AG opinion: Profs can keep textbook royalties

A professor who requires students to buy his or her textbook for class can still receive royalties for the sales, according to an Arkansas attorney general's opinion issued Wednesday (AP article). The opinion was prepared by Jack Druff, saying that the Arkansas Code contains no direct proscription against a professor's receiving royalties generated by his students' purchase of class materials, so long as the university's policies with respect to the disposition of royalties gives priority to the students' academic welfare. The only direct mandate is that course materials be selected “without regard to any personal financial gain.”

The opinion states that a professor's financial interest in the sale of course materials should not play a part in the selection of those materials in the curriculum. Druff and McDaniel previously opined in this 2007 opinion that Amendment 33 concerns can play a role in restrictions placed upon an institution of higher learning (if the restriction encroaches upon a substantive power that has vested in the institution’s board by long practice). In other words, this matter is up to each specific institution -- not the Legislature -- to promulgate a policy that ensures that course materials be selected on the basis that they are the best for the course, giving priority consideration to programs that benefit students academically.

Act 106 of 2007 does require that institutions of higher learning adopt guidelines to acknowledge any conflict of interest. There is a small nuance in that Act 106 of 2007 takes up the issue of any royalty a faculty member may receive rather than a professor profiting off materials he authored. See Act 105 of 2007 for legislation dealing with inducements for required course materials. Act 105 also deals with royalties or other compensation from the sale or publication of a textbook that includes the employee’s own writing or work.