Monday, July 30, 2007

Abolish Tenure   [Stanley Kurtz]

Should we eliminate academic tenure? Yes. I have no principled objection to tenure. Under the right circumstances, it can function as intended, to protect the marketplace of ideas. Unfortunately, in the hands of political ideologues, tenure turns into an incredibly efficient tool for enforcing political conformity. Tenure may protect a few besieged conservatives, but for the most part tenure functions to create the siege itself.

In an article on the Ward Churchill fiasco, David French (of Phi Beta Cons) reports that 82 percent of Americans want to modify or eliminate tenure. Over at the excellent new website, Minding the Campus, Mark Bauerlein has an essay worth reading called, "The Trouble With Tenure."

The notion of eliminating tenure might seem like pie in the sky, but I suspect there are real possibilities for change. No doubt any shift would have to be grandfathered in, but how could we go at tenure in the first place? The answer, I think, is state legislatures. What we need is a campaign in a fairly conservative-leaning legislature, in a state with its own university system. The mere existence of such a campaign would provoke intense professorial reaction, thereby sparking a national debate. Can you imagine college professors on TV trying to seriously defend the idea that tenure has functioned to protect the marketplace of ideas?

To run a campaign against tenure, it would be very good to have an organized public lobby critical of the current higher education establishment. (I discussed the need for such an organization last week.) We would also need some very serious studies of the history and current functioning of tenure. By themselves, brief opinion articles would not be enough. We would have to carefully review the history and philosophy of tenure, and compare its classic justification to its sad state at present. Still, while there would be lots for critics to do, between public opinion and the inherently weak position of anyone defending tenure, I think a serious reform campaign could have real success.

What would replace tenure? Probably long-term contracts. I believe a few schools have already experimented with this. As noted, the change would be grandfathered in, and at best would only happen piecemeal. So prospects of a catastrophe would be slight, while there would be plenty of time for experimentation with new arrangements. But I guarantee you, even the slightest prospect of change (i.e. one state legislature seriously debating the end of tenure in its public university system) would send the professorate into a mad rage, and would provoke a major national debate about the state of higher education as a whole. That debate would provide an opening for all sorts of academic reforms, not limited to tenure.

More than anything else, the conversion of tenure from a protector of academic freedom into an instrument of ideological exclusion is responsible for the destruction of the campus marketplace of ideas. Tenure is the cornerstone of the campus political-correctness problem, and even beginning a serious effort to remove it would almost certainly shake up the entire academic system. The time to consider a serious campaign to eliminate academic tenure has come.

07/30 09:45 AMShare