COLLOQUY

Years ago, on the back page of The Chronicle was an article called "Veritas at Harvard." The article gave adequate evidence that members of the faculty at Harvard were hounded out of their jobs during the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s. The lingering feeling I got from the article was that, whereas tenure was ineffective in preserving academic freedom under the most glaring light at the most prestigious institution in the land (primarily because of overexposure in that light), it did not speak at all to situations under less-glaring lights in the less-favored institutions. Some of these became harbors, no doubt, but others also unwilling to risk disfavor with a state legislature or sectarian governing board shed their embarrassing faculty members.

Many of us know stories of faculty members who did not "fit in" where they first attempted a career in academe. Many of these became successful eventually, finding more-comfortable circumstances which did not provoke the anger or discomfort of departmental colleagues. It seems all too obvious that both situations -- harassment from without and from within -- bespeak a system where "academic freedom" is not its principal concern.

Tenure is ultimately about "career." It is a response to the vagaries of a life in which the mind and its work describe an arc of intellectual and creative achievements, different things of different qualities at different times. It is (perhaps self-servingly) believed that there is a cumulative quality to such a life, that with experience comes valuable insight into the necessities of the institution. Yet we know that revolutions in thinking are often held back by gray old men in seats of academic power.

Today's discussion, in fact, is in considerable measure a demographic struggle between a Boom Generation and an X Generation of scholars, of a professoriate from the 75 million Boom Americans versus the insurgent scholars among 80 million X-Generation members. No similar situation existed between the Silent Generation of 45 million and the insurgent Boomers. It is, as all contests of this sort are, a struggle for the rule book.

Does X Generation play into the hands of a cabal of First-Amendment-hating, academic-freedom-limiting censors when it agrees that tenure is of less importance to them than it seems to be to its seniors? The records seem to indicate that tenure protects the status quo more than speech or style, and so they are merely revolutionaries demanding their rightful place in frugal times. In 20 years or so, they will be experiencing the skirmish from the other side, probably without the security of tenure.

--James R. Brett, Director, Office of University Research, California State University, Long Beach, Cal. (posted 2/24, 2:30 p.m., E.S.T.)