More Threats to Faculty Tenure on the Horizon

The lieutenant governor of Texas elevates the idea of ending tenure at public universities

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick held a press conference today to respond to the Faculty Council of the University of Texas, which recently passed a resolution reemphasizing the importance of academic freedom at the university and denouncing political interventions in the university curriculum.

At the center of the dispute is the ongoing political fight over "critical race theory." Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country have taken interest in how topics of race and social justice are taught and discussed in schools. The focus of the initial wave of lawmaking was on K-12 education, but the legislative cannons are now being aimed at colleges and universities. As I've written before, the bills are generally a sloppy mess that cause real problems for legitimate educational efforts.

Patrick is all too happy to escalate the fight. "Tenure, it's time that that comes to an end in Texas." Patrick likes to make bold declarations, but he is no backbencher who can be ignored. The lieutenant governor is arguably the most powerful political office in the Texas state government. Patrick is elected in his own right through a statewide ballot (he was reelected to the office in 2018), and he serves as the presiding officer of the state senate. In floating his proposal to end tenure, he claimed to have the support of the chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee and of university regents across the state (regents are appointed by the governor). Patrick declared that he wants to make an overhaul of state universities a "top priority" of the next legislative session, and he appears to be staking his future political ambitions on making professors into a punching bag.

Tenure has long been the cornerstone of academic freedom in American higher education. It is all well and good for universities to promise to recognize academic freedom, but it is the procedural protections and job security of tenure that make that promise meaningful. In practice, instructors and scholars without tenure protections are easily silenced and dismissed.

Texas will not be alone in reconsidering the future of tenure at public universities. The regents of the Georgia university system have already moved forward a proposal to weaken tenure protections. Regents and lawmakers in other states have similarly set their sights on tenure.

The prospects for academic freedom -- and ultimately for creative scholarly research and quality teaching -- will be dim in Texas and in other states if politicians like Patrick have their way. When I was growing up in Texas, the state bragged of its desire to construct world-class institutions. State politicians in recent years have largely abandoned that aspiration. It remains to be seen whether Texas will be able to preserve even a mediocre system of higher education in the years ahead.

Comments

[Bob from Ohio]

"staking his future political ambitions on making professors into a punching bag"

You guys aren't that important.

[DaivdBehar]

Cancel all woke. All woke is case in the service of the interests of the Chinese Commie Party, to destroy the American Way of Life.

End all judicial and sovereign immunity. These judges and legislators are truly the enemy of the people, and must be crushed. We are sick of the failed elite gorging themselves on the rent, and returning nothing of value, only a toxic miasma of oppression and stupidity.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Cancel all woke."

Autistic authoritarian's argument!

[DaivdBehar]

Serial denier. Not crazy, evil.

[DaivdBehar]

Queenie, can you tell the class if you have tenure?

[Longtobefree]

Just cut to the chase and end all funding from the state to any college or university.

[Lee Moore]

Yup, if private colleges wish to offer their employees tenure, that's fine. Government universities shouldn't have tenure. Nor should any part of government - all government employees should be "at will."

And as Longtobefree points out, the simplest and best way to prevent the government's arm from reaching out and directing government universities, is to get rid of government universities and to cease government funding for private ones.

[Don Nico]

"all government employees should be "at will.""
Talk about heavy lifts or tilting at windmills, that is it.
Essentially no government positions except political appointments are at will. And that has essentially no chance of changing.

[Lee Moore]

And yet it is not so in the private sector.

[Don Nico]

Lee,
Even in the private sector the large majority of employee are "at will."
The degree does vary from state to state

[Lee Moore]

Did you miss out a "not" there ?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, speaking as somebody who has been an at will employee his entire life, the Don didn't miss any "not". The exceptions to at will employment are pretty limited.

[Don Nico]

Thanks for the confirmation Brett.

[Don Nico]

I did not miss out the "not" as a quick web search would reveal.
But ever mote states are explicitly adding "only for cause" language.

[Lee Moore]

I interpreted "even" in

Even in the private sector the large majority of employee are "at will."

as indicating that the private sector was like the public sector in having a majority "non- at will" workforce. But if you really did intend to say that the private sector has a majority "at will" workforce, what was the "even" signifying ?

In any event, your point seems to be that lots of private sector workers are not "at will" and the numbers are growing daily, because of ..... government regulation.

This is obviously a bad thing. Some kind of "tenure" freely agreed between private individuals and private employers in fine. Tenure imposed by law on employers is not.

[Don Nico]

The quibble over "even" is pedantry.
Even was a contrast word as a rejoinder to your weak claim that "for cause" is restricted to public sector employment.
Most private sector (not many) are at will as a matter of historical fact. "At will" applies in both directions and historically has been seen as a reciprocal arrangement especially in jobs requiring substantial on the job training. Even so few employers are willing to dismiss employees except "for cause" as doing so raises their unemployment compensation insurance rates.
Before going on about this matter of government interference in employment law, you need to read up on this seriously. "For cause" regulations are NOT a kind of tenure.

[Lee Moore]

I have obviously, accidentally, struck some sensitive nerve. I'm not engaged in combat with you, I'm trying to understand your point. The "even" made no sense in the context of the rest of the sentence.
Hence my question.

However, i now understand that your point was that plenty - if not a majority - of private sector workers benefit from some form of "tenure", largely but not entirely as a result of government regulation.

This point, which I entirely accept, does not indicate that "tenure" is necessary to get the best out of most private sector workers. It indicates that tenure is largely a governmental social policy - applied to its own employees for reasons of politics, rather than productivity, and to private businesses (in some cases) for ..... reasons of politics rather thn productivity.

[David Nieporent]

Even so few employers are willing to dismiss employees except "for cause" as doing so raises their unemployment compensation insurance rates.

Or maybe they're not willing to dismiss employees except for cause because it would be irrational to do otherwise. They have the right — as I have to explain so often to prospective clients — to fire for a dumb reason or even for no reason at all, but why on earth would they want to?

