A CLASS STRUGGLE: Tenure of Avowed Marxist Controversy jolts College

Houston Chronicle ^ | March 24, 2002 | KEVIN MORAN

[AmishDude]

The thing(s) that should keep you in academia should be the rewards of teaching, both monetary and psychological, . . .

Tenure is a benefit which has an "opportunity cost". For me, it has a specific value. It is calculated as part of salary in determining whether a job is beneficial.

Also, being in academia has little to do with teaching. The game is scholarly research. Maybe not at this small Texas college, but at most medium to large Universities, it is THE determining factor.

If job performace were tied only to teaching, I wouldn't concern myself at all with it. Teaching is easy.

As far as potentially having to move if you get laid off,

There aren't "lay offs" in academia as such. The department, for example, could decide that they will go into an entirely different field of research because it's "hot" now. They could fire virtually the whole faculty (if no tenure) and start anew.

This would have nothing whatsoever to do with job performance or self-induced insecurities. Now, if a University wanted to have such a possibility exist, that's fine, but they're going to have to pay me a lot more to get myself into such a situation.

[B. A. Conservative]

This case is a blessing, and hopefully the first of many. Higher education is a disaster. And many of its problems are traceable to tenure. This problem will be solved by the Internet. Bricks and mortar institutions of higher learning and monopolistic universities have a crude awakening coming. Internet based, low tution schools with very high standards are coming. Diploma mills and certificates as standards of recognition are rapidly going to disappear. Most businesses have long recognized that many degrees are worthless as proof of training. Online testing by computers will replace pieces of paper as proof of knowlege or capability of performance. Boards will prove their unworthiness as arbiters of standards. Costs are going to plummet and the quality of education will soar. One good professor will be able to teach billions and generation after generation. Until someone else proves they are worthy of replacing a "master" he will be able to teach his course to unlimited numbers of students at his own or his heirs' rate of reimbursement and all of the unworthy professors and their anachronistic colleges will be relics in the museum of antiquities.

[AmishDude]

Perhaps he is "giving grades" to keep students contented.

That's what Cornel West does at Harvard, allegedly. Also, this guy is probably entertaining. I'm sure the student's think he's funny with his anachronisms.

[abclily]

I so hope you are correct!

[flim-flam]

You can't be terminated for refusing to join the union. Contact National Right to Work for free legal aid.

[4Liberty]

I can certainly see the "value" of tenure, after what's happened to me recently. But -- I stand by what I said: tenure IS a pernicious influence and reduces competition and quality.

Well I'm off to a Sunday help session with my students (They have an exam next week). I give them help sessions just about every weekend, for 3-4 hours. Like it "matters" or will help me.

Realistically, a fairly-run courtroom with an honest judge is the only thing that will help me at this point.

I do have lots of good fodder for a legal case though: E.g., a handwritten letter from a colleague which states that the Union said it wanted to get rid of me because I was personally against Prop. A, a recently passed & very expensive bond measure, to fund Community College contruction projects and improvements. I do feel the taxpayers are burdened enough, by a big wasteful ed bureaucracy, but -- like my husband says, "What do you think you have, free speech, or something??"

I also sported a "YES ON SCHOOL VOUCHERS!" sticker on my car. The word, "vouchers" is like a cuss word, to teachers' Union types. I think that bumpersticker was my second "mistake." It's all about money, monopoly power, corruption -- not about freedom of speech, diversity of opinions, or expression.

I attended George Mason University - where Dr. Walter Williams, Rush Limbaugh's occasional substitute, teaches economics. Isn't he great? He's just super. :)

take care all.

[aculeus]

"Academic freedom" is a BS term for the dictatorship of the professoriat. It's as honest as calling North Korea "The People's Republic."

Katz is 100% right. The students are being taught to hate America by this lying campus commissar.

[happygrl]

RE: Post #37 - LOL !! Best answer yet.

[pt17]

Also, being in academia has little to do with teaching.

Some might see that as a problem.

[4Liberty]

Yes, I will be telling that to the arbitrator.

[happygrl]

RE: Post #63 - YaHOO !!

[IronJack]

Smith said, "Thankfully, the college has a long record of defending academic freedom in the face of controversy."

I wonder how much of a "defense" the college would mount if the "academic freedom" in question was politically incorrect, say, reasons why reparations for slavery are wrong. Ask David Horowitz about the myth of "academic freedom" when you're on the Right.

The time to clean house is BEFORE these jerks come up for tenure. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, that applies in the halls of academe as well as on the streets.

[conserve-it]

"Tenure,after all, is an elitist, oppressive form of job security raising certain individuals above their peers. It would seem that this person needs to abandon his effete Western intellectualism, and reaffirm his peasant values through the honest toil of the worker."

Good shot, Jimmy. The fact is, that ALL Marxists percieve themselves to be the ONLY person capable of creating a "benevolent" Marxist dictatorship. Hillary Clinton is the quintessential example of this. Yeah boy, it takes a village......as long as I RUN THE VILLAGE. These people are textbook psychos.

[sinclair]

When are these Marxist losers in academia going to realize they lost?

I suppose it will happen when they actually lose.  The fact of the matter is that they are still very much in the fight.  Not only that but they are gaining ground at an incredible rate. Don't believe me? Click here for some seriously depressing information.

[CasearianDaoist]

What did Kissinger say? "Academic politics that on so much importance precisely because there is nothing of importance to be won." (or somthing like this) How true (and I was at Berkeley and NYU!)

[flim-flam]

Hopefully, the arbitrator will understand this. Based solely on your posts on this thread, you clearly did not deserve what happened to you. NRTW is a benevolent organization who may be able to write a supporting brief on your behalf. I can vouch for them because they helped me assert my Beck rights. I wish you the best of luck.

[CasearianDaoist]

If they had to pay more money perhaps one would not see such rediculous cirricula as we have now. I am not talking about you, Amish.

[LS]

Being a professor, I am of two minds on this. On part of me says that you have to have dissent, even idiots like this, in order to prepare students for the "real world" and to show them the other side in a way that I, as an advocate of capitalism, can never teach them. In that, I agree with Rush that we ought to have ONE Marxist per campus, as an "exhibit" of what not to know.

But the other side of me knows that they are like rabbits---they breed within departments because their only goal is power, not teaching. They tend to dominate the faculty committees and boards because the rest of us are doing real work.

Also, would anyone ever think to have a prof. whose "bag" is "flat earth theory?" Or "Lysenkoism?" No. These are proven completely wrong, so we do not teach them anymore. Well, nothing has been proven "wronger" than Marxism. From that perspective, it should not be taught, because to teach it is to deliberately expose students to false "knowledge" masquerading as fact.

However, there are a couple of pretty devout Marxists on my campus in other departments. It has gotten around to me that at least one spends MUCH of his time in class basically trying to refute "schweikart 101." In other words, my class has dominated his agenda! So as long as the playing field is even, I'm confident free market ideas and democratic/republican concepts will easily triumph.

[alnick]

makes ya wonder what he means by "other"...

Perhaps he means the indoctrination of America's youth.

[Free the USA]

The problem is not in granting tenure to an avowed Marxist, after all we need an ideological opposition in order to make sure we always have to check and prove our own ideas. The problem is the Marxist seem to dominate on many campuses.