Tenure has holes. Not too familiar with what they are
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
0
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
edited July 2019
Also, much like with the weird focus on Brandenburg v. Ohio, the line of attack here is both problematic and unnecessary. It's unnecessary because the goal here is presumably not as small as adding jobs with academic tenure to the list of literally all other jobs from which you can get fired over your speech. Getting rid of tenure won't eliminate hate speech, or even make much of a dent given the rarity of such views expressed by academics. Getting rid of tenure will depress the freedom of academics to say stuff that isn't hate speech.
The goal here is to have laws against hate speech, not getting rid of it in a roundabout way by just suppressing speech in general. And if the goal is laws against hate speech, you simply don't need to mess with academic tenure. You can simply include in your contracts, assuming you haven't already, that conviction for hate speech is cause for dismissal. Institutions may or may not make an exception for hate speech, but it hard to argue that academics should have the fundamental right to break the law as part of their freedom.
So the solution here is to have hate new, improved, expanded, increased, etc. speech laws?
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
No, it very much is about tenure. And simply put - if tenure is allowed to be a shield for hate, then tenure will die.
Tenure's a shield for everything, that's kind of its point. Tenure for only things the administrators approve of isn't really tenure. There was a lecturer at my school who was a fucking 9/11 truther in his free time.
This attitude is in part why academia continues to have an endemic problem with sexual harassment (the other being that colleges look the other way for rainmaker professors who bring in grants). Tenure is meant to protect the controversial, not assholes.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
So the solution here is to have hate new, improved, expanded, increased, etc. speech laws?
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
Well presumably they are fine with academic tenure as is. The statement hedgie linked contains a list of perfectly reasonable actions that the Pen law administration should take. I am no more omniscient than anyone here, but I think those actions would be effective in countering the effects of her speech.
I read an article about tenure and apparently tenure is already not a get out of jail free card. She could get fired maybe?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
So the solution here is to have hate new, improved, expanded, increased, etc. speech laws?
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
The solution is status quo, more or less.
Because if you can be fired for your opinions on immigration and border control, why not for your opinions on Israel (anti-Semitism), abortion (baby murder) or any one of the 1000 issues people disagree on?
No one on either side is particularly happy with status quo and that is a very positive sign. It means no one is able drive out and destroy their ideological enemies because of pesky speech protections. And that is for the best.
So the solution here is to have hate new, improved, expanded, increased, etc. speech laws?
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
The solution is status quo, more or less.
Because if you can be fired for your opinions on immigration and border control, why not for your opinions on Israel (anti-Semitism), abortion (baby murder) or any one of the 1000 issues people disagree on?
No one on either side is particularly happy with status quo and that is a very positive sign. It means no one is able drive out and destroy their ideological enemies because of pesky speech protections. And that is for the best.
... you realize except for the very specific case of tenure that's not the case right?
+3
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
No, it very much is about tenure. And simply put - if tenure is allowed to be a shield for hate, then tenure will die.
Tenure's a shield for everything, that's kind of its point. Tenure for only things the administrators approve of isn't really tenure. There was a lecturer at my school who was a fucking 9/11 truther in his free time.
This attitude is in part why academia continues to have an endemic problem with sexual harassment (the other being that colleges look the other way for rainmaker professors who bring in grants). Tenure is meant to protect the controversial, not assholes.
Tenure is not a shield against being punished for sexual harassment, that's (workplace) culture. Sexual harassment is clearly just cause for dismissal. To act like tenure is to blame for prevalent sexual harassment, as if it is not endemic in every other industry, is super dishonest. Professors get away with sexual harassment because they wield a lot of power in the system, they are the bosses.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
0
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So the solution here is to have hate new, improved, expanded, increased, etc. speech laws?
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
The solution is status quo, more or less.
Because if you can be fired for your opinions on immigration and border control, why not for your opinions on Israel (anti-Semitism), abortion (baby murder) or any one of the 1000 issues people disagree on?
No one on either side is particularly happy with status quo and that is a very positive sign. It means no one is able drive out and destroy their ideological enemies because of pesky speech protections. And that is for the best.
... you realize except for the very specific case of tenure that's not the case right?
To be fair, the academic system is probably the most important place, after public society in general, for freedom of speech. It produces and disseminates views and knowledge, and it is part of the public education system. Private businesses firing people over their opinions is not really an issue because a) producing views and speech is not part of their function, and b) they are not intimately tied to the government and public society.
+1
Options
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
No, it very much is about tenure. And simply put - if tenure is allowed to be a shield for hate, then tenure will die.
Tenure's a shield for everything, that's kind of its point. Tenure for only things the administrators approve of isn't really tenure. There was a lecturer at my school who was a fucking 9/11 truther in his free time.
This attitude is in part why academia continues to have an endemic problem with sexual harassment (the other being that colleges look the other way for rainmaker professors who bring in grants). Tenure is meant to protect the controversial, not assholes.
