So that’s why tenure is such a big deal
In my day, I have read many a rant about how the tenure system in academia is merely a con job that ivory tower types have used to hoodwink the lumpenproletariat not privileged enough to sit in on the mind-numbing minutiae that are facult meetings. Academics usually trot out the importance of “academic freedom,” but ...
In my day, I have read many a rant about how the tenure system in academia is merely a con job that ivory tower types have used to hoodwink the lumpenproletariat not privileged enough to sit in on the mind-numbing minutiae that are facult meetings. Academics usually trot out the importance of "academic freedom," but this is dimissed by most as unimportant. I will now refer these ranters to this Inside Higher Ed piece by Elia Powers: Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, lowered her spectacles and, as if addressing a group of students, presented her audience with a case study. This one involved the University of Minnesota, where students had protested the hiring of a part-time Constitutional law instructor on the grounds that he was co-author of the controversial Department of Justice torture memo. As dean, Kagan asked the audience, would you have hired the professor, Robert Delahunty? The answers were mixed. Then Kagan changed the scenario. What if the professor was tenured at the time when the same facts came out? Would he be protected under the banner of academic freedom? Yes, the audience of lawyers, law school professors and administrators almost unanimously agreed. Read the whole thing to see Kagan's explanation of this seeming paradox. Then again, Stanley Fish does not hold that capacious a view on academic freedom more generally: [I]s academic freedom worth protecting? Only when one applies a limited definition, Fish argued. Worthy of protection: a professor?s ability to introduce material and equip students with analytical skills. ?That?s it,? he said. ?There?s nothing else. The moment a professor tries to do something else [such as inject a political opinion], he is performing an action for which there should be no academic freedom.? Fish added that a professor who comes clean about her political view at the start of class still shouldn?t be protected. ?Ask this question,? he said. ?Is it an account or an advocacy of an agenda?I have to assume that Fish was limiting his remarks about protecting academic freedom within the context of a classroom setting. Because if he's saying that research topics and research output should not be protected, then dear God, keep that man away from my campus. One also wonders what Fish's views would be about blogging.... UPDATE: Only tangentially connected, but it seems appropriate here to say goodbye to Michael Berube's blog -- he hung up his blogging spurs today. He makes a valid point in his last post: [L]et me try to answer the most serious question I?ve gotten about this decision: why not just cut down? Post something under 2000 words for a change? Post once a week or once a month, instead of maniacally posting every weekday?.... I?ve tried that, actually, but it doesn?t work. Blog maintenance on this scale is a daily, sometimes hourly thing, regardless of whether there?s a new post up. And even if I didn?t try to maintain the blog on this scale (a good idea in itself), there?s still the problem of the invisible blogging. I don?t write these posts out in advance, you know. I sit down for an hour or two (more for the really long posts), write them in one take in WordPerfect, look ?em over, transfer ?em to the blog, preview, edit, submit, and then proofread one last time once they?re up. (Because sometimes you can?t catch a typo until it?s really up there on the blog, and even then, I?ve missed a bunch so far.) Which means, among other things, that I do a great deal of the planning-before-the-writing while I?m not blogging. And that?s what?s been so mentally exhausting. It?s like ABC from Glengarry Glen Ross: Always Be Composing. And while it?s been great mental exercise, and it?s compelled me to think out (and commit myself in public to) any number of things that otherwise would have simply laid around the mental toolshed for years, it?s not the kind of thing I can keep up forever, and it wouldn?t be seriously affected if I went to a lighter posting schedule. I?d still spend way too much time thinking about the Next Post and the Post After That.
In my day, I have read many a rant about how the tenure system in academia is merely a con job that ivory tower types have used to hoodwink the lumpenproletariat not privileged enough to sit in on the mind-numbing minutiae that are facult meetings. Academics usually trot out the importance of “academic freedom,” but this is dimissed by most as unimportant. I will now refer these ranters to this Inside Higher Ed piece by Elia Powers:
Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, lowered her spectacles and, as if addressing a group of students, presented her audience with a case study. This one involved the University of Minnesota, where students had protested the hiring of a part-time Constitutional law instructor on the grounds that he was co-author of the controversial Department of Justice torture memo. As dean, Kagan asked the audience, would you have hired the professor, Robert Delahunty? The answers were mixed. Then Kagan changed the scenario. What if the professor was tenured at the time when the same facts came out? Would he be protected under the banner of academic freedom? Yes, the audience of lawyers, law school professors and administrators almost unanimously agreed.
Read the whole thing to see Kagan’s explanation of this seeming paradox. Then again, Stanley Fish does not hold that capacious a view on academic freedom more generally:
[I]s academic freedom worth protecting? Only when one applies a limited definition, Fish argued. Worthy of protection: a professor?s ability to introduce material and equip students with analytical skills. ?That?s it,? he said. ?There?s nothing else. The moment a professor tries to do something else [such as inject a political opinion], he is performing an action for which there should be no academic freedom.? Fish added that a professor who comes clean about her political view at the start of class still shouldn?t be protected. ?Ask this question,? he said. ?Is it an account or an advocacy of an agenda?
I have to assume that Fish was limiting his remarks about protecting academic freedom within the context of a classroom setting. Because if he’s saying that research topics and research output should not be protected, then dear God, keep that man away from my campus. One also wonders what Fish’s views would be about blogging…. UPDATE: Only tangentially connected, but it seems appropriate here to say goodbye to Michael Berube’s blog — he hung up his blogging spurs today. He makes a valid point in his last post:
[L]et me try to answer the most serious question I?ve gotten about this decision: why not just cut down? Post something under 2000 words for a change? Post once a week or once a month, instead of maniacally posting every weekday?…. I?ve tried that, actually, but it doesn?t work. Blog maintenance on this scale is a daily, sometimes hourly thing, regardless of whether there?s a new post up. And even if I didn?t try to maintain the blog on this scale (a good idea in itself), there?s still the problem of the invisible blogging. I don?t write these posts out in advance, you know. I sit down for an hour or two (more for the really long posts), write them in one take in WordPerfect, look ?em over, transfer ?em to the blog, preview, edit, submit, and then proofread one last time once they?re up. (Because sometimes you can?t catch a typo until it?s really up there on the blog, and even then, I?ve missed a bunch so far.) Which means, among other things, that I do a great deal of the planning-before-the-writing while I?m not blogging. And that?s what?s been so mentally exhausting. It?s like ABC from Glengarry Glen Ross: Always Be Composing. And while it?s been great mental exercise, and it?s compelled me to think out (and commit myself in public to) any number of things that otherwise would have simply laid around the mental toolshed for years, it?s not the kind of thing I can keep up forever, and it wouldn?t be seriously affected if I went to a lighter posting schedule. I?d still spend way too much time thinking about the Next Post and the Post After That.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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