[Lee Moore]

Or maybe they're not willing to dismiss employees except for cause because it would be irrational to do otherwise

I agree that most employers are not any more irrational than the average human, but "for cause" and "for a good reason" are not quite the same thing. eg - of a thousand possibilities :

1. you're good at your job, but your gloomy personality depresses the other folk in your unit, depressing the overall productivity of the unit. There's nothing wrong with being gloomy of course, but you just don't fit in.

2. you're good at your job, but your cheerful chirruppy personality irritates the other folk in your unit, who are on the gloomy side, depressing the overall productivity of the unit. There's nothing wrong with being cheerful and chirruppy of course, but you just don't fit in.

3. you're competent so we couldn't fairly say you've given us "cause" to fire you, but when we hired you we thought you'd be really great. Turns out you're just competent and we want another shot at a really great person.

4. Sorry Vito, I'm gonna have to give your job to Fanucci's nephew. Because, well you work it out Vito.

(I do not, of course, imply that these speeches actually get made, meely that they might be the real reasons for "we're gonna have to let you go.")

[Don Nico]

Lee,
There is no sensitive nerve here. I have taught this subject for years as part of managing within the law.
You are hung up on "even" which has no particular significance.
My point to you is that historically and still for the most part all private sector workers except those covered by negotiated labor contracts with unions are "at will" as is the right of workers to leave their employer at any time.
Over the past 20 years or so, some of that arbitrariness of "at will" in bot sides has be somewhat eroded in some states by legislation. In almost all states employees can be laid off foe lack of business. They do retain certain severance rights and rehire rights. Even in those cases the limitations on "termination for any reason except am illegal reason" is very far from tenure as it is understood and practiced in academia

[Lee Moore]

Although we are beginning to stray further from the point, I am fascinated by "in both sides" here :

Over the past 20 years or so, some of that arbitrariness of "at will" in bot sides has be somewhat eroded in some states by legislation.

What legislation has been passed in the last twenty years or so which makes it legally harder for an employee to leave an emloyment "at will" ?

[Don Nico]

Lee,
You have to look up "at will employment" in the US.
The laws passed frequently require a "business purpose" reason, some require a violation of the employee handbook. There is no single overriding reason. The most common (very common) is the public policy exception" an employer can't fire an employee if it violates the state's public policy doctrine or a state or federal statute. Another common exception is the implied contract exception: employee can't be fired when an implied contract is formed between the employee and the employer. This exception is difficult to prove and the burden is on the employee.
If you want to know the operative law in your state, you'll have to look it up.

Answering David, an employer may want to dump an employee because she taunts other employees, is rude to customers, requires excessive supervision. The good news for the employers is that they need not specify that reason; they can just say "we don't need your services any more."

[Don Nico]

Lee,
I misread your question somewhat.
Employees can leave without notice except as specified in their employment contract. That contract may include non-compete clauses or forms of golden handcuffs.

[Lee Moore]

You have to look up "at will employment" in the US.

I prefer not to. It's a large subject. I would rather be astounded by an example you might provide. I say astounded because the idea that any legislature has made it legally harder for an employee to quit an employment at will would be, to me, astounding.

The illustrations you provide are not illustrations of making it legally harder for an employee to quit "at will" - they are examples of new rules making it harder for employers to fire employees "at will", which rules may specify what now counts as a good enough reason to fire someone. That is a new burden on the employer's liberty to free himself of an unwanted employee. Not a new burden on the liberty of an employee to free himself of an unwanted employer.

[Lee Moore]

Our responses crossed. I am relieved to find myself unastounded.

[Don Nico]

No problem, Lee.
That happens sometimes.

One might think of agreements that limit the right of employees to move to a competitor or to take patients from a previous group practice as effective limitations to quitting. But aside from requirements to give extended notice, they are really a different thing.

[Bob from Ohio]

"end all funding from the state to any college or university"

Disagree, nothing wrong about a state funding its own universities. Its an important way to educate its citizens.

But the state needs to exercise better control. Letting the inmates run them without supervision is insane.

[Lee Moore]

Disagree right back at ya. The reason that State attempts at reining in Sharptonology in State universities are - as Whittington says - a sloppy mess, is that CRT is a shapeshifting will-o-the-wisp that makes a poor target for legislation. The point is that we get CRT because the people in charge of the universities like it. Personnel is policy.

The only practical way to get CRT (and all related agitprop) out of universities, to be replaced by math, physics and chemistry, is to change the personnel. And the best way to start on that is to raze state universities to the ground, salt the earth on which they stood, and leave it all to the private sector.

[Ed Grinberg]

raze state universities to the ground, salt the earth on which they stood, and leave it all to the private sector.

Yes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Indeed.

Tenure was an insititution that could survive as long as universities were enormously useful institutions which were merely occasionally offensive. They could explain the occasional offense as an unavoidable product of the environment necessary for the utility.

When they decided to become a lot less useful, and transition from offensive to devoted enemies of the culture they were embedded in, tenure was doomed.

[bernard11]

"Agitprop."

Come on.

You're swallowing a lot of crap about "agitprop."

Have you investigated any of the ideas behind CRT? Do you think that any ideas that offend RW ideologues should be banned from universities? Or that those ideologues should be setting curricula.

[Lee Moore]

No agitprop ? Hmm.

https://twitter.com/AlecCrisman/status/1495438780907462656/photo/1

Yup, agitprop even in physics.

And sadly, she went full kowtow :

https://twitter.com/skdh/status/1495329150344826882?cxt=HHwWhMC4yZH8vMApAAAA

[Sarcastr0]

CRT is a shapeshifting will-o-the-wisp that makes a poor target for legislation.

CRT is well defined. It's the GOP culture war boogeyman that hard to pin down.

replaced by math, physics and chemistry
STEMLords gonna STEMLord.
I love STEM; it's my personal jam. But focusing on it via mandates is a surefire way towards a miserable society that falls behind in everything but GDP. And perhaps not even that.

[Lee Moore]

I love STEM; it's my personal jam. But focusing on it via mandates is a surefire way towards a miserable society that falls behind in everything but GDP. And perhaps not even that.

When the patient is weak, you feed him nothing but the mildest, plainest food.

