ESU’s outgoing president, Ken Hush, faced backlash in 2022 after laying off tenured faculty. Ethan James Scherrer/Wikimedia Commons

Ken Hush, outgoing president of Emporia State University in Kansas, is donating roughly $1.4 million —equivalent to the last four years of his salary—to the university.

Since taking the helm in 2021, Hush oversaw a controversial workforce-management policy that included firing 23 tenured faculty members. The American Association of University Professors publicly censured ESU for that decision, and some of the laid-off faculty sued . Emporia officials, including Hush, defended the job cuts, saying they were needed to address a budget deficit and falling enrollment.

Enrollment plunged in the fallout from the cuts, but according to ESU’s statement this

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