The Libertarian Argument For Professorial Tenure
Interesting piece on how professorial tenure is important for academic freedom and the truth-seeking mission of universities.
Philosophy prof Aeon Skoble and and econ prof Steven Horwitz explain at the Foundation for Economic Education:
The search for truth is a discovery process analogous to the market. Just as entrepreneurs in a market require the freedom to discover value where their best judgment takes them, subject to rules against force and fraud, so do scholars in a university require the freedom to discover truth where our best judgment takes us.Tenure protects scholars like us from interference with our attempts to discover truth. Scholars cannot engage in truth-seeking if we're facing retaliation from people who don't like where our research leads. A university cannot be a university without robust protection of the open exchange of ideas and the freedom of each scholar to research in his or her field without intimidation.
By ruling out the possibility of firing a professor simply for the content of her beliefs, tenure ensures that the university will be what Michael Polanyi called "a republic of science," in which truth-seeking is the highest standard.
Skeptics might argue that even if tenure were abolished, faculty still wouldn't leave their current jobs because they would find it difficult to get hired elsewhere. But that's not the point. The point is that we cannot do our jobs without a credible guarantee of academic freedom, and tenure is one way to secure that.
Tenure protects academic freedom in three distinct ways. First, when we engage in research and publishing, we can't be worried that some administrator, trustee, politician, or even a student activist will find our work offensive and retaliate against us. This will have a chilling effect on our ability to seek the truth, which is our job as college professors. There are numerous examples of libertarian and conservative faculty facing just these sorts of threats, and tenure is the primary reason those threats are empty.
Second, when we construct and teach our curricula, we can't worry that any of the usual suspects will take offense, or try to substitute their judgment for ours. Finally, when participating in institutional decision making about academic matters, we can't be afraid to call shenanigans on various administrator-driven fads (of which there are many) that would undermine our ability to engage in research and teaching.
The offer a number of solutions and answers to arguments, like to the possibility that a prof would get lazy, at the link.
While I would like to think that tenure is about academic freedom, I've listened in (irl as well as online) on too many conversations between academics where they clearly, explicitly do not value tenure in terms of academic freedom, but more in terms of
a) hiring spiff to attract new professors
b) job security & retirement benefit
c) measuring stick
Since my experience is that the profs themselves do not see it in terms of academic freedom, why should I?
Have there been studies done to show how many fights there are regarding academic freedom every year and how tenure has affected that? Maybe it's great, but if it's only rarely rarely used, maybe it's too costly, or unneeded or there might be alternatives, or it's given out too often.
jerry at January 26, 2016 11:16 PM
True, academic freedom was the original intent behind tenure.
BUT, it is no longer the case. Far too many times tenure is used to protect the incompetent/ truly crazy professors - Think Ward Churchill or Nicholas De Genova. While they were somewhat high profile cases; I'll bet that many more cases like theirs, just not as much in the news, happen every year all across campuses.
If schools were truly concerned about academic freedom they wouldn't hire so many "adjunct" (really just a fancy word for "temp" and we can fire you at any time) professors.
If schools were truly concerned about academic freedom they would do more to see a better balance of viewpoints - not just the far left! - represented in their faculty.
So, no, tenure isn't about academic freedom any more - it is viewed as another perk to be given to those they favor.
charles at January 27, 2016 2:44 AM
From what I've seen, tenure is used to enforce progressive group think, and to eliminate those who question progressive orthodoxity by denying them tenure (which results in termination of that person's employment). The search is for conformity within academia, not for truth. Colleges seek the diversity of a Marching Band - many different colors on the surface, but everyone marching in step to the same beat.
Wfjag at January 27, 2016 4:19 AM
I see lack of hiring as a way to enforce conformity in academia. It's harder than ever for many academics to get jobs now -- and if you are not one of the approved thinkers, you sure aren't going to get hired.
