I’ve written about higher education long enough to observe that people in the academy care a lot about the issue of tenure. I don’t, by and large, mostly because, like most people, I don’t have it and never will. Education Sector could fire me tomorrow, but I could also walk out and work elsewhere. So we both have an interest in maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship. Tenure, by contrast, seems to consist of a process whereby universities ruthlessly exploit large numbers of unsuspecting graduate students by tricking them into entering a Thunderdome-style tournament where you exchange 10 years of indentured servitude for a lottery ticket chance for permanent job security. Those who win then get to turn the tables on the university by working as hard and teaching as well as they like, with the university responding with various passive-aggressive measures involving stagnant pay, high teaching loads, and social structures based on an artificial scarcity of parking. The whole thing seems deliberately designed to created unending cycles of mutual resentment.
AAUP President Cary Nelson’s fantastic pro-tenure assertion that “the deadwood retired or died years ago” is belied by Lawrence Martin’s finding that “fully 20 percent of the faculty associated in Ph.D. training programs [nationwide] have not authored or co-authored a single publication in one of the 16,000 journals indexed in [the most recent] three year period,” as well as the personal testimony of literally every college professor I’ve ever spoken to in my entire life. The best tenured faculty are likely being underpaid because they’re implicitly exchanging a salary discount for extra job security they don’t need. It would be better if the brass ring of tenure were literally a brass ring (it doesn’t matter what status signifiers actually are as long as everyone agrees what they mean) rather than procedural immunity from any meaningful evaluation. Most people claiming that tenure protects their radical ideas from censure by malevolent outside forces appear to be flattering themselves with the conceit that anybody knows what their ideas are in the first place.
But then there’s Ken Cuccinelli.
Elected as Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia in November 2009, Cuccinelli wasted little time before demanding that the University of Virginia turn over a trove of documents and private correspondence related to former UVA (and current Penn State) professor Michael E. Mann’s research on climate change. UVA rightly refused and a Virginia judge dismissed the request. Undaunted, Cuccinelli re-submitted his subpoenas this week, this time on the pretext that, in the course of applying for a state-funded grant to support research on the African savannah–research that had nothing to do with climate change–Mann included his C.V., which referenced research on climate change. The Post reacted with an editorial titled “Ken Cuccinelli seems determined to embarrass Virginia.”
It’s hard to overstate the level of outright thuggery involved here. Ken Cuccinelli doesn’t believe in man-made climate change, not because he has any specific knowledge about the subject, but because climate change denialism is a plank in the ideological extremist platform circa 2010 and Cuccinelli is a politician with ambitions. If this were 1967, Cuccinelli would be railing against miscegenation. If this were 1956, Cuccinelli would be explaining why Virginians should support massive resistance to desegregation. Since it’s 2010, Cuccinelli wants to deny life-saving health care to poor people, force women to give birth against their will, and let the planet Earth boil to death in a stew of human waste. And that’s his right, it’s a free country. He can run for Congress and vote against cap-and-trade if he wins.
Instead, Cuccinelli is blatantly abusing the power of his office to wage a campaign of legal intimidation against not only the University of Virginia but free inquiry and higher education generally. I fully expect that UVA will never, under any circumstances, buckle under to this kind of attack. In that sense Cuccinelli is the most useful idiot imaginable for the cause of tenure, proof positive that controversial scholarship really does need protection from the forces of economic and political power. By no means am I suggesting that the current tenure system shouldn’t be substantially reformed. Refusing to fire employees for bad reasons doesn’t necessarily imply an inability to fire them for any reasons. But I have to admit that Cuccinelli’s shocking actions have heightened my appreciation for the principles of academic freedom that tenure protects.
14 Responses to Ken Cuccinelli, Enemy of Freedom
schulman - October 8, 2010 at 12:01 am
To borrow your trope, “if this were 2007,” one wouldn’t see Kevin Carey attacking then-Virginia-Governor Tim Kaine for suppressing the speech and eventually hounding UVA professor and Virginia State Climatologist Patrick C. Michaels from his job, because he had the temerity to disagree with Michael Mann’s and Kaine’s view of global warming. The Chronicle covered the story – http://chronicle.com/article/Global-Warming-Skeptic-Who-/123226/ – but where on earth were you?
kjmitch - October 8, 2010 at 7:18 am
I am going through P&T right now. Challenged daily as to whether or not all of this work for tenure is worth it, I remind myself about Cuccinelli. The ability to shut him up is priceless.
kevincarey1 - October 8, 2010 at 7:41 am
schulman,There’s a huge difference between the governor of a state restricting the speech of a state employee (the State Climatologist) while in no way interfering with his rights as a university scholar, and Cuccinelli launching a bogus fraud investigation against a professor whose conclusions he disagrees with. The unusually broad speech rights associated with tenure are bound up in the nature of university-based scholarship. Once people step outside those confines, things change, and appropriately so.
cwinton - October 8, 2010 at 10:03 am
This piece has it right. If is evident that Cuccinelli is yet another example of a morally bankrupt politician who will leap at any opportunity he thinks will provide him with public exposure in the media. It’s the cheapest form of advertising, and in this case involves something unlikely to raise the hackles of the public at large.
quidditas - October 8, 2010 at 10:08 am
Yes, but apparently tenure doesn’t stop the extremist governing administration from its ideologically motivated attack on the research. Isn’t this really an argument about LIMITING the power of the government? In other words, the more representative state legislature ought to limit the power the government has, so as to curb the ideologically motivated abuse of power by extremists who may come to office.