After a century or two of nothing but math, physics and chemistry, if academia has been successfully weaned off agitprop and might stomach genuine learning, perhaps we could introduce a little Latin.

[Sarcastr0]

You have no idea what's going on in academia if you think agitprop is much of a thing.

In fact most of the folks crying about academia seem like they haven't set foot in a school in like 40 years. Read the criticism of tenure by the one guy who works there below. It's nothing like what you envision.

Unflinchingly looking inward, doing art, being curious for the sake of curiosity. These are things that make humanity and the civilizations it builds great. What you want is to collapse our society into something two-dimensional, because depth means something you don't like sometimes so you seek to cut it out.

[Don Nico]

Of course you don't give a damn that your radical proposal would destroy some of the world's leading universities at great damage to the Nation. And all to rid the universities of CRT and other topics of questionable value.
Not only is your proposal aimed at killing the golden goose, but it will also fail dramatically as you urge the replications of hundreds of Universities of Phoenix.

[Lee Moore]

....would destroy some of the world's leading universities at great damage to the Nation

A quick google for the world's top universities reveals that the highest placed government university in the US comes in at.... ...number 23 (strictly 23rd equal.)

[Don Nico]

Lee,
You should look department by department. Broad averaging is very misleading. For example for physics UCB is 4th
Here are the best global universities for physics (US News)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Stanford University.
Harvard University.
University of California--Berkeley.
California Institute of Technology.
University of Chicago.
University of Tokyo.
Princeton University.
By the way, please note who is first.

For engineering UCB is 5th
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) . ...
Stanford University. ...
University of Cambridge. ...
ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. ...
University of California, Berkeley (UCB) ...
University of Oxford. ...
Imperial College London. ...
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)
Again note which is first

[Krayt]

The heavy hand of woke controls universities because of government efforts to control, via dangling money.

Get tighter government control to fix it? Send out more beater pickups to gether the chickens that have fled.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree there's a bunch of attempted ideological policing and chilling going on.

But it's not coming from the government. Your ideological lenses are distorting your view incredibly.

[Queen Amalthea]

Sigh.

The thing is, if the government wants to provide something (I know you think it should provide nothing), it should provide the best quality something it can.

To provide the best quality higher education it can, it has to have things like tenure.

It's funny that in other contexts about colleges suppressing some right wing speech these same people fall over each other yelling about censorship and orthodoxy. They actually want both, ultra.

[Don Nico]

"To provide the best quality higher education it can, it has to have things like tenure."
That is far from proved or clear. Much more credible is
"To provide the highest quality research for the Nation, major research universities to have a tenure system."
Competition for the very best faculty is incredibly fierce. Abolishing tenure is not going to happen at top tier universities.

[Lee Moore]

"To provide the highest quality research for the Nation, major research universities to have a tenure system."

This is a very doubtful proposition. In the first place tons of top level research, and roughly 100% of R&D, has been done in the private business sector - eg Bell Labs. The Nation can get excellent research, and the even more useful R&D, elsewhere if it needs to.

In the second place, as a sagacious commenter called Don Nico said " Competition for the very best faculty is incredibly fierce. Abolishing tenure is not going to happen at top tier universities." The tenure is there to help the university to hang on to Professor Smarto Cleverovski, so that it can get some reflected credit for his discoveries. It has nothing to do with whether Professor Cleverovski is at risk of becoming a mailman and not doing any research if he isn't given tenure. Because as Prof Nico explains, competition for his services is very fierce.

In the third place, for any kind of useful research you need to get a grant. You are not free to stare at the sky and dream (unless you are a mathematician) you have to go and sell your research project to some committee. Your academic freedom is as constrained by the need for a grant, as is that of the Bell Labs guy or the Apple guy. (The days when wealthy scientists funded their own research are past.)

And in the fourth place, it is doubtful that the comfort blanket of tenure is good for the productivity of the best minds. I forget who, but one famous physicist noted that it was remarkable how virtually no top physicist did any good work after they'd joined the Institute for Advanced Study.

[Brett Bellmore]

In an era of computational proofs, even the mathematicians need grants...

[Sarcastr0]

In the first place tons of top level research, and roughly 100% of R&D, has been done in the private business sector - eg Bell Labs

Not basic research. And Bell labs has been closed for decades - the profits for basic research are not soon or sure enough to make a business case.

[Sarcastr0]

You are not free to stare at the sky and dream (unless you are a mathematician) you have to go and sell your research project to some committee

A committee of your peers - also dreamers.

it is doubtful that the comfort blanket of tenure is good for the productivity of the best minds.
If you were talking about applied research, maybe (actually IMO no). But basic research does not benefit from desperate minds.

[Lee Moore]

But basic research does not benefit from desperate minds.

Nevertheless, you can still do it in your spare time, living off your meagre earnings at the patent office.

[Sarcastr0]

Einstein is 1) a century ago, and
2) a pretty singular example of a leap forward in understanding the foundations of the universe.

Real science is almost never Einsteinian. Banking on that is a recipe for complete stagnation. Remember, the foundations of applied research are basic research.

Don't start advocating we eat our seed corn because you've decided endless hunger is the key to success.

[Lee Moore]

Real science is almost never Einsteinian.

Exactly !

Almost all modern science is algorithmic, not inspirational - people lacking in creative genius nevertheless make small incremental discoveries and advances because science is well established as a process.

Thus the unremarkable worker bees who make these advances are interchangeable and replaceable - they do not need tenure any more than the sales manager in Kansas City needs tenure. They're workaday office guys (and gals). Why would mere cogs need tenure ?

Meanwhile, those very occasional inspired leaps made by the true genuises, are external to the scientific process. And those geniuses might easily be overlooked for tenure. Because tenure is part of the process.

[Don Nico]

Lee,
Your comment is so far off the mark that you prove that you know nothing about world-class science and technology.
But, hey. in your fantasy world it might be the case. Only your therapist knows for sure.

[Sarcastr0]

Holy crap no! There is a ton of middle ground between Einstein and metrics-based inquiry.

Intuition and creativity still have a huge place in foundational research. Hell, they still have a place in applied R&D!