Tenure is not a shield against being punished for sexual harassment, that's (workplace) culture. Sexual harassment is clearly just cause for dismissal. To act like tenure is to blame for prevalent sexual harassment, as if it is not endemic in every other industry, is super dishonest. Professors get away with sexual harassment because they wield a lot of power in the system, they are the bosses.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Academia is second only to the military in the prevalence of sexual harassment. Tenure and academic power structures absolutely do play a major role in this.
No, it very much is about tenure. And simply put - if tenure is allowed to be a shield for hate, then tenure will die.
Tenure's a shield for everything, that's kind of its point. Tenure for only things the administrators approve of isn't really tenure. There was a lecturer at my school who was a fucking 9/11 truther in his free time.
Given the way universities work and the likely difference in political opinion between donors and faculty, 100% some professors are going to get fired over criticism of Israel.
I am less confident anyone would lose their jobs over "hate".
This sounds like less and argument against hate speech laws, and more an argument for making education/research funding something approaching sane.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
That threat already exists, so your choice example for unexpected consecuenses makes no sense.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
This will come as a shock, but their favorite professor is already not criticizing major donors. Tenure is not funding. Also, tenured professors don't teach that much. They usually are too busy getting funding from major donors and supervising grad students.
As far as I know, tenure is like impeachment. You can fire anybody with tenure for other than legal reasons as long as you go through some extrajudicial form of due process. The power of tenure is maintained by a social standard rather than a legal one.
Every time someone with tenure is fired, that is a fail state that reduces the power of tenure, much like impeachment and resignation reduced the power of the President.
I don't know much about the politics of tenure, but thinking about this in a way that takes into account the conservative leaning or radical conservative students that rules lawyer with the best of us, I can find no easy recommendation for change. This is going to cause trouble for any tenured faculty with radically impassioned views.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
This will come as a shock, but their favorite professor is already not criticizing major donors. Tenure is not funding. Also, tenured professors don't teach that much. They usually are too busy getting funding from major donors and supervising grad students.
Tenure really stopped mattering that much when contract instructors (aka adjuncts) ended up teaching 75 percent of classes. I can't find similar number for staff/bench researchers, but I'd guess the numbers were even higher when you look at the percentage of academic researchers who aren't tenured faculty.
So, talking about tenure, you are basically talking about a dwindling minority of aged professors. The real reality is that most instructors are contract laborers who can have their classes pulled for literally any reason up to and including because the academic chair doing the hiring couldn't find their email right away so just gave their classes to someone else. They can't say shit about anyone without being punished, which is why so many are joining unions.
Also, tenure doesn't mean you get to do anything. Funding is even more arbitrary than employment, even with tenure.
The professors who bring in the major gifts and awards are not radicals. Most of them are corporate polished and heavy on the hustle - researchers with spin-off companies, humanities profs with Ted talks and consulting gigs, business professors who also serve on corporate boards, etc. The radicals in academia are like the radicals everywhere else, shoved aside and largely ignored or mocked.
+2
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
?
This guy protesting by threatening to withdraw donations is not appealing to tenure but directly to the value of her differing views to the debate. Because he is an idiot and didn't read up on the case. I can't stress enough how ridiculous it is to defend your claim by providing an article that itself notes this guy is an idiot and also not doing what you say he did. He is saying she shouldn't lose her classes because her views are valuable, not because she has tenure.
You can tell because tenure is strictly about employment and termination. Again, the statement you yourself linked provided a list of actions including removal of teaching assignments, yet did not touch tenure. They do not call for her to be fired.
Why should the people whom...etc.? Because an important number of those people made a statement that preserved that principle!
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
?
This guy protesting by threatening to withdraw donations is not appealing to tenure but directly to the value of her differing views to the debate. Because he is an idiot and didn't read up on the case. I can't stress enough how ridiculous it is to defend your claim by providing an article that itself notes this guy is an idiot and also not doing what you say he did. He is saying she shouldn't lose her classes because her views are valuable, not because she has tenure.
You can tell because tenure is strictly about employment and termination. Again, the statement you yourself linked provided a list of actions including removal of teaching assignments, yet did not touch tenure. They do not call for her to be fired.
Why should the people whom...etc.? Because an important number of those people made a statement that preserved that principle!
Isn't the whole purpose of tenure to protect diversity of thought in academia by allowing professors the ability to articulate controversial ideas? Saying "he wasn't talking about tenure, just the underpinnings of tenure" strikes me as a distinction without difference.
But the bigger misconception in your argument is that tenure only applies to dismissal - if that was the case, then tenure would be a pretty poor shield. No, tenure applies to any form of sanction against a tenured professor - it would have to be in order to serve the role it's supposed to. Relieving a professor of their teaching role is very much a sanction, and would require either the professor's consent or a finding from the body laid out in the tenure agreement. This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
No, it very much is about tenure. And simply put - if tenure is allowed to be a shield for hate, then tenure will die.
Tenure's a shield for everything, that's kind of its point. Tenure for only things the administrators approve of isn't really tenure. There was a lecturer at my school who was a fucking 9/11 truther in his free time.
