Byline：Tokyo
Mainstream churches lost the central role they held in American life in the early 1960s to be replaced by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals by the early 1970s. The reason was that mainstream churches used their moral authority to argue against the U.S. foreign policy in Viet Nam. The moral authority of the mainstream churches was thrown away. American churchgoers did not accept the authority of churches in setting foreign policy. The mainstream churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Episcopal) have never recovered.
I see the same phenomenon happening today: today the loss of moral authority is in academia. Academia is overwhelmingly opposed to American foreign policyin the Middle East. While Americans have no choice about using colleges and universities, they can act against the academics and I believe they will.
I expect Americans to remove tenure from American professors at nearly all public universities within the next five years. Private universities will follow suit.
Tenure for American professors was introduced between 1915 and 1925 under pressure from the newly formed AAUP (professors union) on the basis that the profession of professor was to serve the public, not the University trustees, with honesty and integrity.
That commitment to the public has been broken and the professorial authority diminished by the current ideological extremism found extensively in academia.
Goodbye tenure.