February 12, 2005
Absolute Power
We checked the carton - the expiration date for tenure has come and gone...
Every once in a while, a university professor says something so outlandish and ridiculous that it deserves meritorious mention for one thing - it makes people wonder why it's nigh impossible to fire a university professor, despite often being paid from the public purse.
This time, of course, it's the raving lunatic from Colorado who analogized those who were killed in the World Trade Center with the Nazi head of the Gestapo's Jewish section.
While not having spent alot of time in New York, we're fairly certain that widespread gassing and extermination of Jews was not actually occurring at the World Trade Center. That sort of thing normally makes the news.
Having established that the professor in question is certifiably insane - or at least certifiably inane - it would not seem too much trouble to stop paying this person to instruct eager young minds using the public's tax dollars. But then again, the founding fathers never envisioned tenure.
Well, actually they did envision it - reviled it in fact. In fact, they rebelled against it. The King was tenure - power unaccounted, taxation without representation. There simply is no place in modern society for unaccountability. While dangerous in the form of a head of state, it is nonetheless equally corrupt in other positions - where there is no accountability, there is invariably corruption. Corruption need not take the form of a pilfered wallet - it is often found in corrupt concepts of worth and power, of values and hierarchies.
It is estimated that of the some 800,000 professors nationwide, a mere 50 or 60 lose their jobs. This number is preposterously low.
Academic freedom must not be defined as the freedom to say any damn fool thing one pleases. Freedom has never been defined as an utter lack of strictures on responsible behavior, nor from consequence for one's actions, carried out or merely uttered aloud. Tenure is couched under the concept of freedom to teach free of possible political reprisal - the damned fool thing theory. Damned foolish things do not deserve the aegis tenure provides. There is no system on earth that works best when responsibility and accountability is removed from the process. The public has a right to know what is being said and done in their name, be it a President, or a professor.
Tenure should provoke freedom of thought, not freedom from it.
Posted by MEC2 at February 12, 2005 11:36 PM