Given the way universities work and the likely difference in political opinion between donors and faculty, 100% some professors are going to get fired over criticism of Israel.
I am less confident anyone would lose their jobs over "hate".
This sounds like less and argument against hate speech laws, and more an argument for making education/research funding something approaching sane.
I wasn't making an argument against hate speech laws, but yes the funding model of the US higher education system is bad and dumb and should be reformed.
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
Tenure isn't a single thing, and woe unto the professor who thinks they have "tenure" only to learn that their individual contract doesn't do what they thought it did. Nonetheless, here are the AAUP recommendations on terminating a tenured professor for cause:
Termination for cause... should, if possible, be considered by both a faculty committee and the governing board of the institution. In all cases where the facts are in dispute, the accused teacher should be informed before the hearing in writing of the charges and should have the opportunity to be heard in his or her own defense by all bodies that pass judgment upon the case. The teacher should be permitted to be accompanied by an advisor of his or her own choosing who may act as counsel. There should be a full stenographic record of the hearing available to the parties concerned
If possible charges should be considered by a faculty committee and governing board. The cause should be specified, the professor should have a chance to dispute it, with an advisor, and the proceedings should be recorded. That's it.
Sometimes institutions accept resignations rather than prosecute cases because they'd rather not be in the news, and sometimes administrators are so rankly incompetent that they cannot even meet the minimal standard of documenting what they are doing and why, and sometimes it's a combination of both. Sometimes, craven and incompetent administrators who give no shits about sexual harassment itself will let abusers slide instead of, like, doing the work and doing their jobs. This is much like literally any union contract that requires that firings be for cause--or, for that matter, like any legal protection for defendants more broadly. Good job picking up the right wing framing where you find a bad person who got protected (because police fucked up the search, admin fucked up the documentation, etc.) and then call for abolition.
Jokes on you, tenure's going to end anyway--maybe because politicians hate it, but probably just because the labor market isn't what it once was. In a few hard-left liberal arts colleges this will give the Pravda crowd the ability to enforce the bleeding edge of orthodoxy. I imagine Reed will be real torn up about exactly who gets to say what. Mostly, though, it will end up with liberals getting firedespecially for criticizing the school itself, the donors, or anything inconvenient to the hedge-fund-style nexuses of wealth that universities are becoming.
ia, ia
+4
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
This will come as a shock, but their favorite professor is already not criticizing major donors. Tenure is not funding. Also, tenured professors don't teach that much. They usually are too busy getting funding from major donors and supervising grad students.
This perspective is extremely discipline and institution-specific. Humanities are still predominantly funded through tuition, butts-in-seats style, rather than through grants. At the most rarified R1 research institutions humanities professors might not teach much--get that 2-2 or even 1-2 teaching load--but the vast majority of students are attending schools where even the fanciest humanities prof in their department is teaching a 3-3 at best for most of their career (and there are plenty of permanent positions now with 4-4 or 5-5 loads). And most of them don't have graduate students, because most schools don't have graduate programs.
This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
Tenure isn't a single thing, and woe unto the professor who thinks they have "tenure" only to learn that their individual contract doesn't do what they thought it did. Nonetheless, here are the AAUP recommendations on terminating a tenured professor for cause:
Termination for cause... should, if possible, be considered by both a faculty committee and the governing board of the institution. In all cases where the facts are in dispute, the accused teacher should be informed before the hearing in writing of the charges and should have the opportunity to be heard in his or her own defense by all bodies that pass judgment upon the case. The teacher should be permitted to be accompanied by an advisor of his or her own choosing who may act as counsel. There should be a full stenographic record of the hearing available to the parties concerned
If possible charges should be considered by a faculty committee and governing board. The cause should be specified, the professor should have a chance to dispute it, with an advisor, and the proceedings should be recorded. That's it.
Sometimes institutions accept resignations rather than prosecute cases because they'd rather not be in the news, and sometimes administrators are so rankly incompetent that they cannot even meet the minimal standard of documenting what they are doing and why, and sometimes it's a combination of both. Sometimes, craven and incompetent administrators who give no shits about sexual harassment itself will let abusers slide instead of, like, doing the work and doing their jobs. This is much like literally any union contract that requires that firings be for cause--or, for that matter, like any legal protection for defendants more broadly. Good job picking up the right wing framing where you find a bad person who got protected (because police fucked up the search, admin fucked up the documentation, etc.) and then call for abolition.
