Make Tenure Safe but Not Sacred

At the end of 1993, in accordance with federal law, the UC system will drop its mandatory retirement age of 70 for tenured professors. The coming change in retirement rules--along with long-expressed concerns by some faculty members about the professional ability of some professors--has prompted the UC Berkeley faculty senate to suggest firing tenured professors found to be “grossly incompetent.”

The suggestion raises apprehensions among many UC professors who fear that the ability to dismiss a “grossly incompetent” few in the statewide system could invite widespread abuse to academic freedom in the harassment of dissident scholars. A current move at the University of Kansas to remove a tenured professor, amid allegations that the university is trying to drive out the professor for trivial reasons, only adds to the concern of critics of the Berkeley plan. A panel made up of professors from around the UC system will soon consider the proposal, which already has served a useful purpose by forcing the system to take a close look at how incompetence cases by tenured professors are and should be handled.

Under current UC rules, professors can be fired for willful misconduct such as plagiarism, for taking undue advantage of a student, or for a criminal conviction, among other things. Gross incompetence is not specifically listed as a reason for dismissal, although it would fall under a more general “good cause” clause. In practice, however, a tenured professor has broad protection against dismissal; If discipline is necessary, it typically occurs through a slower rate of salary increase or demotion, or on occasion an “encouraged” early retirement.

The Berkeley definition of gross incompetence has been described by a proponent of a new rule as meaning that a professor “is a disaster in the classroom, has stopped research and just no longer functions as a professor.” Supporters say the plan would be so narrowly drawn that it would affect only a handful of the 6,700 tenured professors on the nine UC campuses.

No one argues that a professor who is thoroughly incapable of performing any of his duties should continue to be carried by the system. The question of how to deal with such problem professors, however few, deserves fuller discussion as the end of mandatory retirement approaches. If a professor is no longer executing his duties, there should be an effective way to persuade him to step aside to make room for youth or greater faculty diversity. The goal must be that dismissals in extreme cases become more practically possible, while dismissals for academic or political whim do not.