Amid a $2 million budget shortfall, Vermont Law School improperly eliminated tenure for three-quarters of its faculty last year, according to new report by an organization of college professors.

That report, issued this week by the American Association of University Professors, concludes that the independent law school ran afoul of the organization’s academic governance standards when it restructured last year in a bid to cut costs and removed tenure from 14 of its 19 tenured faculty members. Those standards dictate that faculty play a role in campus governance. The organization, which asserts that the professors were not properly consulted in helping manage the budget shortfall, could vote to sanction Vermont when it holds its annual meeting next month.