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Sex scandals and tenure

Here is an ugly story about my own university: a theater professor is accused of inappropriate sexual conduct, which includes video-taping people in his bathroom, and pressuring students into sexual relationships. A stash of child pornography was found in his home. What makes it especially ugly is that apparently the university officials knew about his misconduct for 20 years, and still failed to protect students.

My sympathy is with students first and foremost. No one should be dealing with this in college. It is hard enough without some old professor chasing you. But I have to admit, I am glad it is not my College and not my unit. The story is a university administrator’s worst nightmare.

Not only they feel terrible about failing to protect students, but this can cost the program – and the whole University – a drop in enrollments, which during the crisis can spell a financial disaster. It can also have serious legal liabilities, not to mention the tarnished reputation.

I also know how this can happen. It is so difficult to discipline or fire a tenured professor that an administrator thinks twice – more like ten times - before even trying. When students complain, you have to think – is this going to stand in court? The accused professor is not only well protected by tenure, but is also likely to bring a court case against the university, unless you have some solid proof of misconduct. And how do you obtain such proof? You have little investigative authority, no training or time to investigate a complaint. The systemic pressure is to believe that this is an isolated incident. Moreover, administrators change often, and different complaints might have gone to different people, without ever coming together.

This is not an excuse for UNC; as an institution, we have failed our students in this particular instance. I am just pointing out at another unintended consequence of the institution of tenure. Created for protection against political persecution, tenure also protects the incompetence and encourages irresponsible behavior. The accused professor may have had better sense should he believe he can be fired. In fact, nothing of gross sexual misconduct can get a tenured professor fired. This is why a certain small percentage of professors just stop working hard after tenure.

Mine is not a popular view amongst academics, but I never cared for tenure, even when I did not have it. I don’t think it promotes much of free speech, but it surely protects the lazy and the perverse. While it is great to have job security (especially now), the long-term interest of our profession is to eliminate tenure, and rely on the regular ways of protecting ourselves against arbitrary and unfair treatment by employers.