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Retaking the University: A Battle Plan

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Check out Roger Kimball’s essay in The New Criterion titled “Retaking the University: A Battle Plan” (go here). Here is an excerpt:

It is time to revisit several large issues. The issue of tenure, for example. An arrangement that was intended to protect academic freedom and intellectual diversity has mutated into a means of enforcing conformity and excluding the heterodox. For those few conservatives who have managed to obtain tenure, it doubtless functions to protect them. But for the faculty in general it seems to have become a prescription for political correctness and lassitude.

Comments
Ah yes, the fall of higher education. One of my favorite subjects (and pet peeves). I think the article makes a really good point about tenure. It isn’t used to protect professors who do controversial research but to protect a political monopoly on campus. Nowadays, if you hold the correct political beliefs, you can get away with hitting on your students, lying against people, and in the case of Ward Churchill, misrepresenting yourself, etc. I have been hit on by professors (as in “There is no way you will get an A or even a B in this class….well, one way. By the way, I got a B in the class the by honest hard work.) I reported but he is (guess what?) TENURED! Then there is the one who they have an entire filing cabinet of complaints on but he is tenured and they can do nothing about it. The problems just rage on but the administration sticking their heads in the sand. And don’t try to point it out. That is more or less how I ended up here. I wrote for an underground paper but used my real name. We did a lot of criticizing the school. I was not kicked out but my life was made miserable while there. The common denominator is always the political beliefs held by the professor. Hold the correct ones and you are fine. But if not… On the subject of tenure, I don’t know. I think if it was taken away, there would need to be a system in place that would protect the professors who are worth the money (one of them happens to be my psych advisor). I know one thing, something has got to change because if it doesn’t….. (Sorry for the length…it is just a hot topic with me. Not all college students are brainwashed puppets. ) sue
May 12, 2005
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