I will say this: without tenure, I think my liberal colleagues would have purged me a long time ago. So tenure, in my instance (and that of many other conservative profs) has been a firewall to enable us to argue against the liberal system.
” ... without tenure, I think my liberal colleagues would have purged me a long time ago.”
As would university administrators if you ever spoke up at a meeting and voiced opposition to, or even concern about, some harebrained policy they were proposing.
Tough part is, you have to produce vanilla crap and stay under the radar until you get it.
Would you agree though that in recent years that liberals have fought to bestow tenure to conservatives? I know they have.
my son, a tenured prof at mizzou, echoes your thoughts. i just wish he would push the envelope a little further.
Would you disagree with the observation that you are not the mainstream case? There are VERY few conservatives in academic positions in the US any more.
Can you think of a SINGLE person in academia today that had the stature and political ideology of Jacques Barzun? Walter Williams, maybe?
>>So tenure, in my instance (and that of many other conservative profs) has been a firewall to enable us to argue against the liberal system.<<
That cuts both ways though. That same tenure “firewall” has protected the 90% who typically support liberal causes. Better to dump tenure and let the chips fall where they may. Eventually, then, we’d have schools run by liberal and schools run by conservatives.
And, as with cities and states, I know which group would be performing the best, both financially and academically.