Tenure System Quotes

I don't believe in firing professors. They have academic freedom.

The rationale for tenure is still valid. But the system has turned the academy into one of the most conservative and costly institutions in the country. Yes, conservative: Economists joke that their discipline advances one funeral at a time, but many fields must wait for wholesale generational turnover before new approaches take hold.

I'm a tenured professor. But I'd get rid of tenure.

To the extent that tenure supports academic freedom, I support tenure. I want no person or system to have any power, real or apparent, to chill academic freedom.

Tenure is an artificial protection for a job regardless of performance.

By giving professors jobs for life, universities create a feeling of unanswerable power among too many. Tenured professors who are uninterested in serving the student body are less likely to respond favorably to criticism, and are more likely to feel the freedom to intimidate or harass those with opposing viewpoints.

The productivity now at universities is terrible. Tenure is a terrible idea. It keeps them around forever and they don't have to work hard.

Coaches have got to be given rank within the university so that you can't fire a coach unless you go through an academic committee, just as you would with a professor. If coaches are to have any stability and security, they need to be treated like an English professor.

Everyone acknowledges that there is a political part to tenure, but no one likes to admit it.

The whole constitution of property on its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons deteriorating and degrading.