_juggernaut_ - October 8, 2010 at 10:15 am
“Ken Cuccinelli doesn’t believe in man-made climate change, not because he has any specific knowledge about the subject, but because climate change denialism is a plank in the ideological extremist platform circa 2010 and Cuccinelli is a politician with ambitions.” Mr. Carey, you assume to know why Cuccinelli doesn’t believe in man-made climate change/global warming. Unprofessional. Could it be that in a time when other climate science has been rendered dishonest(University of East Anglia, UK), Mr. Cuccinelli may have his doubts about the science as a whole?…… Sounds reasonable to me.”Instead, Cuccinelli is blatantly abusing the power of his office to wage a campaign of legal intimidation against not only the University of Virginia but free inquiry and higher education generally.” Could it be that a State’s Attorney General does in fact have the power to investigate the science of it’s publicly funded Unive rsities? Specifically a science that is polluted with fraud, inconsistency, and contradiction. If public funds were used, in any way, to fund dishonest science… something must be done. Also, if it was good science, done in good taste, with pure intentions, there will be no trial. Ken Cucinelli will have no case. And Michael Mann and the University of Virginia can tell him to fly a kite – at least while the weather’s still warm.
megginson - October 8, 2010 at 10:28 am
Regarding that last post, specifically the comment that “Also, if it was good science, done in good taste, with pure intentions, there will be no trial.” —Those of us who grew up in the McCarthy era remember the following line all to well: “If you are innocent, then you have nothing to fear from an investigation.” Let’s not go there again.
trendisnotdestiny - October 8, 2010 at 11:07 am
While we are still talking about climate change’s affects on species. Let’s be clear here what Cucinelli represents. His species is much along the family genus of “homo extremus” right wing nut jobs along other sub-species: 1)Rick Santorum2)Jim DeMint3)Mark Sanford4)George Allen5)Ralph Reed6)Pat RobertsonSee John Mitchell’s southern strategy, merging extreme religiosity, capitalistic- rugged individualism, guns and the southern psyche-anti-yankee government rhetoric to shape the electorate after LBJ….. All these species are spawned from this political gene pool. Megginson has said it best, we have been there and know the consequences. We might try to shine a little light (disinfectant) on who these people are before moving to debates about policy as credibility has its own meritocracy.
mavprof - October 8, 2010 at 11:22 am
Mr Carey: Whatever may be the worth of your points in the debate over tenure or of your opposition to Mr Cuccinelli’s demand for Professor Mann’s climate-change documents and correspondence while Mann taught at UVA, your rhetorical exercise in sock-puppetry (“If this were 1956 [. . .] let the planet Earth boil to death in a stew of human waste”) to disparage Cuccinelli is contemptible and damages your case.
11122741 - October 8, 2010 at 12:44 pm
trendisnotdestiny and others above; what happen to ‘truth will out” …the core of science. If the research is sound it will withstand the review of any set of reviewers over time. Several of you and many climatologist should read Kugn, Suppe, and Lakatos on science being a French Court where hypotheses and theories are guilty until proven innocent through trial by combat. So many of you have this proposition backwards as do so many climatologists and the uber leftist in academia who believe all of their pronouncement are correct because they come about through divine revelation (to them!!). I am always suspecious of any academic your is afraid of a little intellectual contact at the line of scrimmage and want to deflect and hide behind phrase such as “homo erectus” and other such diversionary straws…. but this is particularly endemic to the generation of academics behind me.let us try to remember Plato …for those who have read him …that the important of writing is that it separates the message and claim from the person and puts the focus on the message and claim rather than ad hominum attacks on the person and the person’s alleged cohorts and conspirators and the politics of their oppoents.
trendisnotdestiny - October 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm
@ 11122741,Noteworthy post! I embrace the core messages of scientific thinking (replication, validity and consistency of data)as well as Platonic dialogues. You misunderstand the context of my positionality here, though, as I am neither a climatologist nor an expert in or on climate change. However, what I am is person who travels and applies theory to real life. All one need do is venture into one of our last great public commons areas like Glacier National Park to see the effects of climate change. Not only is there vast evidence that is consistent and valid, but there exists a developmental foot-print over decades for observant park rangers protecting these ecologies. Again, I am not expert in climate change, but when a park ranger at Glacier National Park (who’s family has lived in Montana for generations) tells me that the glacier has been melting for decades and in twenty to thirty years that it may be a shadow of itself; I listen. There are many other examples I could point to but are less relevant than GNP…As for Plato, I am reminded of this quote which promotes the Greek notion of balance (physical, mental and spiritual)”Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.”Peace
elirabett - October 8, 2010 at 5:34 pm
And in related news George Mason University opens an investigation into professional misconduct and plagiarism by Ed Wegman. Wegman, you may remember, prepared a hit piece on Michael Mann for Rep Joe Barton, but was a wee bit careless as have been his students and collaborators. George Mason University is the alma mater of Ken Cuccinelli.
t_paine - October 9, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Trendis, ol’ buddy,You needn’t worry that we will “misunderstand the context of [your] positionality”. Your thinking is every bit as clear as your writing.
trendisnotdestiny - October 10, 2010 at 11:43 am
t_paine,I just spent the last hour re-reading some of our past dialogues (almost exclusively contentious and intense discussions that I contribute to equally and most personally). We are very different people in how we view the economy, society and personal relations, but this doesn’t mean you do not have much to teach me. While this may not occur on this thread, Tom, I wish you good health and spirit in your journey.Peace