The risk averse milestone-based style you espouse would kill everything from basic to applied, from genius on down.

[Lee Moore]

It's almost as if you imagine that intuition and creativity are a monopoly of the universities, and that there's none going on in milestone-based American businesses.

Which by the way are far from risk-averse.

[Don Nico]

"Real science is almost never Einsteinian."
S_O,
What do you define as Einsteinian science? (a serious question).
I go down to Landau's level 2 (also occupied by 1 person), Enrico Fermi to examine what world class physics is. Even at Landau's level 3 (that included himself), science is very far from algorithmic.
One can continue with many examples.

[Don Nico]

Lee,
One thing that tenure does do, is to allow creative faculty to move away from their area of initial specialization to an entirely new field without being fired, for example moving from high energy physics to epidemiology or to design of new medical instrumentation.

[Lee Moore]

Yes-ish. This sort of thing can of course happen by agreement, so what tenure is doing here is allowing the academic to switch when the university thinks it's a bad idea. Sometimes this will benefit learning, humanity and the price of fish; sometimes not.

There are no doubt many pros and cons to a system of tenure, which IMHO can safely be left to employer and employee to determine, case by case.

Except in the government sector, for reasons explained elsewhere in this discussion.

[Don Nico]

"so what tenure is doing here is allowing the academic to switch when the university thinks it's a bad idea."
Not at all, Lee. Junior faculty members have 5 years to convince their colleagues that they are deserving of tenure by delivering research (and supporting grants) at a level sufficient to convince their senior faculty colleagues. Nothing prevents them for changing direction during that period, except that they considerably lower their chances of being recognized as a top class researcher. Academic freedom allows them to take the chance, but they risk a lot.
So it is NOT that the university does not want them to change directions but that they are too risk adverse to do so.
This comment is all in the context of research universities. In teaching colleges, the calculation may be much different

[Don Nico]

"has been done in the private business sector - eg Bell Labs."
Bell Labs and its like that did fundamental research no longer exist in the US.
"so that it can get some reflected credit for his discoveries"
You clearly know nothing about the creation of a highly innovative culture of excellence. Your comment reflects small thinking and is a gross distorian of the intellectual dynamics of the Harvards, MITs, CalTech, UCBerkeley, etc.
Your third point has absolutely zero to do with tenure. But you are correct that research is expensive and most fundamental research requires external grants from governments or philanthropic foundations.
Your fourth point is a mix of sophistry and deception. The Institute for Advanced Study has many active, productive scientists. There are field in which the best work is done before the scientist reaches 40; that is most characteristic of mathematics. But it is far from universally true.

[Sarcastr0]

Turns out the before 40 thing is not true - if you look only at publications and not time, a scientist's great breakthrough is randomly distributed. The before 40 idea comes from the frequency of publication, not anything having to do with creativity or spark.

I found this book largely bad, but that was the one thing I took from it:
https://www.dashunwang.com/book/the-science-of-science

[Don Nico]

S-O,
the under 40 story is mostly driven by mathematics.
Otherwise in physics and engineering, for example, I agree with you; top work is broadly spread over a career

[Michael D]

Yes!!

[Jimmy the Dane]

How about you get 20 years of tenure, once qualified to do so, and then you have to go into "senior" status or maybe retirement? Seems perfectly reasonable to me. The idea that some professor who is 80 teaching two classes should be permitted to pull down a six digit salary because of "tenure this" and "tenure that" is just patently stupid. Also, "tenure" is being equated to job protection at the public expense usually for entrenched leftist activists. That was also not the original purpose of the practice. I don't see a problem with reforming what is a broken institution.

[Don Nico]

Jimmy,
Twenty years is zero these days. Otherwise you have blatant age discrimination.

[Krayt]

What's a wealthy 80 year old got to do anyway, aside from take it easy, pop a pain pill, kick back on his plush sofa in a wood-paneled room, and watch Netflix while his 49 year old wife blows him.

Sorry, sorry. I was channeling Danny DeVito's character from Hoffa.

[Don Nico]

Krayt,
I'll let you know when I turn 80.

[Soronel Haetir]

I see this very much as a case of "take the king's shilling, do the king's bidding". Agree completely with the commenters saying if private universities wish to offer tenure and extremely loose job requirements that is completely on them. Public schools should expect to have significant input from the public when they start espousing ideals counter to what the public desires.

[Queen Amalthea]

Orthodox Academy, hello!

It's especially funny these right wing guys have no idea about the neutral application of the principles that they, sometimes, yell about so loudly.

Conservative have goals, not principles.

[Don Nico]

Just as you have slogans, not principles.

[Krayt]

Politicians have goals, not principles. They are psychopaths lite with no shame and therefore the ability to lie convincingly. They don't actually care what you think, and therefore have no cloud of fear if they might get caught in lie. It's just another scenario to manage...with more lies, on their pursuit to power so their wealth can mysteriously grow at large multiples of their salaries, the more power, the larger the multiple.

[Krayt]

Like predicting if it's a man, the person is taller than an average woman, you're right 75% of the time, except here you're right 99.428% of the time.

[Don Nico]

"They are psychopaths lite with no shame"
I suspect that it gave you an erection to write that, but you've actually proved nothing

[TwelveInchPianist]

Academic freedom is a very important concept to higher education, and if Colleges and Universities decide to show some interest in it, maybe we can persuade legislatures to adopt policies protecting it.

But the best way to address the immediate problem is to defund and close the "grievance studies" programs where the cult is spreading most quickly.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Academic freedom is important, but the best way to preserve it is to attack some professors for what they say via funding!"

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who's talking about attacking some professors?

Academic freedom don't mean that public institutions and programs are guaranteed funding if the public thinks they're not useful.

[Sarcastr0]

There's no right, but populist meddling in academia is a pretty stupid idea.

You're a great case study, actually. The right has made cultural studies generally a target in the usual culture war fearmongering that has come to define their party. And you have shown you are enthusiastically buying what they've been selling. And that you prefer the easy narrative versus critically looking for the truth.

