Conservative elected officials seeking to put university faculty tenure on the chopping block

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — When Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Texas colleges to disavow critical race theory, the University of Texas faculty approved a resolution defending their freedom to decide for themselves how to teach about race.

Patrick said he took it as a message to “go to hell.”

In turn, Patrick, a Republican, said it was time to consider holding the faculty accountable, by targeting one of the top perks of their jobs. “Maybe we need to look at tenure,” Patrick said at a news conference in November.

Link to tweet

It’s a sentiment being echoed by conservative officials in red states across the country. The indefinite academic appointments that come with tenure — the holy grail of university employment — have faced review from lawmakers or state oversight boards in at least half a dozen states, often presented as bids to rein in academics with liberal views.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/conservative-elected-officials-seeking-to-put-university-faculty-tenure-on-the-shopping-block-01673290744

Conservatives believe in academic-free dumb.

[PlutosHeart]

1. Tenure is the "test"

for approval before hire. Seems idiocy even on their part to get rid of it.
They have been at this for as long as I can remember.

[Javaman]

2. UT is a private university

They can tell patrick to go piss up a rope

patrick was never accused of being the brightest bulb in the lot. UT gives big to the repuke
party. Next time that asshole is up for re-election UT is going to fall on him like a ton of bricks via their massive endowment to his challenger.

[Orangepeel]

7. It's the University of Texas. State flagship University

[Genki Hikari]

11. Total and complete BS

The Texas Legislature established the University of Texas at Austin. The Texas Constitution of 1876 had established a Permanent University Fund in 1876 solely for the purpose of creating said university. The legislature set aside or acquired land for building state universities viatwo one-million-acre purchases--one in 1876 (in West Texas) and another in 1883, when UT Austin opened.

At least know what the facts are before making assertions that just aren't so.

[tulipsandroses]

3. So I guess it's not about making children feel bad huh?

I hope enough students push back against this. University students are adults. Making their own choices about classes. Fuck these racist fucks.

[róisín_dubh]

4. In the thread that was in LBN...

Someone posted about faculty leaving America in droves.
I’m one of them. Career change (sort of, more of an adjacent shift). I teach about Latin America and more and more students started turning up to my classes with deeply entrenched Trumpist thoughts and aggressive behaviors. Professors are treated as little more than customer service reps (and nothing against customer service reps, it’s just not what I signed up for). That, combined with an attempt to dismantle tenure and a general disdain for the humanities at my red state university led me to resign.
Nothing about being a mid-career academic is worth my sanity. I’d rather make less money in a place I love than slog through a job in a state I despised.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. But why should professors essentially get a job for life for publishing early in their careers

I was interested in pursuing a career in academia but shifted after grad school. But I've never understood the concept of tenure. No other profession really has it.

I agree with you that attitudes toward higher education and professors have changed. People think of college as a traing ground. When it's really a place to enhance your critical thinking skills by focusing on an area of study.

Part of that is the insane cost of going to college. It's crazy what students have to pay now.

But I still don't get how publishing articles or a book early in your career gets you a guaranteed job for life. It's unrealistic.

[róisín_dubh]

6. It wasn't about publishing.

It was about academic freedom to teach truth, even if (as in the 1950s) that truth was uncomfortable or politically inexpedient.
Going after tenure is a threat to free thought in the academy.
Tenure also encourages the best minds to take lower paying jobs in academia, to train the next generations of citizens, as opposed to fleeing for the private or government sector.

I'd have made a hell of a lot more money working for the government or taking my analytical skills to the private sector.

[Buckeyeblue]

8. In the 90's when I was in grad school it was all about publishing

Non-tenured professors who were good teachers weren't getting tenured if they didn't have the publications.

I'm not sure that staying at the same university for 25 years because you have tenure is good for either the professor or the university.

I think you should change jobs, regardless of what your job is, every 3-5 years. When someone tells me they've had the same job for 15 years, I think stuck in the mud.

My experience with tenured professors was somewhat the same.

[róisín_dubh]

10. Tenure is a lot older than the 1990s.

Um, changing jobs every 3-5 years in the academy is neither realistic nor possible for most academics, unless the entire slate was wiped clean and the entire system changed in the snap of the fingers. It's not going to happen.

Also, you do realise that for about 1000 years there have been classes of people who literally just sat and wrote, thought and taught? That is what tenured faculty, in theory, are supposed to do. Not all do it. But I'm sorry historians can't just crank books out and move on to other things, or that archaeologists can't just do digs all year round to support their research. Science experiments don't materialise overnight, etc., etc.
I'm not trying to be a pain about this. Most people criticising elements of the academy have absolutely zero idea of how it *actually* works.


I'll end on one note: often the first people disappeared in authoritarian societies are the educators. Have a look at literature on Latin American dictatorships. Attacks on tenure aren't about professors who have job security; if they were, the attackers would establish term limits at the Federal level (to say nothing of the State level). It's about dismantling the protections of free speech, research and expression of ideas. When that's gone, there goest the bastion of free thinking societies.

[Paladin]

9. Fuck you DEAD, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. (nt)