University of Wisconsin Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab is very upset that the state has removed tenure protection as a state statute (Wisconsin was the only state with this unique provision).
She went to Twitter earlier this month to compare Governor Walker (WI-R) to Hitler to express her dislike of the state reform.
But that isn’t what got her in trouble with the University. It was when she started telling high school graduates not to attend the UW that drew a rebuke from her peers.
She’s been threatening to leave for a while now “But I can’t stay where I can’t speak. And believe me, I cannot speak without tenure,” she said. “I will be let go so fast and so many people in upper administration will be applauding because I challenge their systems every day.”
But I don’t think they can just fire her outright because…She has tenure!
Tenure doesn’t protect her from car accidents, IYKWIMAITYD.
Sooooooo … what are the similarities?
Socialist?
Foreign born?
Pervert?
Drug-addled?
Anti-Semite?
I’m not getting it … she needs to clarify.
Why is that fat warthog complaining the American people are rapidly losing a good deal of their tenure also (free speech)? This
outright assault on the 1st amendment and the resultant losses have been partly instigated and enabled by freakish left wing university crazies like her and the anti-American five on the supreme court!
PP
Progressive Professor
I can tell she’s a leftist just by looking at her. She barks.
After firing will she be drinking beer nude with pigs? Thats trendy I hear.
Yup. Not only does she bark, she whines and yelps.
The way tenure works is pure crapola. I’m fairly sure it is the brain bastard child of Fabians or their ideological clones to protect them from retribution and retaliation during their takeover of the educational institutions.
I don’t have a philosophical problem with something like tenure being set up by private money interests, but having tenure systems for govt and quasi-govt employees is infuriating.
If someone or a group with enough money wants to set up a professor with the freedom to pursue research in whatever interests him, then endow a chair and write a contract. It could be for a multi-year term or even for the natural life of the professor. The contract could include something like the “morals” clauses in athletic sponsorship contracts to prevent gross abuses, but that kind of agreement is up to the two negotiating sides.
Back to the point: fire Sara’s butt. She’s too stupid to keep as a teacher/researcher.
One of the main purposes for tenure was to encourage diverse academic thought – and particularly academic discussion and work which was contrary to popularly accepted beliefs. For example, tenure would protect academics who argued that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth. The idea was that knowledge would progress faster if academics were allowed to think outside of the box.
But professors and teachers, while spouting counter culture views and frequently absolute nonsense, do not allow students the same freedom to examine things in a university or school environment that the professors supposedly have by reason of tenure. Students must conform or face discipline – many campuses have speech codes, and will severely discipline students for what these schools arbitrarily consider offensive, racist, or sexist thought.
So who is responsible for removing tenure from schools? The teachers and professors themselves, who protect their own jobs with tenure principles while punishing students who argue with them. Tenure has been a tool which enables left wing fanatics the opportunity to indoctrinate, instead of teach students, and is not only a useless concept, but a dangerous one as well. Wisconsin teachers should look in a mirror if they want to learn who is responsible for eliminating tenure.
Tenure, like unions, have outgrown their time. Now it’s the prize for lazy, incompetent and (mostly) progressive teachers/professors who know (kind of like the douchette in the story) that once tenured it would take a h-bomb to remove them. Now this harridan can scream and bitch about difficult teaching is for her and just keep cashing those checks.
The public sector would do well to mirror the private sector. Tenure in the private sector is called merit. Those that have it keep their jobs because what they do has value. Those that don’t have value leech and siphon the life force off others like tenured “professors” that aren’t smart enough to know not to bite the hand feeding them.
Amazing set of comment. I actually have nothing to add but my thanks to the contributors and of course to the Wisconsin legislators!
Except that the libtards have taken over education and now THEIR beliefs are the ones that are “popularly accepted” in academia. And if someone who is untenured speaks against the lie of liberalism, they are banished precisely because they are untenured.
So this nitwit wants to keep tenure, not because she can speak freely, but to use it as a club to keep free speech and free thought away from her bubble in academia.
Is there any reading comprehension left in the world? Starting with her and ending on this post –
“…the state has removed tenure protection as a state statute (Wisconsin was the only state with this unique provision).”
It is still valid if like other educational institutions in the country achieving tenure is the policy.