Jokes on you, tenure's going to end anyway--maybe because politicians hate it, but probably just because the labor market isn't what it once was. In a few hard-left liberal arts colleges this will give the Pravda crowd the ability to enforce the bleeding edge of orthodoxy. I imagine Reed will be real torn up about exactly who gets to say what. Mostly, though, it will end up with liberals getting firedespecially for criticizing the school itself, the donors, or anything inconvenient to the hedge-fund-style nexuses of wealth that universities are becoming.
ia, ia
I've actually said that tenure is a good thing that should be retained, but it's dying - and a large part of why it's dying is because it turns out that people are less willing to defend a principle that's being used to protect those harming them. People don't tend to support principles that are being wielded against them, no matter how much people argue that they should because it's the "right" thing to do. And yes, part of the problem is the administration at schools taking the easy way out instead of doing their job (especially when the professor in question is a rainmaker, and thus there is institutional rationale to not look closely), but a good part of it is that people argue that allowing hate and abuse is part of "academic freedom" (a position that it's worth noting that you yourself have argued for.)
This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
Tenure isn't a single thing, and woe unto the professor who thinks they have "tenure" only to learn that their individual contract doesn't do what they thought it did. Nonetheless, here are the AAUP recommendations on terminating a tenured professor for cause:
Termination for cause... should, if possible, be considered by both a faculty committee and the governing board of the institution. In all cases where the facts are in dispute, the accused teacher should be informed before the hearing in writing of the charges and should have the opportunity to be heard in his or her own defense by all bodies that pass judgment upon the case. The teacher should be permitted to be accompanied by an advisor of his or her own choosing who may act as counsel. There should be a full stenographic record of the hearing available to the parties concerned
If possible charges should be considered by a faculty committee and governing board. The cause should be specified, the professor should have a chance to dispute it, with an advisor, and the proceedings should be recorded. That's it.
Sometimes institutions accept resignations rather than prosecute cases because they'd rather not be in the news, and sometimes administrators are so rankly incompetent that they cannot even meet the minimal standard of documenting what they are doing and why, and sometimes it's a combination of both. Sometimes, craven and incompetent administrators who give no shits about sexual harassment itself will let abusers slide instead of, like, doing the work and doing their jobs. This is much like literally any union contract that requires that firings be for cause--or, for that matter, like any legal protection for defendants more broadly. Good job picking up the right wing framing where you find a bad person who got protected (because police fucked up the search, admin fucked up the documentation, etc.) and then call for abolition.
Jokes on you, tenure's going to end anyway--maybe because politicians hate it, but probably just because the labor market isn't what it once was. In a few hard-left liberal arts colleges this will give the Pravda crowd the ability to enforce the bleeding edge of orthodoxy. I imagine Reed will be real torn up about exactly who gets to say what. Mostly, though, it will end up with liberals getting firedespecially for criticizing the school itself, the donors, or anything inconvenient to the hedge-fund-style nexuses of wealth that universities are becoming.
ia, ia
I've actually said that tenure is a good thing that should be retained, but it's dying - and a large part of why it's dying is because it turns out that people are less willing to defend a principle that's being used to protect those harming them. People don't tend to support principles that are being wielded against them, no matter how much people argue that they should because it's the "right" thing to do. And yes, part of the problem is the administration at schools taking the easy way out instead of doing their job (especially when the professor in question is a rainmaker, and thus there is institutional rationale to not look closely), but a good part of it is that people argue that allowing hate and abuse is part of "academic freedom" (a position that it's worth noting that you yourself have argued for.)
Passing over in silence the fact that you're reaching to litigate posts I wrote in 2015, maybe this would be a productive question: you have this triumphalist narrative about how, because everyone now has your politics, things are gonna change. "People" see how they are being victimized by empty principles. They are going to reject hate, and they've already started doing so, etc. Etc. Do you have literally any evidence? I have never seen you cite any. You just say this stuff.
I think we've had this conversation before, with respect to other topics about whether or not to fire someone over their views, but I still come down on the side that nobodies opinion, expressed outside the workplace, no matter what it is, should result in termination.
There are just so many situations where we expect people to have to work together, even if they have significant ideological differences, or hate each-other.
In this particular instance I would say if you could prove the teachers racist beliefs were affecting their teaching (say they were harsher on minority students either in grading or in class interactions), then you should be able to fire them for unequal education or something similar. At most, having expressed her racist opinions outside of the classroom should only be something used as circumstantial evidence. So if, for example, they consistently give minority students lower grades, you could use their comments to show racist motives, even if they try and claim that minority students are just worse students. But the comments (again, outside the classroom) should not be enough on their own.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
+2
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
?
This guy protesting by threatening to withdraw donations is not appealing to tenure but directly to the value of her differing views to the debate. Because he is an idiot and didn't read up on the case. I can't stress enough how ridiculous it is to defend your claim by providing an article that itself notes this guy is an idiot and also not doing what you say he did. He is saying she shouldn't lose her classes because her views are valuable, not because she has tenure.
You can tell because tenure is strictly about employment and termination. Again, the statement you yourself linked provided a list of actions including removal of teaching assignments, yet did not touch tenure. They do not call for her to be fired.
Why should the people whom...etc.? Because an important number of those people made a statement that preserved that principle!
Isn't the whole purpose of tenure to protect diversity of thought in academia by allowing professors the ability to articulate controversial ideas? Saying "he wasn't talking about tenure, just the underpinnings of tenure" strikes me as a distinction without difference.
