Don't Abolish Tenure; But Make It Conditional

Before the end of this year, the British government will have compelled the country’s universities to curtail the time-honored system of offering tenured employment to their staff (The Scientist, June 27, page 21). The Thatcher administration, whose massive parliamentary majority makes this step inevitable, believes that “jobs for life” can no longer be justified. The universities and many opposition politicians, especially those in the House of Lords, have strongly contested the move as a threat to intellectual freedom. It is an important question, with implications for many other countries. As I see it, however, the issue is by no means as black and white as it has been painted in Britain. Consider first the age at which scientists can be offered security of employment until retirement. Throughout the world, this tends to happen at about 40, when individuals become candidates for associate professorships (or positions of equivalent rank in research institutes). Scientists are therefore judged worthy of tenure by their peers at a time when they still have many options for changing their field and place of employment. I believe that in the past tenure has been given too early, and often too easily as well. In addition, universities should strive for excellence in both research and teaching. Tenure is said to be an obstacle to this goal. Mediocre tenured scientists cannot be replaced, and they may fill studentships and staff positions with people of similar poor quality. Complaints of “dead wood” in the top positions in universities are by no means uncommon. Proponents of tenure argue that the practice is essential for academic freedom. Tenure undoubtedly gives professors confidence to study heterodox or unappreciated topics, and to develop unpopular ideas. By the same token, the abolition of tenure could make it much easier to get rid of such oddballs and “troublemakers.” The British government has tried to tackle this problem by requiring that the commissioners who will oversee the abolition of tenure in the U.K. “ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs.” How this guarantee will work out in practice remains to be seen. It is not easy to strike a satisfactory balance between the provision of tenure in the interests of scholarly freedom, and the attendant danger of encouraging ossification and lethargy. In conversations with some of my own academic friends, however, I have developed what I believe is an attractive option distinct from both lifelong tenure and its total abolition. Tenure should be made conditional. It should be granted for a period of, say, 10 years in the first instance. At the end of each decade thereafter, if the individual’s research and teaching performance is deemed satisfactory by a suitably qualified ad hoc committee, tenure should be reconfirmed for a further 10 years. If not, the individual should be relieved of the appointment or offered early retirement. Whatever our system for relieving scientists of their professional positions, however, let no one doubt how traumatic such a rate can be. Of course, in a country such as the United States or West Germany, where there is an abundance of universities and research institutes, someone given the sack has a reasonable chance of finding a post here. But in a small country like Israel, even some of the best scientists find difficulties in securing a proper position. No wonder then that the loss of a research or teaching job at the age of 50-plus is traumatic. It virtually means the end of a career and brings personal and financial catastrophe. In recent conversations with representatives of our local universities, I learned that half, at the very most, of tenured staff obtain funds from sources other than the university. The other 50% or more are extremely vulnerable because they rely totally on the support of the university (that is, the government) and on indirect “taxation” (via overheads) of their more successful colleagues. Although scientists rarely discuss such fears, awareness that each person is part of a competitive system—and one in which continuous productivity is essential for success—puts a very heavy strain upon all those who by their very nature do not drive themselves to the utmost. The fear that, after a period of fertile work, one’s ideas may simply dry up, leading to the loss of job, money, and professional standing, might even be considered an unjust price to pay for the maintenance of excellence. There’s a wider point here too. In other walks of life people are assured of a respectable income commensurate with a reasonable standard of living. Those of us who choose to devote our lives to the much more uncertain venture of scientific research, however, can face severe problems if not granted the possibility of tenured employment. The threat of the axe, hang- ing over all scientists throughout their careers, is bound to increase stress and anxiety, and to promote the “publish or perish” syndrome. The drive to generate papers often leads to premature publications, in better cases to “salami” publications, and in the worst cases to “cutting corners” and fudging data to make results publishable. These conditions are not conducive to good science. We are left then with a continuing conflict between the maintenance of excellence in academic institutions and the assurance of a proper livelihood for academics even when they fail to be productive in later life. I do not claim that conditional, renewable tenure is the perfect solution to this problem. I do believe it would be greatly preferable to outright abolition of tenure. But I also have some sympathy with the view that a measure of inefficiency in the universities should be accepted as an alternative to creating a ruthless working atmosphere for their staff. Alexander Kohn is Professor of Virology at Tel-Aviv University Medical School in Israel

Don't Abolish Tenure; But Make It Conditional

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of