For instance, remember when we discussed what critical race theory was and you had no idea until I found some citation? And only then could we have anything like a productive conversation? That should clue you in your position is feelings first, facts a distant second.

So congrats on buying the manufactured grievance over 'grievance studies.' I'm sure your grievance keeps you warm, and keeps you focused on your partisanship.

But there's a pretty good chance it's based on cherry picking and false light. Not a great way to make decisions.

Is public granularly regulating education legal? Absolutely - education cannot exist without accountability. Is what you and many on here want want good policy? Hell no; it's not even based on reality.

[Lee Moore]

populist meddling in academia is a pretty stupid idea

At last we are agreed. Let us stop all this populist meddling.
Starting by stopping the checks.

[Sarcastr0]

The checks don't come from the populous.

[Lee Moore]

All together now.....

....oh yes they do !

(with due allowance for your spelling.)

[Queen Amalthea]

If the public decides to ban academic speech by defunding it that's a problem as surely as if they fired someone for their 'not useful' speech.

[Queen Amalthea]

You know what gets me? Conservatives widely and often acknowledge that the academic deck is stacked against them.

And then they bitch about tenure.

Like the 1st Amendment tenure doesn't protect the popular speakers, but the unpopular ones. Tenure is a good friend to those questioning leftist orthodoxy.

But, it does get in the way of Right wing attempts to establish a right wing orthodoxy at higher ed institutions.

So, it's got to go, in that context for them.

[Brett Bellmore]

They bit about tenure because it costs most of them nothing if it goes away, because they're mostly not getting it at this point.

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, seems more like pure partisan spite-fuel to me. The media as public enemy has lost it's punch, so over to a new target for a while.

[bernard11]

By all means, let's destroy the American higher education system, which is one of our great institutions, because some stupid politicians want to stir up the masses about Critical Race Theory - a topic they probably know nothing about.

Could people like Patrick be any more toxic?

It's also amusing, in light of this,

Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country have taken interest in how topics of race and social justice are taught and discussed in schools. The focus of the initial wave of lawmaking was on K-12 education,

that we were hearing claims, just yesterday, that it is Democrats who want to overrule local governments, whereas Republicans stand squarely for local control.

Conservatives have gone fucking insane. They are deranged. With few exceptions, a vote for any Republican is a vote to ruin the country.

[Michael D]

You realize your defense of the status quo is by definition, conservative.

[bernard11]

Well, I hadn't thought about it, but you are right.

Of course what is called "conservatism" in the US today is more like a radical reactionary movement.

[Longtobefree]

'conservative' and 'liberal' have no more meaning than 'left wing' and 'right wing'.
Either you support individual freedom, or you support state control.
Pick any label you like, in the spirit of Humpty Dumpty.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Either you support individual freedom, or you support state control. "

What do you think of stop signs, traffic lights, and center lines, you bigoted, half-educated, right-wing culture war casualty?

[Sarcastr0]

That's some good motte and baily.

What you support is definitely *not* keeping the status quo, Michael.

[Sharper]

The woke DIE crowd in universities has already to a large part destroyed the higher education system. Did they really think the taxpayers funding them would simply go along forever with their intellectual fashions and lack of delivering an actual education to students in order to fund more diversity administrators and useless academic -studies majors?

[Sarcastr0]

Here's the thing - students are getting education. The main issue is the educational outcomes are not equitable across class and race lines.

If you actually care about educational outcomes, this culture war bullshit wouldn't be on your radar.

[bernard11]

The woke DIE crowd in universities has already to a large part destroyed the higher education system.

Oh really?

I don't think so, but maybe you have evidence, and not just an anecdote or two about something.

[Don Nico]

"Did they really think the taxpayers funding them would simply go along forever "
I suspect that you actually know that only between 10 to 15% of the costs of state universities are paid for by the respective states.
As for what funds the non-STEM departments, look some to overheads, to tuition, to grants (fewer than in STEM), and to philanthropy.

[David Nieporent]

Universities are wasting lots of money on DEI deans and other useless administrators. So why are legislatures not going after that, rather than tenure for professors?

[Don Nico]

David,
Now here I have to express some agreement. The number of such positions has increase markedly in the past few years. But similarly the number of admins involved in assuring compliance with government rules and regs is very large.

[F.D. Wolf]

State universities, as the name suggests, are not “local governments”; they are state entities. All their employees are paid by the state, with state taxpayers’ dollars. They are, in sum, state employees. But it’s “fucking insane”, to use your colorful phrase, for the state to actually have input in how its own employees do their jobs. Apparently the government should micromanage every employer-employee relationship except its own. Thank you for that refreshing dose of sanity from Planet Progressive.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know too much about the lay of the land here, but I know enough to tell you have no idea what you're talking about. Property taxes are actually pretty localized, and school boards are not state-level.

[F.D. Wolf]

Do you understand that primary education (K-12) and universities are different things? I made no reference to the former, which are run by local school boards. "School boards" have nothing to do with universities.

[Sarcastr0]

I assumed from your discussion of state dollars.

I was too kind, it seems.

If you are talking about higher education, you're *more* wrong - federal dollars, tuition, and endowments are all paying the bills there.

[bernard11]

The state has all sorts of input in terms of budgets and the like.

But it has no business firing faculty because the governor disagrees with what they say.

There is no better way to destroy the university.

Apparently, to you it;s terrible if the university administration suppresses ideas it doesn't like, but just dandy if the GOP state legislature does.

[Don Nico]

"Apparently, to you it;s terrible if the university administration suppresses ideas it doesn't like, but just dandy if the GOP state legislature does."
Bernard,
I think that you are talking past the point. Many (if not most) state universities have a Board of Regents (or similar name) appointed by the governor or other state official. As the state still kicks in ~15% of cost, it still has enormous influence. So the Boards will always be (and have been in the past) subject to legislative pressures. Still many state universities are in the topic tier at least as measured with respect to STEM departments

[Rossami]

I remain unconvinced that tenure is the be-all and end-all of academic freedom. It is a tool to support the principle but it has its share of negative consequences and it's only one of many potential tools. Even though my family personally benefits from tenure, it's a model that I think should be reconsidered and probably scrapped.

