You have to push the questions about health insurance, as well. At NYU the problem of housing is acute. So one has to be sensitive to the future that retiring faculty members face in material terms and in terms of doing valuable work. There are all sorts of ways to take advantage of retired professors in the classroom, or as advisers. My support of tenure is accompanied by a strong belief that tenure is not a lifetime privilege.
Faculty members can be their own worst enemy in terms of defending tenure.
They can be so by making tenure into a lifelong job, no matter what their particular mental condition, by slacking off after they get tenure, or by behaving in unethical ways. And their faculty colleagues have to take responsibility for dealing with the slackers and predators within their ranks. You know, the institution to which the university is most similar is the church. It gets itself into a lot of trouble when the clergy, either men or women, do not behave according to the highest ethical ideals of the institution. We can t see having tenure as the equivalent of selling indulgences.