[llama hunter]

Hmmmm, Lane is threatening to take it to the Supreme Court if they fire Churchill because tenure is a property right?

well methinks all those opposed to tenure, in principal or who oppose positions for life without proving merit, or all those who think tenure had limits, which ought to be defined if not already, should fund the opposition to Mr. Lane's threat, let's take the issue of tenure to the Supreme Court after GW's changed the composition of that institution

we got some conservative George Soros type wallets out there?

[llama hunter]

Yoo hoo, Mr. Lane, I would hope other college professors who may sit in judgment of Mr. Churchill would not countenance academic fraud, no doubt Mr. Churchill may have even stolen the job of one of those actually qualified professors

[Billthedrill]

LOL - not mine, that's for sure! I don't honestly think tenure is defensible as a property right inasmuch as it's an institutional convention, but I'm not a lawyer. Were it a true property right the state would be taxing it (OK, I'm kidding, but not by much).

My guess is that Churchill won't be fired, mostly because of the precedent it will set. He will be portrayed as a brave victim of government/rightwing/authoritarian conspiracy, and if he's fired due to unpopular opinions, then academic freedom is imperiled for everyone (I work at a university and have heard this song a hundred times) but in fact, it's that if one academic fraud is fired the rest of the academic frauds might be as well, and believe me, there are a lot of the latter.

[Digger]

let's take the issue of tenure to the Supreme Court after GW's changed the composition of that institution

Sorry but this is not going to happen. Guaranteed.