Tenure used to serve as protection for professors against being fired or penalized for saying controversial things. These days, however, the forces of “progressivism” are undermining it. Oh, sure — it still protects faculty members who espouse the wackiest or vilest sorts of leftist stuff, but not those who dissent from woke ideology.
In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Alexander Riley contemplates the future of tenure under these new circumstances.
He writes, “As the institutions of higher education are transformed by the ongoing DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity) revolution, tenure will no longer have the same meaning or practical effect it once did. Where it once served to provide some level of protection for scholars rigorously and unqualifiedly pursuing truth, tenure will be made toothless by shifting definitions of expertise and competence. Furthermore, it will serve as a mechanism for ensuring that any pushback against DIE extremism from outside the ranks of academia will be toothless.”
The reason for this change is that the academic ethos has shifted from one where scholars were expected to pursue truth and debate their conclusions in a civil manner to one where they are supposed to uphold the tenets of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DIE). We’ve moved from open inquiry to conformity.
Riley puts it this way: “DIE, then, has nothing in common with the pursuit of truth. It contends that the ostensible pursuit of objective truth is inextricably associated with reactionary exclusion and oppression. Our values must therefore be revolutionized in the interest of more diverse, inclusive, and equitable ways of understanding and changing the world.”
Our colleges and universities used to be socially useful institutions because of their commitment to the pursuit of truth. Under the new DIE regime, they’ll only be useful to the elitists who believe that they should control society.