Tenure is just one of the measures taken to protect academic freedom, it is not itself academic freedom. But my point is that he is specifically claiming that her statements have some (academic) merit and her "attackers" are condemning them without reasons or facts. That is, he is appealing to the idea that controversial/radical views contribute to scientific/philosophical developments. But the principle of academic freedom is much broader. It doesn't claim all views contribute to the debate/search for truth. Some views are clearly without merit, some may even actively hinder! The idea, though, is that to ensure the true free search for truth (which benefits from antagonistic views) you have to have complete freedom. The dumb and offensive views are the price paid for this.
Now, you may disagree with this idea! It seems dubious! I myself think the free search for truth isn't meaningfully harmed by firing academics for making absurd and hurtful claims like how the earth revolves around the sun. Science requires us to consider honestly and without prejudice ideas that seem controversial and radical, but not clearly meritless ones.
The point is: You haven't yet shown anyone actually appealing to tenure or the principle of academic freedom to claim Wax should face no consequences and no actions should be taken. Not that it would matter if you did because the existence of alternative responses/claims/views is enough to dismiss your point. These "harmed people" you continue to point to can just look to those alternatives.
0
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
But the bigger misconception in your argument is that tenure only applies to dismissal - if that was the case, then tenure would be a pretty poor shield. No, tenure applies to any form of sanction against a tenured professor - it would have to be in order to serve the role it's supposed to. Relieving a professor of their teaching role is very much a sanction, and would require either the professor's consent or a finding from the body laid out in the tenure agreement. This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
Every definition and explanation I've found says tenure is protection against summary dismissal without just cause. It may apply to any form of sanction, but that would be weird given that Wax was already relegated to only teaching elective courses, i.e. relieved of some teaching duties. If that fell under her tenure agreement then I honestly fail to see the problem. The system worked, right?
That said, presumably tenure also protects against measures taken to prevent a professor from doing their job. It would indeed be a pretty poor shield if it didn't prevent the university from only just technically keeping you employed. Banning a professor from any and all teaching is preventing them from doing a part of their job. Though that is not the same as relieving them from all teaching duties they may have under their contract. But again that said, to quote the same organization MrMister quoted:
2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.
3. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution
What Wax said may very well be just cause for dismissal or sanctions. Insofar as tenure is a barrier, it seems to be a theoretical barrier that you have posited.
I don't think you can protect tenure by making it easier to fire people with it, because making it harder to fire people is pretty much all that tenure does.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I don't think you can protect tenure by making it easier to fire people with it, because making it harder to fire people is pretty much all that tenure does.
Shouldn’t we be moving away from making it easy to fire people? I thought we hated that.
I don't think you can protect tenure by making it easier to fire people with it, because making it harder to fire people is pretty much all that tenure does.
Shouldn’t we be moving away from making it easy to fire people? I thought we hated that.
Such a philosophy would definitely lead to a lot of tough choices
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
?
This guy protesting by threatening to withdraw donations is not appealing to tenure but directly to the value of her differing views to the debate. Because he is an idiot and didn't read up on the case. I can't stress enough how ridiculous it is to defend your claim by providing an article that itself notes this guy is an idiot and also not doing what you say he did. He is saying she shouldn't lose her classes because her views are valuable, not because she has tenure.
You can tell because tenure is strictly about employment and termination. Again, the statement you yourself linked provided a list of actions including removal of teaching assignments, yet did not touch tenure. They do not call for her to be fired.
Why should the people whom...etc.? Because an important number of those people made a statement that preserved that principle!
Isn't the whole purpose of tenure to protect diversity of thought in academia by allowing professors the ability to articulate controversial ideas? Saying "he wasn't talking about tenure, just the underpinnings of tenure" strikes me as a distinction without difference.
Tenure is just one of the measures taken to protect academic freedom, it is not itself academic freedom. But my point is that he is specifically claiming that her statements have some (academic) merit and her "attackers" are condemning them without reasons or facts. That is, he is appealing to the idea that controversial/radical views contribute to scientific/philosophical developments. But the principle of academic freedom is much broader. It doesn't claim all views contribute to the debate/search for truth. Some views are clearly without merit, some may even actively hinder! The idea, though, is that to ensure the true free search for truth (which benefits from antagonistic views) you have to have complete freedom. The dumb and offensive views are the price paid for this.
Now, you may disagree with this idea! It seems dubious! I myself think the free search for truth isn't meaningfully harmed by firing academics for making absurd and hurtful claims like how the earth revolves around the sun. Science requires us to consider honestly and without prejudice ideas that seem controversial and radical, but not clearly meritless ones.
The point is: You haven't yet shown anyone actually appealing to tenure or the principle of academic freedom to claim Wax should face no consequences and no actions should be taken. Not that it would matter if you did because the existence of alternative responses/claims/views is enough to dismiss your point. These "harmed people" you continue to point to can just look to those alternatives.
