End tenure for tenure

So while I was away, there was a fair amount of blogging about whether John Yoo should be fired. I think Timothy Burke has undoubtedly the best post relating to the topic, even though it actually isn't about Yoo. It's about the question of why tenure is special.

I have absolutely no qualifications to weigh in on the legal merits of Yoo's arguments, so I won't; but I'm not sure I understand why he shouldn't be fired for them. The benefits of systems in which people can't be fired except in extremis--civil service, closed shops, academia--are real, but the lack of accountability that this creates seems like it might be worse than the problem it cures.

To be sure, no one who is thus protected from firing agrees with me. Even the conservative and libertarian professors I know mostly seem to defend tenure. On the other hand, I know no thinks that this is a good arrangement when they are the customer of a person or corporation with perfect job security. Who longs for the days of the old AT&T monopoly? Or gets a glad feeling in his heart when he contemplates the fact that Comcast--and only Comcast--has the right to sell him cable service?

In the case of the professoriate, tenure seems to me to create a series of disasters. I find it striking to listen to left-wing academics describe their vision of the American labor market--striking because it is not a very good description of the operation of the private sector job market, but it is a very accurate portrayal of the harsh and unduly binary outcomes of the tenure-track job search.

I hear economists on the left endorse a monopsony model of minimum wage employment that sounds frankly ludicrous to me, and should to anyone who has worked in fast food or retail--how could employers in industries that fragmented, with turnover rates well over 100%, possibly collude? On the other hand, it's a pretty plausible model for academic environments where a squillion graduate students are all chasing three jobs.

But beyond the effect on academic ideas about economics, the whole system is designed to attract and retain the risk averse and compliant. It may also be to blame for the near-perfect arrogance of many academics, who outrank even doctors and investment bankers on this score. Those who survive the tenure process tend to put a high value on its gatekeeper function--not only for keeping bad academics out of tenure, but also for keeping bad ideas away from the rest of us. The logic of tenure implies that they tell us what to do, not the other way around, dammit--and this is not exactly an unusual belief to find among academics.

Then there are the assorted characters that every academic complains about: the guys who won't do a damn thing for the department except show up and teach their two; the ones who stopped publishing anything other than op-eds the day their tenure (or full professorship, or chair) came through; the ones who get away with bullying the junior faculty because after all, they'll be on your tenure committee; the various forms of workplace social affective disorders that develop upon the realization that no one can do a damn thing to you; the guy who leaves the real teaching up to the TA because all he cares about is getting publications or, post-tenure, time on the golf course; the capricious crankery that goes into various kinds of decisions; the dead-enders who get invested in pointless or wrongheaded projects that never come to completion; the junior faculty who are afraid to disagree with powerful superiors they know are wrong; the senior faculty who hang on long after they are capable of doing good research or good teaching, because there's no way to ease them out.

All of these things occur in private companies too, of course. But they aren't inherent. In businesses these things aren't fixed; on faculty, they can't be. The damage is much mitigated by the fact that faculty have to have a certain degree of self-control to get where they are. But then, it is undoubtedly much exacerbated by the fact that one of the job's main attractions is freedom from accountability.

And then there are the cases like John Yoo's. Why should his university have to continue to associate with the author of ideas they find odious? Why should he not pay the price for his ideas? It seems to me that if there is one thing worth paying for, it is one's beliefs.

Ah, you will say, but then people will be afraid to express strong beliefs. True. Do we want academics who lack the courage of their convictions?

I suppose we must. We've certainly built a near-perfect system for finding them.

Comments

Why should his university have to continue to associate with the author of ideas they find odious? Why should he not pay the price for his ideas?

Because the university has no business judging his ideas. It only has a business in judging his application of his ideas. I find it hilarious that conservatives both deride the "liberal professoriat" and attack tenure. It is tenure that enables conservative professors to continue to operate within their departments without fear of untoward pressures from their colleagues and administration.

You contrast the academy with big business, but of course, that's the point. The academy is not like other enterprises, and is not meant to be like other enterprises. The very foundation of the university is the exploration of ideas, ideas both commonly believed and those in the extreme minority. Without protection for those who's beliefs don't conform to the majority, there's no university. Other businesses have other goals than the exploration for ideas, so it makes sense to have a system for controlling those whose jobs are threatened by their views. But the exploration of minority views isn't ancillary to the mission of the university; it is the mission of the university. You can't protect the academy by removing the tenure's defense of minority opinion; if you do, there's nothing left to protect.

I find this common trope, the comparison of dissimilar systems to the world of business, to be a regular failing of economic conservatism. The entire world, in point of fact, is not a capital-generating machine, and their are institutions, like government and the university, that should and do operate by rules that are different than those that govern business.

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 4:48 PM

Actually, there is one way to get rid of a deadwood tenurate, provided the contract doesn't exclude it: Cut his or her pay annually, all the way back to minimum wage if necessary.

My alma matter finally used this to boot out a professor who should have retired ten years previous, but was clinging to the job (and earning worse student evals with each passing year, plus numerous complaints to the dean over unfair grading practices) for the sake of the bully pulpit it provided him. About the time he was making less money as a senior professor than en entry-level engineer graduating from the same school, and then got visited repeatedly by ninjas from the administrative office, he finally took the hint and "retired".

Posted by aMouseforallSeasons | April 7, 2008 4:54 PM

It is tenure that enables conservative professors to continue to operate within their departments without fear of untoward pressures from their colleagues and administration.

...assuming they can pretend to be liberals long enough to get through grad school, get hired, and get tenure.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 4:56 PM

...assuming they can pretend to be liberals long enough to get through grad school, get hired, and get tenure.

It's the tired stereotype that keeps on giving!

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 5:00 PM

Firing Yoo because his ideas are odious is precisely the sort of thing that tenure is designed to prevent. (And political correctness is so changable, too!)

On the other hand, firing him as a law professor because his legal reasoning is piss poor has a lot more to recommend it. And is a lot easier to justify on objective grounds.

Well, perhaps he will get haulled before a war crimes trial and dealt with appropriately. Which would make the whole firing question moot.

