the only state in the country to ban tenure if the bill becomes law. “I’ve always believed Iowa is a quality place and we stand alone, but I don’t believe this would create a good impression of our state and our educational system because it would suffer greatly if we were to abandon or eliminate tenure.”

The move to ban tenure is now eligible for debate in the full House.