Oh, you'd like me to point you to arguing that Wax shouldn't be treated as normalizing white supremacy - alright:
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center think tank.
But of course, it doesn't "matter" that Wax is, as the folks over at LGM define it, part of the part of the "right wing academic martyr racket", in which right wing academics make outrageous, unsupported (you did say that we are not obliged to consider meritless ideas, after all), and bigoted comments, refuse to engage with actual scholarly criticism, and claim "persecution" by academia in the right wing media. It doesn't matter that Wax is part of a system on the right wing designed to normalize and defend white supremacy, which has been fueling the rise of white supremacists we've been seeing. Because there are "alternative views".
I think we've had this conversation before, with respect to other topics about whether or not to fire someone over their views, but I still come down on the side that nobodies opinion, expressed outside the workplace, no matter what it is, should result in termination.
There are just so many situations where we expect people to have to work together, even if they have significant ideological differences, or hate each-other.
In this particular instance I would say if you could prove the teachers racist beliefs were affecting their teaching (say they were harsher on minority students either in grading or in class interactions), then you should be able to fire them for unequal education or something similar. At most, having expressed her racist opinions outside of the classroom should only be something used as circumstantial evidence. So if, for example, they consistently give minority students lower grades, you could use their comments to show racist motives, even if they try and claim that minority students are just worse students. But the comments (again, outside the classroom) should not be enough on their own.
So, you're arguing that minorities should have to live in "peace" with the people who are literally refusing to acknowledge their humanity, and that we shouldn't assume that someone who openly lies about the performance of minority students publicly will apply that belief to other parts of their life, like grading. Let's note that Penn didn't agree with the latter, in part because federal educational discrimination laws do exist and have teeth, so placing minority students in a position to be taught (and graded) by someone who has made such public statements is just inviting a lawsuit.
Posts
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The goal here is to have laws against hate speech, not getting rid of it in a roundabout way by just suppressing speech in general. And if the goal is laws against hate speech, you simply don't need to mess with academic tenure. You can simply include in your contracts, assuming you haven't already, that conviction for hate speech is cause for dismissal. Institutions may or may not make an exception for hate speech, but it hard to argue that academics should have the fundamental right to break the law as part of their freedom.
What about the people in this thread who have been arguing that we shouldn't have new (etc.) hate speech laws? Since their argument has been that we should have ways other than increased legality to deal with hate speech, what other recourse is there to be had?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
This attitude is in part why academia continues to have an endemic problem with sexual harassment (the other being that colleges look the other way for rainmaker professors who bring in grants). Tenure is meant to protect the controversial, not assholes.
And here's the thing - I think tenure is a good thing. But I also realize that when a principle is used to justify harm, the result is that it delegitimizes the principle in the eyes of the harmed. If people use tenure to defend Wax, why should the people targeted by her position, targeted by those whom she is working to rehabilitate consider it to be legitimate? It's being used as a bludgeon against them, after all.
Well presumably they are fine with academic tenure as is. The statement hedgie linked contains a list of perfectly reasonable actions that the Pen law administration should take. I am no more omniscient than anyone here, but I think those actions would be effective in countering the effects of her speech.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The solution is status quo, more or less.
Because if you can be fired for your opinions on immigration and border control, why not for your opinions on Israel (anti-Semitism), abortion (baby murder) or any one of the 1000 issues people disagree on?
No one on either side is particularly happy with status quo and that is a very positive sign. It means no one is able drive out and destroy their ideological enemies because of pesky speech protections. And that is for the best.
... you realize except for the very specific case of tenure that's not the case right?
Tenure is not a shield against being punished for sexual harassment, that's (workplace) culture. Sexual harassment is clearly just cause for dismissal. To act like tenure is to blame for prevalent sexual harassment, as if it is not endemic in every other industry, is super dishonest. Professors get away with sexual harassment because they wield a lot of power in the system, they are the bosses.
How is it used to bludgeon them? How is it used to justify harm? Nobody is saying that it is just that she says that shit. Nobody is claiming that it is good that she is hurting people with her speech.
To be fair, the academic system is probably the most important place, after public society in general, for freedom of speech. It produces and disseminates views and knowledge, and it is part of the public education system. Private businesses firing people over their opinions is not really an issue because a) producing views and speech is not part of their function, and b) they are not intimately tied to the government and public society.
Academia is second only to the military in the prevalence of sexual harassment. Tenure and academic power structures absolutely do play a major role in this.
https://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=24994
This sounds like less and argument against hate speech laws, and more an argument for making education/research funding something approaching sane.
No, you just have people saying that nothing should be done about it, because she has tenure. (And yes, people have done such, like the Penn board member who resigned in protest and threatened to withdraw his donations over Wax's removal from 1L teaching assignments.) Why should the people whom she's targeting be interested in preserving a principle that's protecting their interlocutor?
Because they understand the concept of unintended consequences?