Posted by wj | April 7, 2008 5:03 PM

The central issue that leads people like me to defend tenure is seems to be that you suffer so much for it. Academics have a system with very limited labor mobility and few options when things go badly. If you are not tenured then you seem to have few (if any) rights. This extremely binary system makes the people who fought so hard to enter it be highly resistant to reform.

After all, what was the point of so many years of bad treatment (as a graduate student and junior professor) if it doesn't even give job security?

I have considered non-tenured jobs but when I speak to people in them they claim that they are bullied by the tenured faculty. Reform is impossible if taking a non-tenured academic job is signing up for a lifetime of abuse!

Posted by JD | April 7, 2008 5:05 PM

I'[m inclined to agree with you (albeit tentatively) about tenure, but Yoo shouldn't be fired for his ideas because the position he has comes with a contractual obligation not to fire him for his ideas. Maybe those aren't good terms to have in that contract, and maybe future contracts shouldn't include those terms. But they are what they are.

Posted by Scott Wood | April 7, 2008 5:10 PM

While I'm not sure I'd want the UC system to be able to fire him for his ideas, I do hope that they cut his course schedule to zero. And by all means I hope he is quickly disbarred.

Posted by JW in CA | April 7, 2008 5:19 PM

Freddie, I don't get it. You yourself say that tenure protects conservatives from mistreatment (perhaps you were speaking hypothetically, but that doesn't matter for what follows). Now, assuming you're right, then it seems likely that non-tenured conservatives are subject to mistreatment, presumably including denial of tenure. Which then suggests that they would have to pretend to be liberals to avoid mistreatment.

You can argue that conservatives aren't mistreated (that's just a stereotype), or you can argue that tenure protects conservatives, but you can't have it both ways.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 5:21 PM

And by all means I hope he is quickly disbarred

Just out of curiosity, what rule of professional conduct has he violated?

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 5:23 PM

The answer is to abolish tenure everywhere it is found.

Eliminate "lifetime" employment at all places it is found, including the civil service, "closed shops", etc.

Then ban any kind of contractual arrangements that exceed, e.g. 30 years except in very unusual circumstances (such as building something that inherently require a lifetime of 50 years or more to break even. )

Odious long term contracts can be gradually phased out by, a) banning any new hires on those terms, b) setting the maximum length of any contract of employment to, say, 5 years with the provision that it can be renewed but with progressively shorter length contracts until 25 years is reached, at which point, the longest contract between the parties is 1 year.

There are many other ways to maintain the institution of academic freedom, including the establishment of privately funded think tanks.

It is interesting to note that many of the places with the least tolerance for politically incorrect ideas is in academe, where it is easy for any one group of powerful tenured full professors to in effect, exercise thought control on their colleagues.

If you don't believe this, try voicing any highly politically incorrect idea as an tenured faculty member and see what happens.

It is time for tenure to go the way of monasteries.

Posted by D | April 7, 2008 5:28 PM

I can, actually. Conservatives believe that conservative professors are under constant pressure from the vast pool of liberal colleagues. I think that's bunk-- and incidentally, many conservative professors agree with me. But if what conservatives say is true, it's even more of a reason to defend tenure. That's what makes tenure such an essential system. It defends everyone's ideas, provided they are not expressed in a way that defeats the primary academic mission. (By which I mean plagiarized expression or expression that involves deliberate falsification of empirical evidence, such as in the sciences.) What tenure ends up protecting most often, by the way, isn't opinion that can be shuffled into broad ideological camps, but sui generis opinion that is academically unique. (For example, certain "Shakespeare was really x" ideas.)

What's more, your statement was about indoctrination at the grad school and associate professorship levels. I don't think that's true, and I think that, like all stereotypes, that one is damaging largely because it prevents people from assimilating new data. I could recommend books, like Michael Berube's, which examine the question in depth; but it's so much easier to attack "the liberal academy!" than to deal with contradictory ideas.

In general I think this is just another example of the right's obsession with unequally applied neutrality. If a field is seen as liberal-dominated, or even liberal-heavy, then having diversity and equal representation is raised to the level of fetish. (Our universities must have more conservative professors, public broadcasting must have more conservative voices.) But if it's a conservative-dominated field, neutrality suddenly loses any traction. I don't, for example, find many conservatives calling for equal political representation at the Fed, or at that faith-based outreach program President Bush started; nor do I hear them calling for more liberals on the faculty at Liberty University or Bob Jones University.

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 5:35 PM

Many point to the "idle professor" who no longer performs much useful work as an argument against tenure, but many such fail to recognize that the "idle professor" phenomenon often arises from the tenure system. The effort required to get a faculty position, and then to get tenure, leave some simply burnt out. They just have nothing left.

I had one former colleague who won the Nobel Prize and then pretty much stood down from research (he still did his teaching and administrative work, and was particularly good at the former), but that's not what he was hired for. It wasn't a calculated decision. He was just exhausted, and we all recognized that.

Perhaps we need term limits on faculty. More turnover in faculty positions, and in particular more moveoment between academia and industry, would really help both sectors.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 7, 2008 5:39 PM

The current tenure system can be pretty awful--especially at the elite universities and colleges which are likeliest to deny it (If you consider the system as a whole, the vast majority of those considered for tenure are awarded it--just as the vast majority of those who apply for admission to college are accepted, since the schools they are applying to accept most of their applicants: it's just that the exceptional places get the publicity). But I'd be hesitant to see tenure done away with.

Stereotypes apart--and remember, most of the stereotypes concern humanities professors, who are hardly a majority on campus--tenure makes two things possible that would be hard to achieve without it. It enables professors to carry out genuinely long-term research without having to show instant results. Corporation-sponsored researchers used to be able to do this too--but you don't have to talk too long with the former Bell Labs scientists who now teach at Princeton and other universities to find out that long-term support for basic research has become much rarer outside the university context. The existence of tenure also enables universities to recruit bright young people into graduate study. They see that they too may gain the chance to teach and to work in the long term, and on those grounds they choose the academy over professions that offer higher rewards in pay and prestige.

If we do away with tenure, we will have to find ways of making sure that great scholars and scientists can tackle really demanding problems, and that talented students still see the profession as attractive. That won't be as easy as critics of tenure sometimes claim.

