I don’t agree with Maura Finkelstein. But the Muhlenberg College prof is entitled to her views and has every right to share them on social media, writes Peter Savodnik.
As a tenured professor myself, I strongly believe that tenure should cover research and teaching — it doesn’t NOT mean one’s actions should bear no consequences. What other job provides full immunity for offensive or, honestly, any statements the workplace does not consider as adequate with respect to its views and polices? Indeed, forcing accountability on academics that believe they are entitled to babble whatever moronic idea pops into their mind and the top of their fingers and then broadcast it, not through a rigorous peer reviewed process, but via standard traditional or social media, will go a great way to correcting the current rot that has taken over what used to be premier institutions of research and inquiry.
This is the same argument that cancel culture uses to bully and silence people. Should professors be 'held accountable' for tweeting a link to an article on TFP about gender or DEI?
Free speech is meant to protect vile and offensive speech, not simply the speech you agree with.
Your attitude is the embodiment of the academic rot you describe.
I would be in complete agreement with you if no other work place has been firing people based on their stated opinions. But they do. So why should the academia be an exception? Indeed, it is even worse in the academia because people enjoy a certain level of trust by the public exactly because their comments and opinions are presumably based on their research. Would you allow a person who posts online how great it would be to blow up a dirty bomb in a shopping mall to keep their job at a nuclear power plant (apologies for Homer Simpson)?
Walz made more headlines for being the first person to call himself a "knucklehead" during a televised debate than for the real headline from the debate: he equates a lot of speech to crying "fire" in a crowded movie theater.
Walz doesn't understand the First Amendment, nor does he understand the Oliver Wendell Holmes argument.
I agree with Mr. Savodnik: you give professors tenure because you want them to feel free to explore new ideas. You should feel offended every day at university. And there are specific remedies if you're bullied or assaulted or made to feel physically unsafe (Ivy Leagues, UCLA, Michigan, so many others) or if your professor fails you in a class because you didn't parrot some political opinion.
Without tenure, professors are just high school teachers with fancier degrees and lower pay, teaching textbooks and forbidden to express personal opinions.
As for the nuclear plant example, sure, you fire the guy because of liability if he does do exactly that. You can't prosecute it because it's not a specific incitement or threat, because of the First Amendment.
I do not agree with Finkelstein. She seems really, really dumb, and I would not want my kid in her classroom. But she should not lose her tenure.
Tenure should cover research and teaching — that’s its purpose. But why should it provide an exception for scholars over stating their own opinions, again, if this is not something that other jobs allow? The academia should bot be an exceptional place of employment. You don’t have tenure if you work at Google — people got fired there over stating similar opinions to Finklestein’s. We can disagree with that, but Google is allowed to do it. So why should a university professor enjoy more privilege than a Google employee?
Because being a professor means something specific - something Finkelstein would never understand herself. It means committing to the process of exploring the world intellectually.
I know this is lost today, but it's so important that college NOT be about "safe spaces" and microaggressions. Now, it's just an extension of high school.
Google does not (and should not) offer tenure. High schools do offer it these days, and should not. But college professors who explore the world should have it.
The point is that work places should not fire people for constitutionally protected speech.
To answer your question: academia should be held to a very high standard, where ideas are not only permissable but intensely debated. And yes, I believe this value should be accepted beyond the walls of the university, which should lead by example.
Will you answer my question?
Should professors be fired for linking to an article on TFP about gender?
I think it depends on whether other jobs would fire over their own principals and what principals the university is willing to fire them over. Professors in private universities have been fire over similar issues (the tenure removal procedure in private universities is so opaque that tenure is merely symbolic). I think that teaching and research should be protected under tenure. But I don’t think that one’s personal opinion should be — again — if it is not in other job places, where saying something that upsets one’s employer leads to being fired, even if it is something as absurd as a story on gender. But this is a point not about firing someone over their opinions — as I said, I agree with you it shouldn’t happen; it is about the presumed exception of the academia — if the law allows employers to fire employees over what stated options, then the academia shouldn’t be held to different standards.
We are basically arguing over two different points here. You are focusing on the problem of employers being able to fire people over stated opinions — I do not disagree with you on this in principle. I am arguing that the academia does not deserve to be the exception on this issue simply because of the tenure system.
Because of the tenure system? Perhaps not, I'm no lawyer... yet intellectual integrity demands that the university hold itself exceptional. If not the university, where are people meant to explore ideas?
Since you agree, it seems you should be arguing for tenure to be expanded to protect professors personal speech, rather than advocating that a tenured professor be treated like Homer Simpson.
