A friend who is a student at Hasting Law School and another student of linguistics at S.F. State University report that nearly all the faculty at both schools were visible and outspoken supporters of the Democratic candidate for president. (I forgot his name already.)
The linguistics part may not be surprising, since prominent linguists Noam Chomsky and George Lakoff are Lefty fanatics. (The KoKo gorilla people have named one of their primates Noam Chimpsky.)
This bad behavior by professors may seem like a moral problem -- but it isn’t. Teachers in Kindergarten through 12th grade know that they are not permitted to use their position of power as a teacher to promote personal political views. University academics follow no such moral restraint.
The reason academics are such moral scofflaws is tenure. Tenured professors live and teach leftyism as blatant evidence of their tenured immunity. That leads other academics and academic wannabees who are seeking tenure to become moral scofflaws and preach leftyism themselves.
I plan to write a series of blogs on the reasons to get rid of tenure and outline a way to get rid of it.
This first blog is to point out that tenure has created a political monoculture among academics. Political monoculture in universities is a direct proof of tenure’s failure to achieve its only goal: intellectual diversity.
As further proof of tenure’s failure, take a look at my list of public intellectuals in the column on the left. The overwhelming majority of public intellectuals are not in academia. What do we need tenure for? Not to help thinkers be publicly creative. Not to contribute important input to the public dialog.
Tenure is a total waste. Tenure is an indefensible waste.
It is time to get rid of tenure. Tenure has of course been publicly abused. Tenured Harvard professor Cornel West, now tenured at Princeton, is a public anti-Semite. Tenured professor at City College of New York, Leonard Jeffries, is both anti-Semitic and anti-White. Both professors are blatant in flaunting their tenured immunity.
I could change my mind if I knew a few tenured professors who were fun and had a sense of humor.