I

Posted by tony grafton | April 7, 2008 5:46 PM

Freddie, you've used a lot of words, but you have not demonstrated that you understand my point.

If the academy is liberal and harasses conservatives, (as some conservatives assert), then tenure offers protection only to those conservatives who conceal their true allegiance long enough to get tenure. It does no good for beleaguered "openly conservative" junior faculty, and it can effectively eliminate "out of the closet" conservatives completely by denying them tenure. Hence, tenure does conservatives good only if they conceal their conservatism long enough to get it. This was my original point, much more succinctly expressed.

If the academy is neutral and welcomes conservatives (as you assert, or at least suggest), then tenure does conservatives no good because it is not necessary for the protection of their ideas. Nobody is trying to harass them, after all, so why do they need tenure?

In neither case is there any reason for conservatives to favor tenure.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 5:49 PM

I have just read Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics. At one point he describes how the academic career structure encourages the appointment and funding of what he is too much of a gentleman to call yes men.

Money quote: “It does not help to have a system that protects tenured professor’s intellectual independence if the same system makes it unlikely that people with that independence will ever get tenure”.

Juniors are constrained to agree with and work on the theories of their superiors, not things that are new, innovative, and promising.

He blames this system for the fact that it has been thirty years since there has been significant progress in his field – a wasteland unprecedented in the last two hundred years of the history of physics.

Until the 1970s it was relatively easy to get tenure, as the universities and research budgets were increasing rapidly. As soon as the supply of new positions went away, the system ossified.

If that is the situation in physics, I dread to think of the situation in more politicised fields, such as climateology.

I shudder to contemplate the arts, and things like Women’s Studies.

Posted by ad | April 7, 2008 5:54 PM

The emphasis on publication I find really obnoxious. The primary object of a university is not to have a new take on Shakespeare and cross-dressing, or how the salt intake of Bismarck led to the Wars of German Unification.
It is to educate the student body. In my years attending working at a college, I have noticed that generally the professors who are the most interested in publishing are the worst at educating the students.
There needs to be more emphasis on instruction, perhaps with professors being able to achieve full time status based upon teaching ability.

Right now if you are not publishing works regularly you have no chance of getting a reasonably secure job. Adjuncts have less job security than just about anyone who doesn't work part-time in the fast food industry.

Posted by jon | April 7, 2008 5:58 PM

Freddie,
Just out of curiosity, are you a tenured faculty member?

Posted by rhinoman | April 7, 2008 6:05 PM

Leave it alone, it's fine. Tenure just shows that you can get people that are worth $100k to work for $40k if you give them enough prestige and job security.

Posted by Nelson | April 7, 2008 6:06 PM

I'm not aware of the tenure policies at Berkeley (and does Yoo even have tenure? he hasn't been there that long, has he?), but Yoo should not be fired simply for being a conservative crypto-monarchist.

Instead, Yoo should be indicted in The Hague as an accessory to war crimes (for enabling the circumvention of the Geneva accords in our treatment of prisoners), and (if convicted) sentenced to prison or death as appropriate. His tenure would presumably be automatically revoked at that point.

Posted by liberalrob | April 7, 2008 6:10 PM

"I have absolutely no qualifications to weigh in on the legal merits of Yoo's arguments"
_____________________________________________
Yes you do. If you've read and even digested a little bit of what the Constitution says, you have enough qualifications to know that Yoo's "legal" (if you can call them that) arguments were based on shitty flim-flammery that they tried to wrap up in legal prowess.
All the people here saying that tenure in academia protects those with non-mainstream/odious ideas are right. However, this completely misses the point. Yoo shouldn't fired because his ideas are non-mainstream or even odious. After all, academia is (or at least should be) about the free exchange of ideas. However, as a LAW professor, he should be fired for advising his client (the President and the Exectuive Branch) to break the law - come to think of it, he should be dis-barred and THEN fired for lack of credentials. I'm all for promotion of ideas, and I understand the need for tenure, but NOT when you are a law professor promoting the idea that the President's power is absolute if he/she says it is. That's not merely an odious idea, it is contrary to the very rule of law and he should be dis-barred and fired for advising his client to break the law.

Posted by Adrienne | April 7, 2008 6:17 PM

My uneducated reading of the constitution seems to conflict with most of what most legal scholars say; I presume they shouldn't all actually be fired for incompetence.

Posted by Megan McArdle | April 7, 2008 6:29 PM

I actually do, Rob. Here's the thing: I don't believe that conservatives are "oppressed" in the academy. You do. There are many arguments for defending tenure. If you believe, as you do, that conservatives are viciously attacked in the academy, that is an additional argument for defending the institution for tenure. I don't believe your version of events, but your version of events strengthens the need for the institution I'm defending. See?

Now, please, continue with blog comment boilerplate like "You've used a lot of words."

Posted by Freddoe | April 7, 2008 6:33 PM

promoting the idea that the President's power is absolute if he/she says it is.

I offer, for your reading enjoyment, a scanned copy of Yoo's letter to Gonzales here. There may be other, similar memos, if so, perhaps someone could be so kind as to provide links to them

I would appreciate it if Adrienne, liberalrob, JW, or anyone else who is calling for Yoo's firing, disbarrment, or prosecution at the Hague, could point out to me the place where Yoo advises his client to break the law, becomes an accessory to the commission of war crimes, calls for a breach of the Geneva conventions, or breaches his professional duty under the rules of whatever jurisdiction in which Yoo is admitted. I hate to go all ScentOfViolets on y'all, but quotes and cites, people.

This particular memo assumes that an act of interrogation does not violate US anti-torture law, and concludes that, given that assumption, it that act also does not violate the Torture convention. It also claims that the ICC would lack jurisdiction, but wisely points out that they might try to assert it anyway.

I am at a loss to see what is objectionable or unconstitutional about that.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 6:38 PM

If the academy is neutral and welcomes conservatives (as you assert, or at least suggest), then tenure does conservatives no good because it is not necessary for the protection of their ideas. Nobody is trying to harass them, after all, so why do they need tenure?

In neither case is there any reason for conservatives to favor tenure.

