Tenure is supposed to allow teachers the freedom to teach truth and not be subject to the whims of politics and personal animosities. For example, I know of one case when a band director was fired because a school board member’s son was caught by the police “rolling” the director’s yard. Although the director hadn’t called the police, the kid was caught by the police just driving by, and the miscreant only had to clean it up, the teacher was fired. He did not have tenure.
Before tenure was awarded, abuse of power was rampant. Now the pendulum has swung the other direction and bad teachers are given a free pass.
I have some friends who work there.
It protects me as a conservative in academia. I had to walk a tightrope to get it and had to be very careful what I said and suck up to the students (give them high grades). Once I got tenure I could begin to grade harder and speak my mind. My colleagues despise me, half my students hate me and the other half love me(I get much lower student ratings than before tenure), which to me suggests I’m doing something right. If every student gave me high ratings it would have to mean I didn’t offend anyone, didn’t demand much, graded easy. Student ratings are the biggest source of grade inflation—adjuncts, non-tenured teachers have little choice but to grade easy, in order to get good student evaluations which the teachers need if they are ever to get a tenured position.
It’s become a joke, the university business, at least in the humanties. A few students in each class are serious and there to learn and you stick with the crud for the sake of those few.