For most people, the strongest rationale for tenure is the maintenance of academic freedom for our faculty, and the concomitant freedom from coercion or persecution. Tenure, as defined above, provides a powerful buffer against arbitrary and capricious acts by administrators or, indeed, by fellow faculty members. It's important to recognize some underlying stresses and demands that perturb the system. Most of us will agree, I believe, that the creation of the American research university is one of the great achievements of the twentieth century, and that the research university generates extraordinary scientific, educational, economic, and social benefits. Research is far more remote, more difficult to embrace.
Many citizens have a poor understanding of the function and value of a research university.
Tenure often becomes a scapegoat in these more pervasive issues. Obscured, at times, is the crucial issue of who bears the burden of proof in tenure-related personnel matters. In the process leading to the award of tenure, a faculty member typically presents his or her record of accomplishment in teaching, research, and service. A succession of intensive evaluations, recommendations, and judgments of that record, usually incorporating some degree of appraisal external to the university, then follows. Throughout the probationary period that culminates in this process, the burden of proof is on the faculty member to demonstrate his or her suitability for the award of tenure.