This is, of course, an incredibly constricted vision of why tenure is necessary, and one which does no favors to conservative professors. What you're saying is that conservatives should care about tenure only to the degree to which it defends their views specifically. As I have pointed out, tenure actually usually defends ideas that are academically out of vogue, and defends academic freedom principally. Which is appropriate, given the purpose of the university.

If conservatives are as reviled as you say, then they should welcome the institution of tenure, because it protects them from being targeted because of their political beliefs. If conservatives are welcomed on college campuses, as I (and most of them) say, they should still believe in the principal that every belief should be permitted and allowed to thrive in a non-coercive environment. It's ironic, because you assume that conservative professors have the same disrespect for the principal of academic freedom that you accuse liberals of having.

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 6:40 PM

If you believe, as you do, that conservatives are viciously attacked in the academy, that is an additional argument for defending the institution for tenure.

First off, who said anything about what I believe?

Second, could you please get around to explaining how tenure helps beleaguered conservatives if they can't get it in the first place because, by hypothesis, they're oppressed and harassed?

That's my point. IF conservatives are right about the liberal-biased academy, then tenure does no good because conservatives can't get past the biased tenure committees. Why is this point so hard for you to understand and address?

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 6:43 PM

If conservatives are as reviled as you say, then they should welcome the institution of tenure, because it protects them from being targeted because of their political beliefs.

For chrissake, Freddie, how does it help them when they can't get it? They'll be targeted for elimination before they get tenure, and they'll never get to enjoy the benefits.

Unless...as I said in my first comment, they successfully pretend to be liberal until they do get it.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 6:47 PM

Let me try one more time; I'm sure the failure here is mine. There's two different things, I'm asserting here.

That's my point. IF conservatives are right about the liberal-biased academy, then tenure does no good because conservatives can't get past the biased tenure committees. Why is this point so hard for you to understand and address?

I contrasted the attack on tenure by conservatives with the fact that conservatives claim that conservative professors are targeted by liberal colleagues. Those ideas seem to me to work at cross purposes. The issue of whether or not they actually are targeted is a separate one. I happen to disagree-- but if that view is correct, it strengthens the need for tenure, it doesn't weaken it. That's point one-- if conservatives believe right-leaning professors are targeted, they should support tenure. That statement doesn't have anything much to say about grad students or associate level faculty.

Now, you've said that they just pretend to be liberal to get through grad school, get tenured, etc. I said that that's nothing more than flogging a tired and empty stereotype, invoking a popular conservative meme that's conveniently immune to evidence.

You're right-- if conservative students are the targets of pernicious harassment and oppression at the hands of a liberal academy, tenure won't do much good, because they won't get there. But as I said, I don't think that's true, and I think the only thing supporting that notion is an incurious and unsupported stereotype. So, yes, if you're right about institutional bias, sure, tenure won't help conservatives. But I don't think you're right about that antecedent. That's the second thought.

Also my main point was about the fact that conservatives seem only to care about neutrality and equal representation when it's liberals who they perceive as being overrepresented.

I also am confused here:

First off, who said anything about what I believe?

and moments later

Unless...as I said in my first comment, they successfully pretend to be liberal until they do get it.

Let's just agree to disagree while I pour myself a gin and seltzer and watch John Adams.

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 7:00 PM

For chrissake, Freddie, how does it help them when they can't get it?

Besides, even if they had no obstacles to obtaining it, why exactly is the presence of a handful of unfireable conservatives in academia supposed to make conservatives feel happy, especially when the price of that is a horde of unfireable leftists?

Conservatives and libertarians generally recognize that the ability to fire someone is a positive thing regardless of the person's politics. Conservative intellectuals with no reason to worry about their jobs become as intellectually flaccid as left-wing intellectuals do. It doesn't help anybody.

Posted by Dan | April 7, 2008 7:00 PM

I don't see any need to agree to disagree, as it seems we don't disagree. Let us agree to agree instead. Unless that's a problem for you.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 7:08 PM

Freddie, a thought: are you defining "professors" to mean "tenured full professors"? If so, it all makes sense now.

I was defining "professors" to mean "people who stand up in front of college classes and talk." Which of course includes many untenured types, adjuncts, etc. And also makes the confusion quite clear.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 7:13 PM

Conservatives and libertarians generally recognize that the ability to fire someone is a positive thing regardless of the person's politics. Conservative intellectuals with no reason to worry about their jobs become as intellectually flaccid as left-wing intellectuals do. It doesn't help anybody.

That's a valid arugment, though one I disagree with. I think academic freedom is so important, and so threatened without tenure, that it outweighs the costs. But that's a separate argument, I think, from whether arguments against tenure would be as popular among conservatives if they didn't perceive such liberal bias in education.

Rob, that's true-- and my own fault. (An unforgivable one, too, considering how many professors are now untenured.)

Posted by Freddue | April 7, 2008 7:20 PM

liberalrob,

You seem surprisingly eager to start another American Civil War. Would you mind explaining why?

Posted by Kirk Parker | April 7, 2008 7:21 PM

"The primary object of a university ... is to educate the student body." No. The objective of a University is to increase the world's supply of knowledge. This can be accomplished by imparting the things some people know to people who did not previously know those things. This is teaching. This can also be accomplished by discovering things which no one previously knew. This is research. There is room in the world for institutions to balance each of those two methods in any combination, and it is not really for us say they must all move in one direction or the other on the spectrum.

Secondly, are we really debating outlawing tenure? I am fully open to the possibility that tenure may be inefficient, or that you don't want public universities to offer it as an incentive when they're paying with your money. However, I am surprised that many readers of this blog would support prohibition of a certain type of clause in a voluntary employment contract.

Finally, Megan asks "Why should he not pay the price for his ideas? It seems to me that if there is one thing worth paying for, it is one's beliefs." This is ridiculous. Housing is also worth paying for. Should my landlord be able to raise my rent mid-lease, just because my housing is worth paying for? Just because something is "worth paying for" is not sufficient reason to raise its cost, or even a reason to celebrate higher costs.

Posted by Jared | April 7, 2008 7:31 PM

I think academic freedom is so important, and so threatened without tenure, that it outweighs the costs.