So, "take one for the team", then. This is not a winning argument - eventually, people are going to say "fuck the 'unintended consequences', we're being harmed now." Again, when a principle is used to defend harm and abuse, you cannot expect the targets of said harm and abuse to view said principle as legitimate.
Then they will end up seeing the consequences.
Yes, they might not have teachers who think they are subhumans and probably grade them unfairly! The horror!
And when their favorite professor gets fired for criticising a major donor I'm sure they will be shocked and wonder how this could have possibly happened and this wasn't what they wanted.
That threat already exists, so your choice example for unexpected consecuenses makes no sense.
This will come as a shock, but their favorite professor is already not criticizing major donors. Tenure is not funding. Also, tenured professors don't teach that much. They usually are too busy getting funding from major donors and supervising grad students.
Every time someone with tenure is fired, that is a fail state that reduces the power of tenure, much like impeachment and resignation reduced the power of the President.
I don't know much about the politics of tenure, but thinking about this in a way that takes into account the conservative leaning or radical conservative students that rules lawyer with the best of us, I can find no easy recommendation for change. This is going to cause trouble for any tenured faculty with radically impassioned views.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Tenure really stopped mattering that much when contract instructors (aka adjuncts) ended up teaching 75 percent of classes. I can't find similar number for staff/bench researchers, but I'd guess the numbers were even higher when you look at the percentage of academic researchers who aren't tenured faculty.
So, talking about tenure, you are basically talking about a dwindling minority of aged professors. The real reality is that most instructors are contract laborers who can have their classes pulled for literally any reason up to and including because the academic chair doing the hiring couldn't find their email right away so just gave their classes to someone else. They can't say shit about anyone without being punished, which is why so many are joining unions.
The professors who bring in the major gifts and awards are not radicals. Most of them are corporate polished and heavy on the hustle - researchers with spin-off companies, humanities profs with Ted talks and consulting gigs, business professors who also serve on corporate boards, etc. The radicals in academia are like the radicals everywhere else, shoved aside and largely ignored or mocked.
?
This guy protesting by threatening to withdraw donations is not appealing to tenure but directly to the value of her differing views to the debate. Because he is an idiot and didn't read up on the case. I can't stress enough how ridiculous it is to defend your claim by providing an article that itself notes this guy is an idiot and also not doing what you say he did. He is saying she shouldn't lose her classes because her views are valuable, not because she has tenure.
You can tell because tenure is strictly about employment and termination. Again, the statement you yourself linked provided a list of actions including removal of teaching assignments, yet did not touch tenure. They do not call for her to be fired.
Why should the people whom...etc.? Because an important number of those people made a statement that preserved that principle!
Isn't the whole purpose of tenure to protect diversity of thought in academia by allowing professors the ability to articulate controversial ideas? Saying "he wasn't talking about tenure, just the underpinnings of tenure" strikes me as a distinction without difference.
But the bigger misconception in your argument is that tenure only applies to dismissal - if that was the case, then tenure would be a pretty poor shield. No, tenure applies to any form of sanction against a tenured professor - it would have to be in order to serve the role it's supposed to. Relieving a professor of their teaching role is very much a sanction, and would require either the professor's consent or a finding from the body laid out in the tenure agreement. This is why tenure contributes to academia's sexual harassment problem - because sanctioning a tenured professor for anything requires going through the full process.
I wasn't making an argument against hate speech laws, but yes the funding model of the US higher education system is bad and dumb and should be reformed.
Tenure isn't a single thing, and woe unto the professor who thinks they have "tenure" only to learn that their individual contract doesn't do what they thought it did. Nonetheless, here are the AAUP recommendations on terminating a tenured professor for cause:
If possible charges should be considered by a faculty committee and governing board. The cause should be specified, the professor should have a chance to dispute it, with an advisor, and the proceedings should be recorded. That's it.
Sometimes institutions accept resignations rather than prosecute cases because they'd rather not be in the news, and sometimes administrators are so rankly incompetent that they cannot even meet the minimal standard of documenting what they are doing and why, and sometimes it's a combination of both. Sometimes, craven and incompetent administrators who give no shits about sexual harassment itself will let abusers slide instead of, like, doing the work and doing their jobs. This is much like literally any union contract that requires that firings be for cause--or, for that matter, like any legal protection for defendants more broadly. Good job picking up the right wing framing where you find a bad person who got protected (because police fucked up the search, admin fucked up the documentation, etc.) and then call for abolition.
Jokes on you, tenure's going to end anyway--maybe because politicians hate it, but probably just because the labor market isn't what it once was. In a few hard-left liberal arts colleges this will give the Pravda crowd the ability to enforce the bleeding edge of orthodoxy. I imagine Reed will be real torn up about exactly who gets to say what. Mostly, though, it will end up with liberals getting fired especially for criticizing the school itself, the donors, or anything inconvenient to the hedge-fund-style nexuses of wealth that universities are becoming.
ia, ia
This perspective is extremely discipline and institution-specific. Humanities are still predominantly funded through tuition, butts-in-seats style, rather than through grants. At the most rarified R1 research institutions humanities professors might not teach much--get that 2-2 or even 1-2 teaching load--but the vast majority of students are attending schools where even the fanciest humanities prof in their department is teaching a 3-3 at best for most of their career (and there are plenty of permanent positions now with 4-4 or 5-5 loads). And most of them don't have graduate students, because most schools don't have graduate programs.
