Well, this was fun. I was commenting on an article in a very academic journal; it was about tenure. The authors were arguing that tenure for professors didn't serve much purpose. I strongly disagree, and argued so.
My comment had to be pretty short, and so it really is something only an academic with the original article at hand could like. And the sentence structure is merciless. But there a few snippets that I'm fond of. See below.
It starts with a quote from Jimmy Carter that he made on Daily Kos. In fact, it was in response to a question of mine. It was pretty cool, I thought.
The comment itself probably won't be in print until the spring or summer.
Tenure and the political autonomy of faculty inquiry
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Under this administration there has been an unprecedented interference in scientific processes, and President Bush has directly avoided implementation of a law designed to guarantee scientific independence. One of his 750 "signing statements" bypassed implementation of the law. . . . It is good for academics and scientists to speak out forcefully - which, unfortunately, most of them are reluctant to do." (Jimmy Carter 2006)
Discussions of tenure often proceed by anecdote or imprecise, general impressions. For example, college presidents may complain of "lazy, incompetent" faculty who "ruin" their campuses but cannot be removed (Fogg 2005). Given the ease with which such charges can be made, XYZ et al. are to be applauded for undertaking a serious empirical study of a major issue regarding tenure, the relationship between tenure, and the exercise of free speech. Nonetheless, it falls far short of their goal of casting doubt on whether tenure does effectively protect free speech in the academy.
One problem is that the experimental results admit a very different interpretation; namely, that tenure does allow a genuine independence of inquiry from political pressures external to the professorate, if not in other cases.
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Such independence from external pressures is often regarded as the central point of tenure. As Jonathan Knight of the American Association of University Professors has remarked, tenure allows colleges "to provide the best education to students `by ensuring to faculty they need not be worried about outraged trustees or legislators . . . if they want to explore controversial notions'" (quoted in Fogg [2005]). Perhaps, as President Carter laments, too few faculty are actively speaking out in support of unfettered research, but the authors' work indicates that faculty view one another as largely politically autonomous.
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It is clear now that with some topics, such as evolution and stem cell research, both teaching in schools and research elsewhere have been seriously affected by government pressure; we also have recently seen efforts to override or even suppress scientific research in federal institutions on matters such as Plan B birth control (Harris 2005) and climate warming (Revkin 2006). Quite severe restrictions on government funding of artistic expression are also well known (Dubin 1993). It appears, then, not only that are faculty prepared to exercise their independence but also that research agendas can otherwise be adversely affected.
Among the pressures on the professorate that are external to the faculty, some become embodied in the institution. Lawrence Summer's resignation as Harvard's president and the withdrawal of the first-choice presidential candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, (Rainey 2006) reflect the desire trustees can have to prioritize supposed organizational skill over scholarly goals, as well as the fact that tenured faculty may be prepared to speak out against resulting decisions that are thought to subvert academic values.
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Part of what can lead faculty to oppose administrators is the perception that heavy influence is being exerted in areas involving teaching and research, where the administrators have little understanding. For example, a university administrator with the central goal of increasing grant revenues may bring considerable blind pressure to bear on the content of research - and do so without even any clear understanding of the difference between clinical and theoretical inquiry.
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Instead of indicating that tenure does not support freedom of expression, the responses on the survey could mean that faculty members generally do not feel compromised enough for there to be a significant payoff in angering colleagues. In this regard, it is unfortunate that many of the authors' examples are drawn from political correctness battles. It is my own judgment that a number of the instances mentioned are not cases of responsible academic research - for example, the assertion that homosexuals do not generally have children appears questionable (Editors 2006) - but an adequate argument for my general assessment would certainly exceed the limits imposed here.
References
Carter, J. (2006) Questions and answers. From http://www.dailykos.com/....
Dubin, S. C. (1993) Tongue untied. Nation 257:72-74.
Editors (2006) By the numbers. Advocate 952:20.
Fogg, P. (2005) Presidents favor scrapping tenure. Chronicle of Higher Education 52:31.
Harris, G. (2005, Sept. 1). Official quits on pill delay at the F.D.A. The New York Times.
Rainey, A. (2006) Second choice. Chronicle of Higher Education 52:8.
Revkin, A. C. (2006, Jan. 29) Climate expert says NASA tried to silence him. The New York Times.