Tenure for college professors is the latest front in Republicans\u2019 battle with higher education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since tenure gives a professor job security for decades, undercutting it is one way conservatives can more easily change campus culture, experts say, as well as fight against the liberal values the right says have taken over schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Indiana, lawmakers are moving legislation forward that would require boards of trustees at state universities to review tenured professors every five years based on \u201cfree inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that conservatives as they try to address the lopsided nature of our university system are kind of looking for strategies that can undermine this hold that progressives currently have on U.S. higher education, and it may be that here is really just a strategy to kind of be able to shake things up at campuses,\u201d said Beth Akers, a senior fellow focused on higher education at the American Enterprise Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released data last year showing that in the fall of 2021, only 24 percent of faculty in U.S. colleges held full-time tenured appointments, compared with 39 percent in the fall of 1987. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tenure for a professor is a long process. They must first get on a tenure track, where they are evaluated for between six and 10 years before they can qualify for a full-time tenure spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, once they receive tenure, they often keep it for the rest of their career, as it is very difficult for a university to get rid of a tenured faculty member. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe existence of tenure makes the system really slow to change, and maybe that\u2019s even an additional rationale for having it, which is we don\u2019t want these institutions changing on the whims of local leaders. We want these institutions and faculty targeting truth-finding,\u201d Akers said. But that also means \u201cit\u2019s hard to change the political lean, because you have to wait until someone retired or new funding comes up for a new line to fund a faculty member position.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of the reason tenure positions were created was to give professors academic freedom in their research so they could conduct it without fear of repercussions from anyone, including the university itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that reasoning is one of the big concerns opponents have with Republican efforts to do away with the protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese attacks on tenure are designed to weaken the faculty power. It\u2019s designed to make it easier to get rid of faculty when some person with power and influence doesn\u2019t like what they\u2019re doing,\u201d said Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf tenure is weakened, then faculty will not take risks in research. They\u2019ll be less likely to do risky research because they\u2019ll be afraid they\u2019ll get fired \u2026 And the real frightening thing is people will be less likely to speak out against wrongdoing, against corruption,\u201d Mulvey added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No state has completely outlawed tenure. Georgia\u2019s Board of Regents did approve a policy that makes it easier to punish tenured professors, and Texas failed in its efforts to completely ban tenure, but the state was able to pass a law that gives more power to lawmakers in the future to regulate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet\u2019s be clear, they are succeeding. I think the reason that we have a mostly untenured faculty in American higher education today is because you have Republican governance and a lot of these states that attack university budgets and don\u2019t invest in these institutions in such a way to make wages livable for faculty,\u201d said Alvin Tillery, professor of political science at Northwestern University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just wished that there was actually more countermobilization on the part of my colleagues to push back against these assaults, but we really don\u2019t see that,\u201d Tillery added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the current trend continues, warns Ann Marcus, professor and director of the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy at New York University, we could see \u201cthe research function of the university really start to vanish.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI mean, some people say, \u2018Just abolish tenure.\u2019 You really lose one of the main purposes of having universities, which is the production of new knowledge, whether it\u2019s a scientific breakthrough or a new understanding of archaeology,\u201d said Marcus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aker recognizes that blows against tenure could disincentivize some professors from going to states without it, but she says abolishing the practice would have \u201cneutral\u201d effects \u201cbecause progressives would likely be targeted in red states and conservatives would likely be targeted in blue states.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo, I see it as kind of party-neutral in that way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is another movement for a \u201clonger-run perspective\u201d where \u201cmore conservative faculty members\u201d look to acquire tenure, Akers said, pointing out \u201cthe reality is that there are centers that are focused on hiring and getting tenure to conservative thinkers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n