[Michael D]

If tenure really was about academic freedom, why should it have to wait a certain number of years before it applies. Is a relatively new college instructor not permitted to have academic freedom until that time lapses?

Your questions about tenure are some I too have.

[Don Nico]

Actually at top tier universities, untenured faculty do have academic freedom. What tenure assures is academic independence as well as providing an "up or out" meritocracy system.

[Don Nico]

Michael,
There is no fixed number of years. Tenure could be awarded at any time. There is a fixed number of years by which a tenure case must be considered. If tenure is not granted the professor usually has 1 year of remaining employment.

[bernard11]

The difficulty I see with making changes is that the people, like Patrick, I see screaming about it cannot, IMO, be trusted to come up with an alternative that still protects academic freedom.

They don't want things taught, at any level, that doesn't match their fantasies about American history.

[Lee Moore]

an alternative that still protects academic freedom

The free market. If you're that good, if your current institution kicks you out, in a free market somebody else will want you. Badly.

Unless they're all run by an ideological clique that doesn't like your views of course.

But if you're useless, then yeah, losing your job may not be followed by a string of attractive offers from other employers. Meet the reality for most workers.

Nobody gets tenure as a plumber, but if you know what you're doing you can pretty much name your own price.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, noted protector of unpopular ideas the free market.

You're a market worshiping child if that's what you reach for.

First, short term popularity is a shit way to judge long term intellectual progress.

Second, a society that bases all it's intellectual choices on some dumbass idea of 'utility' is an inhuman technocratic nightmare.

Do you want to live in a society ruled by Silicon Valley? Because that's what you're advocating for.

[bernard11]

+1000

The free market is no protection at all for the guy exploring unpopular ideas.

A big advantage of tenure is that it protects people like that from jackasses like Dan Patrick.

[Lee Moore]

The free market is no protection at all for the guy exploring unpopular ideas.

Sure, in the sense that if his ideas are unpopular enough for the mob to come round with pitchforks, he's going to need the police (or a private security guard.) But in the sense of getting money to research his ideas you're entirely wrong simply as a matter of math.

Because for any $n amount required for a particular research project, there are - in a free society - many more potential private funders than than government funders. (For values of n < say $100m.)

Consequently, if all funders are "independent" in the sense of their preferences for funding things being unaffected by other people's preferences, even if your project is very unpopular, the larger selection of private funders increases your chances of getting a taker eccentric enough to fund you. And of course government funders are not remotely "independent" in this sense, so we have to discount the absolute number of government sources by a large factor in assessing the diversity of their preferences.

And by way of a direct refutation of your "no protection at all" thesis - the 1978 Chemistry Nobel Prize winner, Peter Mitchell funded his own research, privately......when he found it being baulked by his - government - university.

[Sarcastr0]

Private funders have fundamentally different incentives than government funders.

A single counterexample seems like it underscores the general point bernard is making about the marketplace, rather than exploding it.

Again, your vision ends up being basically Silicon Valley, which is good at some stuff but awful at everything else.

[Lee Moore]

Private funders have fundamentally different incentives than government funders

Private funders have myriad goals and incentives. Much more diverse more than government funders (though government funders have their own private goals and incentives, aside from the goals and incentives putative Master.)

Hence the diversity inherent in widely distributed private wealth. It is a foolish child who thinks getting richer is the only thing worth pursuing.

[Sarcastr0]

No, market incentives turn out to actually be about the same - ROI.

It's much *less* diverse than the mission-based US government research enterprise.

And with a shorter timeline as well.

[Lee Moore]

moi : It is a foolish child who thinks getting richer is the only thing worth pursuing.

Sarcastro : No, market incentives turn out to actually be about the same - ROI.

🙂

[Don Nico]

"many more potential private funders than than government funders. (For values of n < say $100m.) "
On what market survey is your claim based? FOr what market sectors does it apply. Please be specific by names. else we'll know that the claim is spun out of your head

[Don Nico]

"And by way of a direct refutation of your "no protection at all" thesis"
In some fields that was possible. In a shrinking number it still is. In the past year I have published two peer-reviewed epidemiology papers in medical journals with no external funding. Will these get a Nobel Prize? Definitely not. But they are cited. And they would not have been funded if the data sources were not funded by the Welcome Trust in the UK.
So when you say funded by oneself, be careful.

[Snorkle]

It Texas only wants "educators" that will parrot the Republican party line, it will end up with "educators" who can't get hired in states that do respect the academy.

Which is probably what the want - losers and drunks are easier to get to say whatever the party line is this week. And I expect this fad will sweep other Republican-dominated states.

Just leaves the competent ones for states that actually want educators.

[Purple Martin]

"...It Texas only wants "educators" that will parrot the Republican party line, it will end up with "educators" who can't get hired..."

...not to mention "graduates"...

[F.D. Wolf]

I don't know why educators should have job security no one else has.

The rationale for tenure was academic freedom and ideological balance in the academy. No one wanted a cycle left-wing government firing all right-wing educators followed by a right-wing government firing all left-wing educators. Needless to say, it has failed to deliver on either ideological balance or academic freedom. Conservative faculty, for the most part, know to keep their opinions to themselves, lest they incur the wrath of their "tolerant" colleagues and administrators.

Academic freedom is important, but the current system has failed to guarantee it. There is neither need nor incentive to preserve it.

[Sarcastr0]

Love how you stuck 'ideological balance' in there.
Way to insert your desired conclusion into the foundations of the argument you're trying to make!

I do think we need more ideological balance in academia (and I think the quality would go both ways - we desperately need more critical thinking and ideological heft on the right), but I challenge the idea that this such was the rationale behind tenure.
For one thing, the us-them balance of today was not around when our university system was getting standardized.

And talk to professors before you just state that academic freedom isn't a thing. Your pet ideology isn't all there is to freedom.

[bernard11]

Depends what you mean by "ideological balance."

I don't think Tucker Carlson needs to be teaching anything.

[Sarcastr0]

I think there are plenty of content-neutral ways to weed him out.

I do think there is a natural hiring bias towards ideological conformity, and a bit of consciousness of this would be good both for academia and conservativism.

