This is the first really valid, reasonable, and job-related argument I've seen here for disciplining an academic for her comments. As you note, it would certainly be appropriate -- and in fact required -- for management to question the fitness of a schoolteacher, policeman, prosecutor, or judge who repeatedly and voluntarily made stateme…
This is the first really valid, reasonable, and job-related argument I've seen here for disciplining an academic for her comments.
As you note, it would certainly be appropriate -- and in fact required -- for management to question the fitness of a schoolteacher, policeman, prosecutor, or judge who repeatedly and voluntarily made statements indicating he or she believes certain races and genders are inherently inferior to others. An academic whose responsibilities entail judging students' performance falls into this category. When being evaluated for tenure, such declarations are also material, particularly in social sciences and humanities. Arguably once having received tenure, the bar should be much higher. Probably absent actual criminal misconduct, a tenured academic might not be properly discharged, but the duties and responsibilities appropriate to her position should be restricted to areas where her manifest prejudices are to the extent possible a negligible factor. Of course, if the essential duties of the position (such as grading students, sitting on committees that pass on granting degrees, peer reviewing journal submissions, and so forth) require objectivity which the tenured person's behavior calls into question, discharge for cause might also be appropriate.
In this case we seem to have a person purposefully making a spectacle of herself, motivated perhaps by some perverted effort akin in her mind to civil disobedience. There are people who seek out martyrdom for profit. Often they aren't really very stellar at their jobs, and their career paths don't yield the glittering prizes and peer admiration they believe is their due. Not being able to command respect for being brilliant, they seek sympathy for being victims.
Mr. Butcher, I think you are on target in distinguishing between probationary tenure-line faculty and tenured faculty. The discussion here relates to tenured faculty.
These sorts of issues do, in fact, come up. Sometimes tenured faculty make appalling generalized statements about women, men, white people, people of color, and so forth. The question immediately turns to objectivity in discharging their academic responsibilities, especially as teachers for members of whatever group they have disparaged.
The way administrations often approach this is by assessing both the words spoken or written (or retweeted!), the faculty member's track record in terms of grading and mentoring students, student perceptions of the faculty member (both those who actually know the person and those who may have majors requiring future contact with them), and the faculty member's own self-defense. Sanctions can required public apologies, suspension from certain duties for a period, loss of grading responsibilities in courses taught, and curtailments specific to individual positions. (Students generally choose their degree committees, and peer review is an extra-institutional function--you don't even have to be an academic to do it.)
I don't know about your last paragraph. Cases I've been involved with have never really fit that profile. I think it's more common that faculty who are quite successful in their professional fields get too full of self-esteem, and normal constraints of speech break down.
Another thing to reflect on is that a century ago, judgments about the inferiority of women and people of color might well have been a majority view among the then-almost all white male academic community. It would have been those pushing equalitarian views that would be most vulnerable to "cancellation" by trustee boards and the presidents they hired. That's the context in which the concepts of academic freedom and tenure were born. It would be a sad outcome if now that the majority view has become a widely shunned minority, the triumphant majority decided to weaken tenure.
This is the first really valid, reasonable, and job-related argument I've seen here for disciplining an academic for her comments.
As you note, it would certainly be appropriate -- and in fact required -- for management to question the fitness of a schoolteacher, policeman, prosecutor, or judge who repeatedly and voluntarily made statements indicating he or she believes certain races and genders are inherently inferior to others. An academic whose responsibilities entail judging students' performance falls into this category. When being evaluated for tenure, such declarations are also material, particularly in social sciences and humanities. Arguably once having received tenure, the bar should be much higher. Probably absent actual criminal misconduct, a tenured academic might not be properly discharged, but the duties and responsibilities appropriate to her position should be restricted to areas where her manifest prejudices are to the extent possible a negligible factor. Of course, if the essential duties of the position (such as grading students, sitting on committees that pass on granting degrees, peer reviewing journal submissions, and so forth) require objectivity which the tenured person's behavior calls into question, discharge for cause might also be appropriate.
In this case we seem to have a person purposefully making a spectacle of herself, motivated perhaps by some perverted effort akin in her mind to civil disobedience. There are people who seek out martyrdom for profit. Often they aren't really very stellar at their jobs, and their career paths don't yield the glittering prizes and peer admiration they believe is their due. Not being able to command respect for being brilliant, they seek sympathy for being victims.
Mr. Butcher, I think you are on target in distinguishing between probationary tenure-line faculty and tenured faculty. The discussion here relates to tenured faculty.
These sorts of issues do, in fact, come up. Sometimes tenured faculty make appalling generalized statements about women, men, white people, people of color, and so forth. The question immediately turns to objectivity in discharging their academic responsibilities, especially as teachers for members of whatever group they have disparaged.
The way administrations often approach this is by assessing both the words spoken or written (or retweeted!), the faculty member's track record in terms of grading and mentoring students, student perceptions of the faculty member (both those who actually know the person and those who may have majors requiring future contact with them), and the faculty member's own self-defense. Sanctions can required public apologies, suspension from certain duties for a period, loss of grading responsibilities in courses taught, and curtailments specific to individual positions. (Students generally choose their degree committees, and peer review is an extra-institutional function--you don't even have to be an academic to do it.)
I don't know about your last paragraph. Cases I've been involved with have never really fit that profile. I think it's more common that faculty who are quite successful in their professional fields get too full of self-esteem, and normal constraints of speech break down.
Another thing to reflect on is that a century ago, judgments about the inferiority of women and people of color might well have been a majority view among the then-almost all white male academic community. It would have been those pushing equalitarian views that would be most vulnerable to "cancellation" by trustee boards and the presidents they hired. That's the context in which the concepts of academic freedom and tenure were born. It would be a sad outcome if now that the majority view has become a widely shunned minority, the triumphant majority decided to weaken tenure.