I have to wonder, can anyone actually cite an example of an academic who meets all the following criteria:

- Proposed or promoted a theory
- Which would have cost him his job, were he not tenured
- Which, furthermore, has since turned out to be a valuable contribution to human knowledge
- In the last 50 years?

If "academic freedom" truly had the value it is alleged to have I would expect there to be hundreds of examples of such a thing at a bare minimum. But in all honesty, I can't think of a single one. The private sector approach -- try a new idea and you might get rich, but if it fails you might get fired or your company might go bankrupt -- yields much better results than unaccountability does.

Posted by Dan | April 7, 2008 8:36 PM

If the academy is liberal and harasses conservatives, (as some conservatives assert), then tenure offers protection only to those conservatives who conceal their true allegiance long enough to get tenure. It does no good for beleaguered "openly conservative" junior faculty, and it can effectively eliminate "out of the closet" conservatives completely by denying them tenure. Hence, tenure does conservatives good only if they conceal their conservatism long enough to get it. This was my original point, much more succinctly expressed.

If the academy is neutral and welcomes conservatives (as you assert, or at least suggest), then tenure does conservatives no good because it is not necessary for the protection of their ideas. Nobody is trying to harass them, after all, so why do they need tenure?

In neither case is there any reason for conservatives to favor tenure.

Posted by Rob Lyman

So where in your intellectual firmament is there a reason for 'liberals' to favor tenure? It seems that your 'in either case' works just as well there too. Better actually.

Now - something I'm curious about, have been for a while: can you actually name a conservative theory that wasn't taught because it wasn't conservative, or what specific conservative propositions a given professor advanced that caused him to be denied tenure?

As others have noted many times, to be victimized, you've got to occasionally produce, you know, victims. Or maybe you were thinking of somebody like him.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 7, 2008 8:36 PM

So where in your intellectual firmament is there a reason for 'liberals' to favor tenure?

There isn't. Like Megan pointed out, academics of all political orientations favor tenure -- not because of their politics, but because of naked self-interest. Once you've got tenure, what's not to like about it? Even if it is bad for everyone *but* the academics, it is nothing but beneficial for the academics themselves. They've basically got a guaranteed cushy job for life.

Posted by Dan | April 7, 2008 8:53 PM

"The private sector approach -- try a new idea and you might get rich, but if it fails you might get fired or your company might go bankrupt -- yields much better results than unaccountability does."

Excuse me, Dan:

There are many other approaches to fund radical ideas that do not rely on "private sector" per se.

For example:

Biosphere 2 (A noble experiment, a flop, but it got funded)

Many writers AND Bloggers have made a fine living trading on ideas.

There is a lot of money out there for talented artists, musicians, writers, political activists, etc.

None of these involve an institution giving a lifetime job commitment for a bunch of academics who mostly write in journals that no one reads.

There was a time when communications were slow, ideas diffuse slowly, and it is plain expensive to promote a new idea.

No more. Even the most poverty stricken pamphleteer (or political activist) can stick up their ideas on a webpage, and see if it "takes".

More than a few, including the dearest Meganic Republic here, make a fine living off their blogs.

The time for tenure is way overdue. It is done. It is obsolete.

The reasons given for why it cannot be rid of rings of the reasons given for why the Soviet Union cannot fall.

When it falls, it is going to come crashing down like the Berlin Wall.

Remember what I said when you see it happen --- in our lifetime (30 years).

Posted by D | April 7, 2008 9:26 PM

"I hear economists on the left endorse a monopsony model of minimum wage employment that sounds frankly ludicrous to me, and should to anyone who has worked in fast food or retail--how could employers in industries that fragmented, with turnover rates well over 100%, possibly collude?"

It doesn't require collusion; it only requires search frictions in the labor market. This is a pretty standard result.

Posted by Rowz | April 7, 2008 9:30 PM

To Rob's point, the issue is one to which liberals should relate, namely "hostile environment." Keeping one's mouth shut in a heavily liberal environment to avoid arguments does, over decades, a certain violence to one's soul, tenure notwithstanding.

Liberals in the soft subjects favor tenure because it gives them security to be as silly as they like, without repercussions. Faculty in the sciences have no desire to abolish tenure because they (and I) worked at red-line for many years to achieve it.

With respect, Dan, being at the top of academia life is not cushy, tenure or no tenure. The closest analogue would be being at the top of athletic life, or entertaining life. It's always a matter of what one has done (in research) recently. It's nothing whatever like being a faculty member at a community college.

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 7, 2008 9:34 PM

There isn't. Like Megan pointed out, academics of all political orientations favor tenure -- not because of their politics, but because of naked self-interest. Once you've got tenure, what's not to like about it? Even if it is bad for everyone *but* the academics, it is nothing but beneficial for the academics themselves. They've basically got a guaranteed cushy job for life.

OK, but again, what of it? Tenure is a contractual matter between private entities. Professors make pretty poor salaries, certainly in comparison to other people who take on so much school. The payoff for enduring such an exceedingly long training period, and low pay-to-education ration, is tenure. So why should a libertarian, who favors the free market, oppose that private contract?

Posted by Freddie | April 7, 2008 10:00 PM

Rob, you basically have to read Scott Horton on this. The first point is that the theory of CINC authority Yoo advances is such that it renders all treaties meaningless and places the President above the law. Previous court decisions have established that since one presumes the Constitution to have meaning, this kind of theory of executive authority is clearly wrong. The second point is that the opinions Yoo wrote came in response to requests by the executive which, if you just look at the history of how they were requested, were transparently requests for a legal opinion to be offered in order to indemnify government officials from prosecution on the claim that they were relying on advice from counsel. Behavior such as this by a lawyer merits both disbarment and possible indictment on conspiracy charges.

The content of Yoo's memos are relevant inasmuch as they are transparently wrong and sophistical. But the criminal nature isn't in actions advocated the document itself; it's in how the document was clearly intended to be used. When you offer a substandard, bogus legal opinion to the President which tells him he can authorize a crime, the purpose of the offering of that opinion is clear.