Some have pointed to the cautionary tail of the so-called mainstream media, which does have these kind of ideological balance measures in place, which has generally been more embarrassing that salubrious.
I would hope that the click-driven media is not a good parallel to academic incentives. But maybe I'm wrong.

[Andrew_E]

Instead of going after Tenure, why not implement reforms to the larger University system? E.g... 1) All Chancellors and Deans are nominated by the Governor, approved by the Senate, and serve at the will of the Governor. All Vice-Deans and Department Heads must report to a Dean or the Chancellor. 2) Non-Faculty positions (e.g., those who spend less than half of their time teaching), cannot have salaries exceeding the median tenured faculty member. Administrative positions are support. 3) No-non Faculty individual can receive a contract that is not at-will. You upset the Dean above you (or the Governor who can remove the Dean), and you are gone. 4) Legislate a "core-curriculum" which all students must take to graduate, require those classes to be taken during the first two years, and require that they be blind-graded and on a forced curve. Create a fund to compensate students who fail-out after their first year due to the rigors of their school, and provide automatic acceptance to another school in the State with less rigorous academics if they so choose. 5) Provide a State fund for research ear-marked to those seeking to research topics that the Federal Government/Academic Community does not approve of - and give bonus points towards tenure to professors in those areas.

[Sarcastr0]

This is pretty off the wall, but I like generalizing the question beyond the spite and partisanship of Texas and tenure. (And I'm not sure tenure is good as it is! But the arguments here are pure knee-jerk partisan hostility and suck).

Taking more administrators from outside academia seems not a bad idea. The profs I know are often offered administrative positions. None of them take it, because that's not what they got into the biz to do. Despite the very high pay for being a pretty no fun job to the kind of people it's offered to.

Though I think your (3) seems draconian, and your (4) is elitist in the wrong way - asking elite non-experts to make policy decisions is not a good alignment.

The failure student fund is...off. We should beef up apprenticeship programs though - academia is not for everyone but we currently act like it is. Return to stuff like you practice under an attorney for 4 years and you can take the bar.

The research on stuff you can't get federal grants for is not a bad idea, but needs a lot of fleshing out to not become just a patronage source for nutters. How do you judge merit?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Legislate a core curriculum, under the guidance of the governor? Your first two years in college, you spend learning what the governor decides you should know?

Andrew_E, please tell me you do not count yourself a conservative.

[Don Nico]

Indeed!
It is hard to imagine a worse idea.

[ducksalad]

Some comments

(1) Not inherently bad if the power was used with restraint. But I have a feeling the norm would become an openly patronage-based turnover of the entire university administration after every election.

(2) No. I understand the concern about overpaid administrators with generic credentials. But you also need good IT people, facilities engineers, staff for a student health clinic, maybe a CPA, maybe a lawyer. You need to pay what it takes to get good ones and frankly that needs to be more than the median arts professor.

(4) There's already core, and it's fairly standardized (at least in TX). There's some wiggle room to for each university to customize or put their spin on it, but all universities/colleges must accept any others' core entirely. There have been unintended consequences, like some community colleges essentially running diploma-mills for the core where students can run to avoid taking (for example) a rigorously taught calculus course. I imagine that's what you had in mind with the blind grading and forced curve, but it really only works if you have common testing standards enforced externally.

(5) Many (most?) states have research funds. I know Texas has had various such programs. Perhaps you imagine the result will be funds for non-PC studies owning the establishment and showing their policies are wrong on the science. No, it almost always ends up being boring stuff like workforce development or trying to position the state economically.

[Don Nico]

Duck,
Andrew's ideas are terrible. The areas that he would turn over to politicians and their appointees are the prerogatives of the Faculty Senate at all top tier universities. Nothing would undermine academic freedom more than putting Andrew's core ideas into the hands of those not on the faculty.
Core curricula do and should vary from major to major; they need to be decided on by experts after considerable academic study and debate and then voted on by the faculties.
As for state supported research, the areas now supported by states are more typically the ones that you cite rather than topics that make America more competitive in the 21st century

[ducksalad]

I think we might be disagreeing on terminology. The "core" I'm talking about is defined as precisely those courses that are required of all majors.

One also sees "core" used to mean the required, rather than elective/optional, courses within a major. And of course that needs to be decided by subject matter experts.

[Don Nico]

Duck,
You're right we were talking about somewhat different things. As an engineering undergrad, I had to take a course in technical drawing; all engineers had to, but not so for liberal arts majors. Many schools still require taking or passing out of "bonehead English" that is more like what you were referring to I surmise: a common core of a few courses

[ducksalad]

I'm a tenured professor at a Texas public university. Patrick's statement is a necessary and overdue warning to many of my colleagues, who brought this upon all of us. And it would not be that bad if tenure actually was eliminated or curtailed by law.

IMO what's driving this isn't the wokeness, although that's not helping our case. What enrages people including myself is stuff like:

1. Faculty refusing to return to in-person teaching, and then claiming that it's a matter of methodology and therefore academic freedom.
2. Faculty saying they have academic freedom to teach a course by posting a list of YouTube videos. Not their own YouTube videos.
3. Faculty who insist they can create their own Covid policies and enforce them on students, and that putting it on syllabus transforms it into a matter of academic freedom.
4. Faculty who insist on a single occupancy window office with nice furnishings and a late model computer, but have not entered the office in six or more months. (How do we know? Dean puts a gift box on their chair, it never moves).
5. Faculty who have individually racked up hundreds of student complaints about the behaviors above. Not comments on evaluations, but actual complaints filed with chairs, deans, hotlines, and state officials. It would not be surprising if some of these angry students copied Dan Patrick's office on their e-mails.

Those of us who aren't excellent but at least show up and try to do our jobs wouldn't mind replacing some tenured colleagues with people who pull their own weight. But actually replacing them is isn't even necessary. If a boss could tell them shape up or you're fired they'd shape up. Right now there's no boss, and the threat is shape up or else we'll start a one-year five-step process possibly leading to a recommendation to start another two-year six-step process.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm sure there are crappy faculty on ego trips.