As a tenured professor myself, I strongly believe that tenure should cover research and teaching — it doesn’t NOT mean one’s actions should bear no consequences. What other job provides full immunity for offensive or, honestly, any statements the workplace does not consider as adequate with respect to its views and polices? Indeed, forcing accountability on academics that believe they are entitled to babble whatever moronic idea pops into their mind and the top of their fingers and then broadcast it, not through a rigorous peer reviewed process, but via standard traditional or social media, will go a great way to correcting the current rot that has taken over what used to be premier institutions of research and inquiry.
This is the same argument that cancel culture uses to bully and silence people. Should professors be 'held accountable' for tweeting a link to an article on TFP about gender or DEI?
Free speech is meant to protect vile and offensive speech, not simply the speech you agree with.
Your attitude is the embodiment of the academic rot you describe.
Professors have a duty to their students, and the university, to maintain a professional and academic level of decorum.
In that position they rightfully subject themselves to critical observation and judgment.
They are, after all, in a position to greatly influence many young minds…with that comes a great responsibility and accountability.
Professors have a duty to equip students with the ability to engage in critical thought, and a right to argue for and against ideas themselves.
Neither is served by requiring them to conform.
I would be in complete agreement with you if no other work place has been firing people based on their stated opinions. But they do. So why should the academia be an exception? Indeed, it is even worse in the academia because people enjoy a certain level of trust by the public exactly because their comments and opinions are presumably based on their research. Would you allow a person who posts online how great it would be to blow up a dirty bomb in a shopping mall to keep their job at a nuclear power plant (apologies for Homer Simpson)?
Walz made more headlines for being the first person to call himself a "knucklehead" during a televised debate than for the real headline from the debate: he equates a lot of speech to crying "fire" in a crowded movie theater.
Walz doesn't understand the First Amendment, nor does he understand the Oliver Wendell Holmes argument.
I agree with Mr. Savodnik: you give professors tenure because you want them to feel free to explore new ideas. You should feel offended every day at university. And there are specific remedies if you're bullied or assaulted or made to feel physically unsafe (Ivy Leagues, UCLA, Michigan, so many others) or if your professor fails you in a class because you didn't parrot some political opinion.
Without tenure, professors are just high school teachers with fancier degrees and lower pay, teaching textbooks and forbidden to express personal opinions.
As for the nuclear plant example, sure, you fire the guy because of liability if he does do exactly that. You can't prosecute it because it's not a specific incitement or threat, because of the First Amendment.
I do not agree with Finkelstein. She seems really, really dumb, and I would not want my kid in her classroom. But she should not lose her tenure.
Tenure should cover research and teaching — that’s its purpose. But why should it provide an exception for scholars over stating their own opinions, again, if this is not something that other jobs allow? The academia should bot be an exceptional place of employment. You don’t have tenure if you work at Google — people got fired there over stating similar opinions to Finklestein’s. We can disagree with that, but Google is allowed to do it. So why should a university professor enjoy more privilege than a Google employee?
Because being a professor means something specific - something Finkelstein would never understand herself. It means committing to the process of exploring the world intellectually.
I know this is lost today, but it's so important that college NOT be about "safe spaces" and microaggressions. Now, it's just an extension of high school.
Google does not (and should not) offer tenure. High schools do offer it these days, and should not. But college professors who explore the world should have it.
The point is that work places should not fire people for constitutionally protected speech.
To answer your question: academia should be held to a very high standard, where ideas are not only permissable but intensely debated. And yes, I believe this value should be accepted beyond the walls of the university, which should lead by example.
Will you answer my question?
Should professors be fired for linking to an article on TFP about gender?
I think it depends on whether other jobs would fire over their own principals and what principals the university is willing to fire them over. Professors in private universities have been fire over similar issues (the tenure removal procedure in private universities is so opaque that tenure is merely symbolic). I think that teaching and research should be protected under tenure. But I don’t think that one’s personal opinion should be — again — if it is not in other job places, where saying something that upsets one’s employer leads to being fired, even if it is something as absurd as a story on gender. But this is a point not about firing someone over their opinions — as I said, I agree with you it shouldn’t happen; it is about the presumed exception of the academia — if the law allows employers to fire employees over what stated options, then the academia shouldn’t be held to different standards.
We are basically arguing over two different points here. You are focusing on the problem of employers being able to fire people over stated opinions — I do not disagree with you on this in principle. I am arguing that the academia does not deserve to be the exception on this issue simply because of the tenure system.
Because of the tenure system? Perhaps not, I'm no lawyer... yet intellectual integrity demands that the university hold itself exceptional. If not the university, where are people meant to explore ideas?
Since you agree, it seems you should be arguing for tenure to be expanded to protect professors personal speech, rather than advocating that a tenured professor be treated like Homer Simpson.