Tenure has long been a target of conservative higher education reformers. Why should the Marxist professors brainwashing our children enjoy employment for life? Abolish tenure, and we can show them the door. Or so the argument goes.
Yes, there are a fair number of left-wing nutjobs in the academy, bent on indoctrinating rather than teaching—but not nearly as many as conservative pundits and legislators seem to think. As my friend Stanely Ridgely points out in his excellent book, Brutal Minds, the bigger problem when it comes to campus indoctrination is “student life” apparatchiks.
Speaking anecdotally, most professors I know, regardless of their views, are just doing their best to teach their subject matter. They might occasionally allow their political biases to seep into their instruction, human nature being what it is. But for the most part, they are not intentionally doctrinaire.
Some might question my own motives in saying these things. Of course, as a tenured professor, I’d advocate for tenure. Of course, I’d defend my colleagues.
True, I might be somewhat biased, since tenure has saved my butt more than once. Nevertheless, objectively speaking, I believe there are good reasons for the tenure system to persist, that it is a net good for the academy, and that it ultimately benefits not just left-wing nutjobs but also conservatives like me—maybe even more so.
Perhaps, before I go on, I should explain exactly what tenure is and what it isn’t. It is not, as some imagine, a guaranteed job for life. Tenured professors can be fired for any number of good and appropriate reasons, including simply not doing their jobs. Most institutions have processes for regularly evaluating tenured faculty, ensuring they remain productive and continue to perform up to expectations.
In that way, tenure is akin to a partnership in a law or accounting firm. A partner has ownership, is fully invested in the enterprise, and gets a seat at the table when important decisions are made. Yet partners can still be fired if they fail to measure up. They just can’t be summarily fired. The other partners must agree to it, directly or indirectly, through the powers vested in the senior partners.
It’s much the same in academia. Tenured professors might not have literal ownership in the institution, but they have a kind of ownership. They are certainly fully invested in the enterprise, or at least they ought to be. And they have a seat at the table, contributing to important decisions via their participation on various committees, councils, etc. This is known in the academy as “shared governance.”
Shared governance is necessary for an institution to be effective—and yet it is impossible without tenure. Administrators come and go, but faculty members remain—often for 30 or 40 years—and thus deserve to be heard. Yet, to speak honestly and forthrightly, they need protection so that the relatively temporary administrators can’t simply dismiss them over some petty disagreement. Faculty members might not always win the day, but they must be able to take part in the debate, siding against the administration when necessary, without fearing for their jobs. Tenure makes that possible.
The other reason we should preserve the tenure system is that it doesn’t just protect left-wing professors; it protects their conservative counterparts, too. Yes, I know there aren’t many conservative professors right now, and that’s a problem we should address. But without tenure, we would have far fewer. Do you think I could get away with saying what I say, for as long as I have, if I didn’t have tenure?
[RELATED: From Tenured Professor to Lumpenproletariat: The State of Higher Ed Faculty in America]
The idea that, by abolishing tenure, we can jettison left-wing professors and replace them with conservatives is, frankly, delusional. First of all, there aren’t enough conservatives who are qualified to teach at the college level and/or who are eager to do so. Conservatives largely abandoned the academy two generations ago because it doesn’t pay as much as other professions that require similar levels of education.
As for conservatives in the academy who already have tenure, abolishing it will just make their lives more difficult while also making it harder to recruit conservative academics in the future. Who will spend all those years preparing for a job that doesn’t pay much, comparatively, and from which you can be dismissed just because you ticked off the dean?
I know that abolishing tenure is a favorite talking point among my fellow conservatives, but come on, folks, you’ve got to let it go. Ditching it is a bad idea. Instead, let’s focus on reforming discriminatory hiring practices while at the same time encouraging more young people to consider academic careers.
That’s how we’ll bring about lasting change—not by making the people who are already on our side even more vulnerable.
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Image: “The Tenure Letter” by Nels Highberg on Flickr
