The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: February 28, 1997
Section: Opinion
Page: A60
By C. Peter Magrath
It is clear to me that tenure is one of those "third rails" that can quickly electrocute university chancellors and presidents. Because I am no longer a university president, I want to use that freedom to share my own perspective on the issue: I think it essential for universities to re-examine their tenure codes and practices and to consider various forms of post-tenure review.
Although still valued highly by society for the knowledge they produce, colleges and universities have only "soft" support in many sectors of society because of perceptions -- some justified, some not -- that we are not fully accountable and responsible; that we are inefficient and too often self-indulgent; and that we neglect the largest constituency that we are supposed to serve -- undergraduate students.
The issue of tenure must be viewed in this broader context of public unrest about higher education. It is part of a larger examination of American universities that is going on nationwide. Studies by such respected groups as the Public Agenda Foundation show that tenure, fairly or unfairly, evokes disdain from civic and business leaders because they believe it protects professors from the accountability and productivity required of other workers. I suspect that college tenure also is caught up in the many negative perceptions that exist regarding teacher tenure in our nation's elementary and secondary schools.
Nonetheless, tenure, as it currently operates, has become more of a problem than a help to our endeavors. If we fail to recognize and address this issue, hunkering down and arguing that we are different and special, a mystical elite of wise men and women who know best what is good for the public, we will make a costly mistake. Tenure must be carefully scrutinized now by the academy, so that narrow political interests do not impose on us destructive changes. Substantial modifications are in order, and many opinions need to be debated, including this one: The demise of tenure would not be the death knell of the American academy.
To begin with, we must take seriously the fact that people outside the academy, people whose own jobs are in jeopardy, resent faculty members whose jobs carry special protections. Consider this recent story about temporary jobs from The Wall Street Journal:
"Photographer Tim Kao hoped a three-month internship at the Portland Oregonian would land him a full-time job. Instead, it led to another three-month stint, and after that a six-month deal. One year after he started at the daily, it gave him yet another six-month extension. 'They shouldn't string people on like that,' says Mr. Kao, who left in frustration."
The article goes on to explain that many newspapers, like the rest of corporate America, have found that they can cut costs by hiring temporary labor, even for high-profile jobs such as reporters and photographers. This creates a two-tier salary system: one group of permanent employees with relatively good salaries and benefits, and another of lower-paid workers without health coverage or pensions.
All we need do is look at our local newspaper or television accounts of job layoffs and business downsizing to realize that we must ask ourselves: Why do we, uniquely, have a case for arguing that one segment of the academy should have lifelong economic security and job protection?
Let us not, however, frame reconsideration of tenure as simply a necessary response to public unrest. Deeper problems exist. The rise of part-time and temporary workers throughout the economy highlights a parallel problem on campus: An enormous number of our own faculty members also work part-time and without job security. This trend has been increasing, and I suspect that it will continue.
Quite aside from the major issue of whether we are treating those individuals fairly, we also must consider the usual immediate justification for tenure: that faculty members, unlike most other workers, must have the right to voice their opinions, teach, and conduct re-search without fearing that their views will cost them their jobs.
But do we really need the protection of lifelong tenure to assure freedom of inquiry and discourse? All faculty members, including part-timers and non-tenure-track instructors, must have total First Amendment protection -- and the academic freedom derived from the amendment's free-speech guarantees -- if they are to teach in any college or university worthy of the name.
Why shouldn't untenured assistant professors or adjuncts enjoy the same protections of speech and inquiry as tenured full professors? As I understand the laws and the Constitution of the United States, they do. We must acknowledge that academic freedom and tenure, in fact, have been uncoupled.
The problem is not just that tenure does not protect the rights of an increasing number of our faculty members. Even for those who hope to gain tenure at some point, a plausible argument exists that they must hold their fire and mute their ideas as they strive to please their judges, the tenured faculty members who bestow this highly prized award.
R. Eugene Rice of the American Association for Higher Education, who has worked closely with the Harvard University education professor Richard Chait and others in analyzing faculty roles and responsibilities, observes that many untenured junior faculty members have strong reservations about the tenure system, how it works, and how it affects them. Indeed, a surprising number of younger or junior faculty members regard the tenure system more as a burden than as an advantage.
As Gene Rice pointed out in a superb article published last year by the A.A.H.E., "Making a Place for the New American Scholar": "The professoriate has not effectively articulated the social meaning of tenure -- the protection of the university as a place where inconvenient questions can be asked, and not as a job protection for a specially sheltered status group."
The critical challenge before us is to reposition and, where appropriate, change our colleges and universities so that they attract the support essential to perform their mission of serving the public through teaching and research. (Even private colleges and universities are sufficiently public in function, and receive so much of their financial support from government, that they fall fully within the protective umbrella of the First Amendment, although this point is not fully settled legally.) Freedom of expression and inquiry for all faculty members, regardless of whether they have a "T" after their name and regardless of whether they are part-time, adjunct, or in some limbo called "non-tenure track," is fundamental to colleges' and universities' mission of serving society.
The question then becomes: Is that part of tenure that protects or represents lifelong job security essential to protect the free-speech component? I would argue that it is not. I believe that we might eventually find a way to guarantee explicitly in long-term contracts, at both public and private universities, the freedom of inquiry and teaching that tenure now is assumed to protect.
Another article recently published by the A.A.H.E., "Academic Freedom Without Tenure," by the Georgetown University law professor J. Peter Byrne, suggests practical ways in which academic freedom might be assured even without tenure -- but only if such alternate systems were built around faculty peer-review panels and tied to procedures that would guarantee faculty members the right to file complaints about violations of academic freedom.
I suspect that the real reason that we hear so much passion about the importance of tenure from those who have it is not concern about freedom of expression. It is the understandable fear and insecurity that many tenured faculty members feel about their status and economic security. But I believe that we so urgently need talented faculty members that the good ones (and an overwhelming number are very good) are not going to lose their jobs, even if they do not have lifelong job security. If freedom of expression and intellectual exploration can be guaranteed, contractually or otherwise, then what is wrong with the concept of long-term employment contracts for faculty members, which would offer far more job security than most of our fellow citizens have?
Let me insist, however, on a fundamental point. If traditional tenure is to be gradually eliminated or significantly modified (allowing for speedier termination of professors for incompetence, or salary reduction for diminished performance, for example), the new provisions should not be imposed unilaterally by governing boards or state governments. Any new employment codes must emerge through a process of genuine discussion and negotiation among faculty members, administrators, and governing boards. Some may say that I am naive, but I believe that such a process can be fashioned if all sides are committed to open debate, agree to listen carefully, and realize that disagreements are inevitable and must be worked through.
Most faculty members, if they are approached in a genuine spirit of negotiation, can be persuaded to make serious changes when confronted with the realities of the new environment for colleges. And governing boards can be convinced that new employment arrangements must be reached through consensus, not imposed from above, if they are to function effectively.
Anything short of this will poison the well and harm both universities and the society they serve.
C. Peter Magrath is president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.