Posted by brooksfoe | April 7, 2008 10:03 PM

Yoo isn't controversial; he's just totally oblivious to the entire foundation of Western legal tradition. Berkeley should cut his salary to $0.01/year and kick his rosy ass out until he demonstrates a basic knowledge of legal concepts and legal history and stops acting like a sniveling legal quibbler who would have found justification for Stalin's purges if he'd been hired by old Joseph.

Posted by grumpy realist | April 7, 2008 10:38 PM

So where in your intellectual firmament is there a reason for 'liberals' to favor tenure?

There isn't. Like Megan pointed out, academics of all political orientations favor tenure -- not because of their politics, but because of naked self-interest.

But Rob obviously doesn't think that; he thinks for some reason that the arguments he gave as to why conservatives would be in favor of abolishing tenure don't apply equally as well to 'liberals'.

His theory, however, seems like so much of what comes out of conservative cogitation: a theory in search of facts.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 7, 2008 11:01 PM

Private schools should be allowed to do whatever they want of course, but for this reason, the mixed system of public and private post-secondary education would never sustain a forced elimination of tenure in the top public schools. Eliminate tenure at a university and it will not be able to attract top faculty. If it can't attract faculty, it can't attract grad students and then its research will suffer, then it's reputation will suffer, then it will not be able to attract undergraduates i.e. death spiral. Whether tenure is the best system ex ante is really a moot question.

Posted by j | April 7, 2008 11:32 PM

But Rob obviously doesn't think that; he thinks for some reason that the arguments he gave as to why conservatives would be in favor of abolishing tenure don't apply equally as well to 'liberals'.

I never said that. I was arguing against Freddie's specific claims in a specific context, which as it turned out boiled down to nothing more than a semantic misunderstanding. I don't have any particular opinion on tenure itself, not having a dot in that fight, and while I do think academics trend strongly liberal, I'm not sure that matters as much as some claim. It never really slowed me down, anyway.

brooksfoe, do you have link to other memos that Yoo wrote? My (hasty) googling revealed only the one I linked to, which hardly seems like the gross power grap you're describing.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 7, 2008 11:42 PM

What do you mean by 'academics tend strongly liberal'?

To me, this screams 'people whose opinions I disagree with are liberal.' And you know, I've voted the straight Democratic ticket in the last election, merely because I want to punish Republicans (I didn't do this in the '00 election.)

That in no way makes me a liberal, and I'll tend to take it badly if you even attempt to suggest otherwise. Similarly, do not attempt to suggest that because someone is a 'moderate Democrat' or a Democrat that this is prima facie that they are 'liberals.'

What else do you have for evidence of this 'liberalness'?

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 12:37 AM

What else do you have for evidence of this 'liberalness'?

Would 30 years of experience count?

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 8, 2008 12:53 AM

Rob, my hazy memory is that Yoo wrote at least two memos which are referred to as the "torture memos". An initial shorter one was already being cited in Jane Mayer's "New Yorker" articles on the history of the legal conflicts over torture in summer 2006. It was the second and longer one that was previously classified and finally released last week. Sorry I don't have links though.

But for everything I'm writing I'm pretty much taking Scott Horton's word for it, in terms of the legal arguments, as I'm no lawyer. So just forget about me and go read his "No Comment" blog at Harper's.

Posted by brooksfoe | April 8, 2008 1:26 AM

Eliminate tenure at a university and it will not be able to attract top faculty.

It would be able to attract top talent, it would just have to pay them considerably more.

I'd be interested to see a study that attempted to calculate the value of tenure to the individual. For example, let us say we wanted to abolish tenure at Harvard - and to to so we needed a majority of the tenured faculty to agree: How much would we have to increase salaries?

Also, if University A didn't offer tenure but University B did, when trying to recruit superstar academic candidate C: How much more would A have to offer?

Posted by Jmo | April 8, 2008 1:44 AM

The benefits of systems in which people can't be fired except in extremis--civil service, closed shops, academia--are real, but the lack of accountability that this creates seems like it might be worse than the problem it cures. - MM

Didn't you forget "partner"?

Posted by brooksfoe | April 8, 2008 7:22 AM

OK, but again, what of it? Tenure is a contractual matter between private entities. Professors make pretty poor salaries, certainly in comparison to other people who take on so much school. The payoff for enduring such an exceedingly long training period, and low pay-to-education ration, is tenure. So why should a libertarian, who favors the free market, oppose that private contract?

Those universities which receive no public money have every right to enter into such contracts. I don't believe they are wise, but it's not my money.

However, universities which receive public money are no longer private entities as such. They are subject to restrictions and requirements in their employment practices which private entities are not.

Posted by TW Andrews | April 8, 2008 8:45 AM

Jared-
The purpose of the university could more accurately be described as "soaking up the middle class surplus". Any knowledge imparted is coincidental.

liberalrob-
Your "reading" of the Geneva conventions would endanger civilians everywhere. My understanding was that the Geneva conventions apply only to prisoners of war (wearing uniforms, defined chain of command, etc.). All others captured fighting without uniform and especially those mingling with civilian populations are entitled to nothing more than a quick death.

Posted by m | April 8, 2008 9:10 AM

m says,

All others captured fighting without uniform and especially those mingling with civilian populations are entitled to nothing more than a quick death.

That's not what I read when I just took a quick glance at:

Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War:

Part 1

Where, in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.

Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.

In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity, and in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be.

Posted by keatssycamore | April 8, 2008 9:30 AM

I'd be interested to see a study that attempted to calculate the value of tenure to the individual.

You probably won't ever see one, at least not from the academics, as it would quantify the "imputed value" of tenure and probably make it subject to federal and state income taxes and FICA.

Posted by TakeFlight | April 8, 2008 9:35 AM

Brooksfoe: partnerships can be dissolved and partners removed much more easily than tenured professors can be fired; also, partner financial allocations tend to vary with their contribution to the firm.

Rowz: Substantial search friction in the minimum wage employment market is even less convincing than collusion.

Posted by Megan McArdle | April 8, 2008 10:11 AM

What else do you have for evidence of this 'liberalness'?

Would 30 years of experience count?

Posted by Occam's Beard

Uh-huh. You say to trust you, that you have '30 years of experience', but you can't actually post any evidence?

