Moving the boundary markers established by one’s ancestors is not a conservative thing to advocate. Tenure is the guardian of the first freedom of expression Western Civilization ever recognized: academic freedom, the right to speculate within the confines of the university without being charged with heresy, which predates any generally accepted idea of freedom of speech or freedom of the press by a good half a millenium.
Abolish it, and it will be Lindzen and Choi who have no jobs, not the anthropogenic global warming crowd, Christian professors will be sacked simply for their religious beliefs, free market economists will get the axe at most universities, . . . The long march of the left through the academy would be complete.
Tenure protects the established scholar’s right to study what is unpopular in his discipline and come to unpopular conclusions, and at present in most disciplines bearing on society and politic that means conservative conclusions. (Why tenure exists in institutions where the duties of the faculty are solely teaching and not research or scholarship is another question, a such schools or colleges, you could persuade me that abolishing tenure is a good thing, but not at a university which retains anything of the classical character of a university.)
Abolish it, and it will be Lindzen and Choi who have no jobs, not the anthropogenic global warming crowd, Christian professors will be sacked simply for their religious beliefs, free market economists will get the axe at most universities, . . . The long march of the left through the academy would be complete.
BTTT.
I believe that many universities would be even wilder wastelands of leftist drivel were it not for tenure.