Amy Alkon at January 27, 2016 5:47 AM
Lee Jussim is a terrific rabble rouser -- and leads a group of rabble rousers in academia, including Jonathan Haidt and Steven Pinker, who think schools do students a disservice with all the lockstep thinkers who are teaching them.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rabble-rouser/201511/introducing-heterodox-academy
Amy Alkon at January 27, 2016 5:59 AM
I like that imagry Wfjag.
Also, how does this apply to kindergarten teachers? Not a lot of research and development going on there but many K-12 teachers demand tenure protections.
Ben at January 27, 2016 6:08 AM
Yes, the argument for tenure sounds great on paper. Trouble is, it isn't working. Our universities, far from being bastions of free thought, are now centers of enforced conformity, closed-mindedness, and production of irrational propaganda and indoctrination.
I don't see any good way of fixing it. Maybe replace lifetime tenure with ten-year contracts as a compromise. The trouble is, the existing faculty and administration will be in control of the hiring process, so no improvement there. The only thing I can think of, other than subjecting faculty and administration to blatantly ideological tests, is to fire everyone and start over from scratch. Even then, it will require a lot of diligence to ensure that the leftists don't gain control of the hiring process again.
Cousin Dave at January 27, 2016 7:05 AM
Cousin Dave,
They will return to reality when they have no more money. Oppose spending increases for state funded schools. Oppose expanding federal student loan programs. Why should they change as long as they have all that free (to them) money?
Also, most hard science based degrees are fine. Something about easily verified results kills this ideological stuff.
Ben at January 27, 2016 10:09 AM
I used to believe this argument. The trouble is that for every good guy like Ward Churchill that it (somewhat) protects, tenure protects a dozen bad guys/Marxists/SJWs. Better to abolish it.
jdgalt at January 27, 2016 12:05 PM
If that is what tenure is supposed to do, it is not. I worked as a grader for a high-up tenured professor in graduate school. The first assignment EVERYONE bombed. There were two grades across the whole class, only one point apart. They missed a fundamental concept and it really screwed them up. I didn't want to give everyone low grades, but I did.
Now, I was a grader, I never saw any of the students except one who was in my program. Somebody complained that the professor was out to get her/racist/sexist/whatever because of the bad grade (obviously, the person didn't compare to what anyone else got - it was one of the slightly higher scores). The professor was genuinely afraid of backlash from administration - maybe not job loss, but significant enough backlash that it was brought to my attention.
This wasn't some pansy undergraduate distribution requirement. This was graduate coursework. There were MEDICAL STUDENTS in that class. What was I (or the prof) supposed to do - let them think they were right when they all screwed up? Apparently.
Shannon at January 27, 2016 5:54 PM
There are ways to get rid of crappy professors who have tenure. I guess the same technique could be used to persecute original research and thought too.
I had a professor that I thought was terrible. The course was an entry level Texas History class. He said that if you didn't have rudimentary knowledge about the subject, you were too stupid to be in this class. Yes, that was exactly my profile. I didn't learn much Texas history in school. I learned American history and a lite state history but I didn't grow up in Texas. The professor's class was 100% lecture with no comments or questions allowed from the floor. He gave the same lecture 4 classes in a row. He gave 5 tests consisting of 3 questions each. One of the questions for instance was about a Native American named once in a two hundred page book who was never mentioned in his lectures.
I was unbelievably frustrated. I studied 10 times more for that class than any other class - and it was the only class that I earned a B in (with a curve I'm sure - but I also know that I was in the top 5%) I brought my history book with me everywhere, including to a banquet where I was asked to speak. I was asked about the professor because there had been many complaints. I told them that I was really struggling because I had no idea where he would get his test questions but I was careful not to rip the prof.
The professor hovered over us as we gave our evaluation and told us that he would pay us back for complaining. He said that he couldn't hurt our grade but that he could give bonus points to students that came in, worked hard, and didn't complain. Another student in my class was 45 points behind me but came out with an A after our final. Those grades were not released. Only 4 students earned A's out of an original 500 students. 200 students dropped the course.