Do you even care what people think about you? Why don't you just post some examples, along with reasons for why the examples show 'liberalness', moreover, 'liberalness' that crowds out all those good conservative ideas?

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 10:27 AM

My own reason for supporting tenure - if the system is scrapped, there could be some very nasty downsides we don't know about, and it would probably be a lot harder to reboot the institution than it was to tear it down.

Nothing more elaborate or thoughtful than that; just simple conservatism. It strikes me that the self-styled 'conservatives' who want to do away with tenure are in reality far-right radicals.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 10:52 AM

joe writes "The primary object of a university ... is to educate the student body."

In my experience, this is even harder to figure out or track than research performance. How do you track educational outcomes?

Standardized tests require a standardized curriculum, and I don't believe that's appropriate for most University-level subjects. There are privately-written exit exams, but they have idiosyncratic views of what belongs in the curriculum that don't necessarily match the opinion of the professional organizations in the fields, let alone the faculty at any particular university; variation in curricula between universities is very, very useful.

Peer review is uneven and subject to personal bias. We don't have a even hint of consensus about what makes good teaching within most fields, and some pretty strong conflict in the definition of good teaching between fields.

Student review is even worse. In my experience at a middle-tier university, most students were more interested in easy courses and high grades than actually putting in effort to learn the material. As a result, we turned out graduates in my (technical) discipline that local business owners told me weren't employable. My colleagues liked to use the national average wage for our field as a recruiting tool, but in curriculum discussions assumed we were training most of our students for a limited subset of the field where the wages were about three-quarters the average for the field as a whole.

Full disclosure: I left before tenure, in part because my institution put more weight than I thought reasonable on student review.

The value of tenure to me: had I not gotten a PhD, and instead worked in the job I took when I left academia (which only requires a MS), the accumulated pay difference would be $270,000, plus interest, plus being 7 years farther ahead on the private-sector pay/seniority/experience scales now.

Posted by Tom H. | April 8, 2008 11:19 AM

I would appreciate it if Adrienne, liberalrob, JW, or anyone else who is calling for Yoo's firing, disbarrment, or prosecution at the Hague, could point out to me the place where Yoo advises his client to break the law, becomes an accessory to the commission of war crimes, calls for a breach of the Geneva conventions, or breaches his professional duty under the rules of whatever jurisdiction in which Yoo is admitted.

brooksfoe took care of this at 10:03. The Yoo "torture memos" expressed the official opinion of the Department of Justice, that the President did not have to grant Geneva Convention protections to "enemy combatants" detained on the battlefields of Afghanistan or in Iraq:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/1/222429/3656

Shorter version: Yoo wrote the Constitution is not in play.

In the March 14, 2003 memo, Yoo says the Constitution was not in play with regard to the interrogations because the Fifth Amendment (which provides for due process of law) and the Eighth Amendment (which prevents the government from employing cruel and usual punishment) does "not extend to alien enemy combatants held abroad.":

The memo goes on to explain that federal criminal statutes regarding assault and other crimes against the body don't apply to authorized military interrogations overseas and that statutes that do apply to the conduct of U.S. officials abroad pertaining to war crimes and torture establish a limited obligation on the part of interrogators to refrain from bodily harm.

The memo also says the Geneva Conventions don't apply al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Again, this was the Department of Justice, saying that the President had a free hand to authorize "harsh techniques" (because "we don't torture," we just use "harsh techniques") and deny due process to detainees as long as they were held off of U.S. soil. It may have been true in a strict legal sense; but it was a complete violation of the spirit of the law, and the "harsh techniques" sure sounded a lot like torture to me (the administration has even admitted that waterboarding was used, though "not since 2003," as if that was any excuse). They have even detained AMERICAN CITIZENS and held them without due process and subjected them to "harsh techniques." How can you defend such practices and call yourself a civilized human being? How can you not look at this memo and the Bybee memo and not conclude that the Department of Justice gave its official opinion that the President was free to authorize what any intelligent person would consider war crimes, because the letter of the Constitution could be subverted by the simple expedient of carrying out these violations abroad?

If that's not enabling war crimes, I don't know what is. It's up to the ICC or some other international tribunal to determine whether war crimes actually occurred. I happen to think there is a very good case that they did occur. I also think John Yoo is an accessory to those crimes, because his writing of that memo helped clear the way for the abuses to occur.

Posted by liberalrob | April 8, 2008 12:05 PM

Kirk Parker:

You seem surprisingly eager to start another American Civil War. Would you mind explaining why?

Huh?

Posted by liberalrob | April 8, 2008 12:13 PM

In my experience at a middle-tier university, most students were more interested in easy courses and high grades than actually putting in effort to learn the material.

Couple of thoughts on this.

Employability. Much of the time, having the degree in your hand is more important than having the associated knowledge. It's required to even get an interview in "professional" areas, regardless of how good you are (I know this all too well). And often, actually being good at the material is not even really required. Thus, the astute student will make getting in and getting out as quick and painless as possible. It's classic Pareto effort vs. reward.

Grades. The grading system used discourages risk-taking. It discourages students from taking difficult courses, or courses that they may have interest in but aren't sure they could maintain their GPA with.

Posted by TakeFlight | April 8, 2008 12:51 PM

liberalrob,

The problem is that the Constitution doesn't apply to aliens held abroad (POWs and the Second Amendment = bad news), and while the Geneva Conventions do in some sense apply, to al-queda consists of unlawful combatants who don't get the benefit of many of its provisions (I would disagree that they don't apply to the Taliban; they were, it seems to me, pretty close to lawful combatants). It doesn't seem right to me to apply federal criminal statutes to overseas military interrogations (that what the UCMJ is for) and I can't comment on the rightness or wrongness of his interpretation of "torture," not having read it.

If you want to throw out words like "crime" or "accessory," or even "law," you have to take account of what those words mean. They don't mean "things liberalrob considers uncivilized." They don't even mean "bad evil things that pretty much everyone but psychopaths condemns." They have specific meanings, and it's the job of a lawyer to help clients understand those meanings. It wasn't Yoo's job to change the law, or to try to make it say what you wished it said, or to write a legal memo that substituted your sense of moral outrage for legal analysis. There are lawyers who do those things, and they lose a lot of cases.