But that's an issue for school admins. Tenure does not and has never meant free from accountability of being a jackass.

Read these comments and tell me this is about faculty pulling nonsense like that, and not a general hostility to academia for partisan reasons.

[ducksalad]

I totally agree it should be an issue for school admins. But that's exactly the problem: you say "tenure does not and has never meant free from accountability of being a jackass." The jackasses very much disagree and they have lawyers and faculty senates. They insist that values like transparency, shared governance, etc mean we debate the issue to their satisfaction before taking action, and they have no intention of ever being satisfied.

Students don't have years to wait around with no lectures while this is debated for years. They quit. Like several thousand of them at our university. IMO it really is a screaming emergency.

As for the comments here...this is a political website and people frame everything in partisan terms. And surely you of all people would admit that sometimes the target of partisan attacks is actually factually a bad person.

[Sarcastr0]

Fair enough re: taking the Internet as a sign of politics generally

And what you describe sounds both annoying and realistic. Honestly, it reminds me of the endless wankery of discussions on rules when I lived in a commune in grad school.

It does not sound like it's time to end tenure. As I said, there are plenty of administrative sanctions before firing. I've heard of them in use from my friends that have become law profs.

In the schools I talk to (R1s mostly), the stats for students dropping out is not a crisis. Maybe your school is different. Maybe Texas is a special case. But so far I'm not seeing it.

[Don Nico]

Duck,
I can certainly imagine that there our community colleges and second and third tier state colleges and universities at which the problems that you describe do occur.
At my private university, faculty and students have been eager to get to in-person teaching. Broadcast (Zoom or what have you) sessions are by limited exception only. We still must accept COVID restrictions imposed by our city and state, but again most faculty are eager to get back to campus.
My guess is that the conditions that you describe vary greatly across the academic landscape.
Let me ask you a specific. Do the conditions that you describe apply to the campuses of the university of Texas?

[bernard11]

One interesting thing about thus thread is this. Let Eugene post something about a speaker being shouted down or some book barred as "offensive," or whatever and we get all sorts of outrage, cries of "snowflakes," "marketplace of ideas," etc.

But the real snowflakes are the RW'ers who don't want anything taught that might contradict their rosy images of American society or history. Dare to suggest that racism is an important part of American history and you get howls of protest and threats of firing, etc. Talk about people who don't want their worldview challenged, and will do anything in their power to prevent it.

That's the Dan Patricks of the world.

[Don Nico]

Bernard,
Rather than discussing who is the snowflake, we should note that the introduction of enthnic studies, grievance studies, etc have over the past four years spawned a new bureaucracy in higher education in which even in STEM fields adherence to current DEI practices are almost as important (and in lower tiers schools more) important than subject matter competence.
In the end the consequent lack of focus plus increase overheads harm all departments.
Shouting down speakers creates a toxic atmosphere antithetical to learning as does banning certain subjects for campus. While students should not be forced to sit through CRT lectures, the should not be barred from taking such topics as electives.
The flipside is that faculty should be ostracized for grading down students who do not agree with their preached dogmas

[John Rohan]

Seems strange for a libertarian site to be defending tenure. Doesn't tenure interfere with the ability of a school (in some cases, privately owned) to fire a faculty member?

So why not tenure in other professions? Journalism could certainly use it. How about law enforcement? What about the medical field?

[Sarcastr0]

This proves way too much. Under this logic, a law passed preventing even private institutions from choosing to add tenure to their employment contract would be a libertarian, pro-freedom move.

Is that something you believe?

[Lee Moore]

Correct. If a private institution wishes to bind itself not to fire an employee without cause (as specified) then that is its own affair.
Subject to "agency" issues where, say, the owner of a business subcontracts management of the business to an agent, and the agent then self deals himself tenure.

The issue with tenure in the government sector is that if the nomenklatura has tenure, then a new elected Executive who does not share the policy preferences of the nomenklatura (or The Interagency, as it is lovingly known in America) cannot implement his policies. Trump is an obvious example, but other Republican Presidents have faced similar problems. Therefore as a matter of the people's will as expressed in elections, tenure in the government is anathema.

The alternative - the spoils system - is, like democracy, the worst possible system except for all the others. The primary objection to the spoils system is of course....spoils. But now we have seen the permanent bureaucracy alternative in operation for a long time, it is difficult to claim that corruption has been banished. Indeed it has been so smoothly embedded that it is really the arterial system of government.

The secondary objection is incompetence, but even in a spoils system the government has at least some interest in competence, so in non politically sensitive areas, retaining people who can keep the lights on is in the interests of the elected folk.

[Don Nico]

John,
Tenure does not prevent firing for cause, i.e., behavior that violates the contractual terms of employment

[Brightly]

It's hard to argue there is "academic freedom" given the partisan makeup and current level of political product-making happening in the institutions. This mantra is just so much like that "People Could Die!" Skit that one libertarian Remy guy made a few years back.

Look what our current model of "academic freedom" has accomplished: high costs, very little intellectual diversity, taxpayer funded political indoctrination, large number of drop-outs, grade inflation, and large swaths of graduates unprepared for the workforce.

If universities truly exist for the current brand of "academic freedom" instead of workforce preparedness and nonpartisan scientific research, they all should be defunded tomorrow.

"academic freedom" isn't a reason, its a sham.

[Don Nico]

"If universities truly exist for the current brand of "academic freedom" instead of workforce preparedness and nonpartisan scientific research, they all should be defunded tomorrow. "

No one is forcing you to go. Your "reasoning" is the sham.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The more conservative control an American college or university experiences, the more likely that school is to be a shit-rate (fourth tier or unranked) institution. Our strongest research and teaching institutions are operated in, by, and for the liberal-libertarian mainstream.

When conservatives control a school, they turn it into a censorship-shackled, dogma-enforcing, superstition-flattering, nonsense-teaching mediocrity (at best), the type of backwater institution marked by speech codes, statements of faith, sketchy accreditation, chapel requirements, downscale faculty, conduct codes, loyalty oaths, and the like.

If any conservative wishes to challenge those reality-based points, have at it.