I should have gone back and complained but I just didn't seem to have the energy.
The school's recourse was genius. He was simply assigned classes at a satellite campus 4 hours away on MWF.
Jen at January 27, 2016 10:13 PM
How much did you learn in the class?
NicoleK at January 28, 2016 5:40 AM
"The professor hovered over us as we gave our evaluation and told us that he would pay us back for complaining. He said that he couldn't hurt our grade but that he could give bonus points to students that came in, worked hard, and didn't complain. Another student in my class was 45 points behind me but came out with an A after our final. Those grades were not released. Only 4 students earned A's out of an original 500 students. 200 students dropped the course."
Only 200?
And did getting a B ruin your self image? It must of, to still be complaining about it God knows how many years later.....
There used to be a lot of these courses, designed to winnow out people who don't belong in college.
The two US History survey courses served this purpose when I was in college forty years ago.
Both were a general education requirement for almost every major.
Amazingly enough, about half the education majors couldn't make it through which acted as somewhat of a bottle neck on morons getting a college degree.
Sad, that those days are over.
Putting up with difficult professors is the best training for going out into the real world and working for a difficult boss. Outside of cushy no work government patronage jobs, or the public education system, these assholes in charge are pretty much the norm.
Isab at January 28, 2016 5:44 AM
"And did getting a B ruin your self image?"
Hey, I got one 'C', and it still pisses me off. It was a quarter in which I had to take over a full load (I also had a part time job) in order to get two classes which were only offered once a year, and if I had not taken them at that time, it would have delayed my graduation. One of the other courses was not a core course, but one that I was taking specifically to get an interning job. Near finals time, I ran out of time and had to prioritize, and I chose to neglect that course because it wasn't a core course. I didn't finish the term project. Fortunately I did well enough on the final exam to pull out a C. I knew I could have done better; there just weren't enough hours in a day. For the next few quarters I maintained the idea of re-taking the class to get a better grade, but it didn't fit into my schedule. It doesn't matter now since the course subject matter is now obsolete, but it still gripes me.
Cousin Dave at January 28, 2016 7:28 AM
doesn't matter now since the course subject matter is now obsolete, but it still gripes me.
Posted by: Cousin Dave at January 28, 2016 7:28 AM
Let it go Cousin Dave. Grades are kind of immaterial after you graduate, and are working in the real world.
My husband was forced to repeat a class in summer school at West Point called Transport Phenomena. Very difficult course, caused him to miss graduating with his class.
One section's teacher decided to flunk three seniors to make a statement of some sort about what a tough grader he was.
And yet, there is still that beautiful USMA diploma hanging on our wall. Looks just like everyone else's of the 800 people who actually managed to graduate from West Point that year....
I watched several of my classmates in law school have a melt down and quit, when they found out that it was impossible for them to keep getting the straight As they got as an undergrad, and that a lot of the grading was political.
The rest of the problem was that there were at least a third of the class who were way smarter than they were.. And their undergrad courses had not been tough enough to illustrate that fact to them.
A shame really, to let a somewhat arbitrary system of measurement define your self image.
Life is unfair. The sooner you understand that, the easier it is to move forward, and get over things.
Isab at January 28, 2016 8:24 AM
Only B I got mad about was in my engineering math class (yes that was the title ?!?). My test grades were 98, 99, and 100. Apparently I didn't participate in class enough.
I got a C in Prof Ibiari's(SP?) introduction to electronics course. He gave four questions on each test. No partial credit. No curve. Two tests a semester. Each was 45% of your grade with 10% being homework. As Ibiari put it, there is no partial credit engineering. Either the bridge stands or it falls. Either the insulator holds or people die. It was a dropout course. Yes it was overly harsh. But I don't feel bad about it. Sometimes life is hard. You get over it.
Ben at January 28, 2016 10:03 AM
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