Rather than reflecting the views of hate-radio or Fox and the like, Science is generally considered one of the 2 or 3 most respected journals currently published. There are valid reasons to consider the elimination or revision of the tenure system. It doesn't achieve what it's designed to do (promote innovation), it creates a prohibitive bottleneck for younger career scientists, and it creates a degree of job security which almost begs for abuse. In any event, the entire article can be found at
Taken for Granted: Making Book on America's Universities.
An excerpt:
"Two of this season's more widely mentioned tomes expressing this view are by prominent academics -- current or former tenured professors -- writing for the general public. Political scientist Andrew Hacker, professor emeritus of Queens College and formerly of Cornell University, teamed up with The New York Times journalist Claudia Dreifus to produce Higher Education? How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing our Kids -- And What We Can do About It. Mark C. Taylor, who chairs the religion department at Columbia University, offers Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities .
Hacker and Dreifus focus on the failures of undergraduate instruction to maintain standards, provide high-quality teaching, adapt to the needs of a changing student body, and keep costs under control. The question mark in their title, they say, does "double-duty," expressing their doubts that the glorified vocational training offered on many campuses truly counts as education, and that much of it rises to a level that can "reasonably be called higher." Undergraduate studies lie beyond this column's purview, but Hacker and Dreifus's examination of tenure's effects is highly relevant. Rather than protecting faculty members' academic freedom, as the system's proponents claim, permanent appointments safeguard the income of "a percentage of professors … who haven't had an original idea in years, and who put forth the bare minimum of effort in their classes," they quote James Garland, former president of Miami University in Ohio, as saying. And, by indefinitely tying up major chunks of university budgets, the system condemns the much larger -- and rapidly growing -- number of non–tenure track academics to working for pittances. Providing "lifetime guarantees" for some "subverts the very enterprise
are supposed to serve," Hacker and Dreifus write."
edited to correct hyperlink