{"id":2864,"date":"2026-09-25T08:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T15:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/?p=2864"},"modified":"2026-09-25T14:09:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T21:09:48","slug":"reflections-on-academic-tenure-prompted-by-events-at-the-new-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/?p=2864","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on academic tenure prompted by events at The New School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The New School is a historically progressive academic institution that has fallen on hard times. Recently, it has been in the news because it has fired several tenured professors, invoking financial distress and institutional reorganization as grounds therefor. That has prompted some public debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below are some brief thoughts on that debate. I think it has been a missed opportunity. It should have been used to discuss how to govern academia and remedy the system’s existing glaring failings. Instead, it has been used to tacitly defend the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

(1) Unions instead of tenure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of tenure, academics should be unionized. Unions can provide fair pay and protection for all. Tenure provides a small group of insiders with privileged protections. That group is paid a lot more and is subject to radically lighter standards of evaluation compared to non-tenured faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have seen no evidence that tenured faculty are more courageous in speaking out and exercising freedom of speech for unpopular causes, which is supposed to be one of the major purposes of tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suspect tenure makes academics less progressive and more aligned with elite interests. First, it gives those with tenure a vested interest in going along with the system. Second, it alienates tenured academics from other workers by compromising their identity and interests as “workers”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) I am surprised at how reflexive and conservative the debate (by progressives) has been about the travails of The New School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be used as a catalyst for rethinking the organization of higher education, but that is not happening at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the era of the \u201cprecariat\u201d in which academic workers are being turned into precarious adjunct “gig” professors, who are exploited by the system \u2013 including by tenured professors! I am surprised that those who will become victims of this system are so supportive of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) I suggest what is needed is (i) Abolition of tenure. (ii) Establishment of academic unions. (iii) Taking back faculty governance by having the faculty do the governance. (iv) Top university officers should come from the ranks of the faculty, to which they should return when their term is up without any special treatment. (v) There should be strict limits on administrator pay, including Deans and the President, and those limits should be set by reference to faculty pay.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tenure is an archaic institution that divides academics, introduces great unfairness, and accomplishes next to nothing regarding freedom of speech. In my opinion, it is substantially responsible for the troubles at The New School, where senior tenured faculty have long engaged in making behind the scenes sweetheart deals for themselves, and then going along with the administration\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(4) Individuals who have been wronged by The New School\u2019s actions should seek legal remedy because this is the existing law. But in my view, the broader conversation should not be about the particular injury suffered by individuals. It should be about a system that is unjust and rotten, to the extent of facilitating the corporatization of universities and destruction of creative critical thinking in the academy.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New School is a historically progressive academic institution that has fallen on hard times. Recently, it has been in the news because it has fired several tenured professors, invoking financial distress and institutional reorganization as grounds therefor. That has prompted some public debate. Below are some brief thoughts on that debate. I think it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-economy","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2864"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2885,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2864\/revisions\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomaspalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}