You and others seem determined to condemn Yoo without bothering to try and explain what was actually wrong, legally, with his memos. That's an awful lot like condemning a defense lawyer who gets a child-molesting client off because the police didn't have a warrant to search his home. Don't blame the lawyer, blame the law (and the police).

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 8, 2008 1:11 PM

Do you even care what people think about you? Why don't you just post some examples, along with reasons for why the examples show 'liberalness', moreover, 'liberalness' that crowds out all those good conservative ideas?

Kind of like producing the math mini-lecture you ridiculously called for before?

Posted by ScentiOfFailedPhysicist | April 8, 2008 1:22 PM

Do you even care what people think about you?

For clarity's sake: I don't care what SoV thinks about me.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 8, 2008 1:29 PM

Well, given that you've been extremely disrespectful from the very start(as per usual), I'm not surprised.

But given that you continually whine about 'liberal bias', but never seem to get around to posting any proof of it, or indeed any definition of 'liberal' other than 'people who have ideas I disagree with', I think we can safely discount anything you have to say about 'liberal bias'.

Sorry, but you know the rules. If you don't want to play by them, don't expect people to really hang on to what you have to say.

Is this the way you behave in a courtroom?

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 3:04 PM

given that you've been extremely disrespectful from the very start(as per usual)

Sigh. I have no idea what you're talking about.

you continually whine about 'liberal bias'

Sigh. No I don't (or perhaps...you have a pile of links to my comments to support your assertion?) I had a discussion with Freddie in which I was insufficiently careful about using hypothetical constructions because I thought my meaning was clear from context. You drew a justifiable inference (that I think there is some level of liberal bias in the academy) and an unjustified one (something about arguments against tenure applying to liberals, or whatever). I made an effort to clarify what I thought, which you now seek to turn in to a fight.

Sigh. I have no interest in fighting with you, or anyone else, about the question of liberal bias in the academy, because 1) the data which would satisfy you do not exist, and indeed it is doubtful that such data even could exist, in principle, and 2) It would require 50 posts just to agree on terms and definitions, during which conversation you would call me a liar and an excrescence, and 3) I don't really care much either way.

Sigh. Feel free to discount everything I say, if that pleases you.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 8, 2008 3:24 PM

Sigh. You have no data, yet insist on theorizing anyway.

And you are being disrespectful, extremely so, when you fail to abide by the rules, but want your conclusions to be accepted as conclusions without further discussion[1].

I'll say it again, since it seems very, very, very obvious at this point: 'liberal bias' or 'liberalness' is simply an idea or a person that some conservative disagrees with.

And that stinks. In fact, _most_ people disagree with conservatives on any of a number of specific issues. In fact, that majority includes a good many moderates.

But if conservatives were to go on and on about 'moderate bias' in the schools, it wouldn't play nearly so well, would it.

Let's do a brief list: most people are against vouchers. Most people are against the occupation of Iraq. Most people think that taxes are not theft, and that they serve a vital purpose. Most people think the nature of one's religion should not be part of a test for public service. Most people think the current administration has failed miserably at actually doing it's designated job.

And so forth and so on. If you think that makes someone liberal - no strike that - if you think that gives you license to call such people 'liberal', well, that's odious, all the more so for it's deliberateness.

So next time, call it by what it is - 'moderate bias', 'moderate' ideas. Don't be a wimp.

[1]If you have a specific example, a specific incident in a specific department over a specific theory, let's hear it. But I suspect that when it comes down to it, those 'conservative ideas' are going to be things like 'the idea that Blacks are mentally inferior to whites doesn't get a fair hearing. That's 'cause of liberal bias.'

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 3:59 PM

And you are being disrespectful, extremely so, when you fail to abide by the rules, but want your conclusions to be accepted as conclusions without further discussion

That's a very weird definition of "disrespectful."

But fortunately I don't qualify. I don't want my conclusions about academia to be accepted. I don't care. I was arguing with Freddie because I though he said something with a gaping logical flaw, and he thought the same of me. Whether or not liberal bias exists was essentially beside the point, although it got tangled up in there a bit.

I threw out that last bit about believing in some level of liberal bias by way of clarification about my thoughts, not in any effort to convince you or anyone else. No effort to convince, therefore no disrespect.

'liberal bias' or 'liberalness' is simply an idea or a person that some conservative disagrees with.

Well, then, according to your list, then I'm 75% liberal and negotiable on the remaining 25%. Hmmm, I'll have to turn in my VRWC decoder ring. Or maybe you'll have to revise what you're calling "conservative" ideas.

As I have already said, I see no point in arguing in depth about political taxonomy.

Posted by Rob Lyman | April 8, 2008 4:20 PM

Rob, it's called "Wasting mine and everyone else's time." When you know that all you're doing is wasting everyone's time. Yes, that's disrespectful(and I thought that lawyers - surely you knew this - could be punished for bringing frivolous, time-wasting suits. Because, among other things, it's regarded as being disrespectful.)

And if you see no point in arguing about political taxonomy, then in the future, kindly refrain from nattering on about some unspecified 'liberal bias.'

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 4:44 PM

Anyone got a copy of DSM-IV to hand?

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 8, 2008 5:02 PM

No need for that, OB. See liberal bias all around you that no one else can?

It's called paranoid schizophrenia. I suggest if you persist in seeing these bogeymen that you consult a psychiatrist.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 5:13 PM

You've got a beautiful mind, SoV. ;)

Posted by Occam's Beard | April 8, 2008 5:16 PM

Shrug. I'm not the one making extravagant and overly elaborate claims.

You are. Oddly enough, despite '30 years of experience', you can't drudge up a single concrete incident. And no, people 'looking at you funny' doesn't count as 'liberal bias'. I'm guessing that you're canny enough to realize That it would probably count as further evidence that you are not very well grounded in reality.

Or is that just what we want you to think ;-)

Posted by ScentOfViolets | April 8, 2008 5:31 PM

I apologize for winding you up earlier. It was just too easy to do to resist.

But, all joking aside, think