I've actually said that tenure is a good thing that should be retained, but it's dying - and a large part of why it's dying is because it turns out that people are less willing to defend a principle that's being used to protect those harming them. People don't tend to support principles that are being wielded against them, no matter how much people argue that they should because it's the "right" thing to do. And yes, part of the problem is the administration at schools taking the easy way out instead of doing their job (especially when the professor in question is a rainmaker, and thus there is institutional rationale to not look closely), but a good part of it is that people argue that allowing hate and abuse is part of "academic freedom" (a position that it's worth noting that you yourself have argued for.)
Passing over in silence the fact that you're reaching to litigate posts I wrote in 2015, maybe this would be a productive question: you have this triumphalist narrative about how, because everyone now has your politics, things are gonna change. "People" see how they are being victimized by empty principles. They are going to reject hate, and they've already started doing so, etc. Etc. Do you have literally any evidence? I have never seen you cite any. You just say this stuff.
There are just so many situations where we expect people to have to work together, even if they have significant ideological differences, or hate each-other.
In this particular instance I would say if you could prove the teachers racist beliefs were affecting their teaching (say they were harsher on minority students either in grading or in class interactions), then you should be able to fire them for unequal education or something similar. At most, having expressed her racist opinions outside of the classroom should only be something used as circumstantial evidence. So if, for example, they consistently give minority students lower grades, you could use their comments to show racist motives, even if they try and claim that minority students are just worse students. But the comments (again, outside the classroom) should not be enough on their own.
Tenure is just one of the measures taken to protect academic freedom, it is not itself academic freedom. But my point is that he is specifically claiming that her statements have some (academic) merit and her "attackers" are condemning them without reasons or facts. That is, he is appealing to the idea that controversial/radical views contribute to scientific/philosophical developments. But the principle of academic freedom is much broader. It doesn't claim all views contribute to the debate/search for truth. Some views are clearly without merit, some may even actively hinder! The idea, though, is that to ensure the true free search for truth (which benefits from antagonistic views) you have to have complete freedom. The dumb and offensive views are the price paid for this.
Now, you may disagree with this idea! It seems dubious! I myself think the free search for truth isn't meaningfully harmed by firing academics for making absurd and hurtful claims like how the earth revolves around the sun. Science requires us to consider honestly and without prejudice ideas that seem controversial and radical, but not clearly meritless ones.
The point is: You haven't yet shown anyone actually appealing to tenure or the principle of academic freedom to claim Wax should face no consequences and no actions should be taken. Not that it would matter if you did because the existence of alternative responses/claims/views is enough to dismiss your point. These "harmed people" you continue to point to can just look to those alternatives.
Every definition and explanation I've found says tenure is protection against summary dismissal without just cause. It may apply to any form of sanction, but that would be weird given that Wax was already relegated to only teaching elective courses, i.e. relieved of some teaching duties. If that fell under her tenure agreement then I honestly fail to see the problem. The system worked, right?
That said, presumably tenure also protects against measures taken to prevent a professor from doing their job. It would indeed be a pretty poor shield if it didn't prevent the university from only just technically keeping you employed. Banning a professor from any and all teaching is preventing them from doing a part of their job. Though that is not the same as relieving them from all teaching duties they may have under their contract. But again that said, to quote the same organization MrMister quoted:
What Wax said may very well be just cause for dismissal or sanctions. Insofar as tenure is a barrier, it seems to be a theoretical barrier that you have posited.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Shouldn’t we be moving away from making it easy to fire people? I thought we hated that.
Such a philosophy would definitely lead to a lot of tough choices
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Oh, you'd like me to point you to arguing that Wax shouldn't be treated as normalizing white supremacy - alright:
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center think tank.
But of course, it doesn't "matter" that Wax is, as the folks over at LGM define it, part of the part of the "right wing academic martyr racket", in which right wing academics make outrageous, unsupported (you did say that we are not obliged to consider meritless ideas, after all), and bigoted comments, refuse to engage with actual scholarly criticism, and claim "persecution" by academia in the right wing media. It doesn't matter that Wax is part of a system on the right wing designed to normalize and defend white supremacy, which has been fueling the rise of white supremacists we've been seeing. Because there are "alternative views".
So, you're arguing that minorities should have to live in "peace" with the people who are literally refusing to acknowledge their humanity, and that we shouldn't assume that someone who openly lies about the performance of minority students publicly will apply that belief to other parts of their life, like grading. Let's note that Penn didn't agree with the latter, in part because federal educational discrimination laws do exist and have teeth, so placing minority students in a position to be taught (and graded) by someone who has made such public statements is just inviting a lawsuit.