With regard to the power of university profs over students: The fact is, the combination of tenure laws in most states combined with the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, render tenured faculty at public universities virtually immune from some civil and criminal violations of law against students. In a recent issue of Time Magazine, tenure is described as "protect[ing] teachers from being fired unjustly because. . .they won't teach creationism." However, in the state of Texas, tenure laws also effectively protect tenured predators from prosecution for sexual harassment, sexual assault, and stalking of female students--among other violations of civil and criminal laws against students. The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District (under Title IX) has made it virtually impossible for those harmed by tenured predators to hold public schools, colleges, and universities accountable for the immeasurable harm certain of their tenured faculty do. Indeed, that ruling has made it more likely that educational institutions, especially in Texas, will do everything in their power to hide their knowledge of that harm. The Great Wall of Tenure in Texas provides an effective immunity from certain laws for such predators, and taxpayers in this state continue to fund hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in legal fees to protect such predators. Moreover, any victim who files a civil lawsuit is unlikely to have her case survive the infamous Fifth Circuit. Though tenure has its defenders, the abuses of tenure one finds in Texas are beyond any defense. Unfortunately, though the Governor has recently been well informed of the legal consequences and dangers of the Gebser ruling in Texas, it is unlikely things are going to get better for students in this state any time soon.
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