How Universities Maintain There Liberal Monopoly
At Massachusetts Institute of Technology an Black professor cries racism when he is denied tenure. He has some evidence favoring him as MIT struggles to recruit non Asian minorities and James L. Sherley has won a prestigious Pioneer Award from the National Institutes of Health that includes a 2.5 million dollar grant. That sounds like MIT is throwing away a star player.
There is another possibility for there throwing him away and that is that he is known for his “controversial” theories about stem cell research. He works with adult stem cells and opposes research using embryonic stem cells. This probably upsets the establishment at MIT as few want to be labeled evil even if the label is true.
MIT claims:
"MIT has a well-established procedure for reviewing and granting tenure to faculty," the statement said. "This process is thorough and extensive, and we are confident it was followed with integrity in this case."
This is a case of trusting an organization to police itself and it is considered bad security. Those who signed the U.S. Constitution did not believe that way since they separated the federal government into three parts to establish checks and balances. The state government also had a check on the federal government through the election of Senators. It was only those who came afterwards who decided that the state check was not needed and the federal government has grown ever since. It did some growing previously but that growing could probably be traced to the establishment of the central bank that later became the Federal Reserve we have now.
The article does not provide enough evidence for me to come to any firm conclusion on this issue but since I have seen evidence of liberal bias at other universities I favor the idea it was his not buckling under to the liberal establishment that got his tenure denied. He may well believe that also but he may believe charges of racism are more likely to get the administration of MIT to break their monopoly.
Source 1 is article about MIT professor being denied tenure.
There is another possibility for there throwing him away and that is that he is known for his “controversial” theories about stem cell research. He works with adult stem cells and opposes research using embryonic stem cells. This probably upsets the establishment at MIT as few want to be labeled evil even if the label is true.
MIT claims:
"MIT has a well-established procedure for reviewing and granting tenure to faculty," the statement said. "This process is thorough and extensive, and we are confident it was followed with integrity in this case."
This is a case of trusting an organization to police itself and it is considered bad security. Those who signed the U.S. Constitution did not believe that way since they separated the federal government into three parts to establish checks and balances. The state government also had a check on the federal government through the election of Senators. It was only those who came afterwards who decided that the state check was not needed and the federal government has grown ever since. It did some growing previously but that growing could probably be traced to the establishment of the central bank that later became the Federal Reserve we have now.
The article does not provide enough evidence for me to come to any firm conclusion on this issue but since I have seen evidence of liberal bias at other universities I favor the idea it was his not buckling under to the liberal establishment that got his tenure denied. He may well believe that also but he may believe charges of racism are more likely to get the administration of MIT to break their monopoly.
Source 1 is article about MIT professor being denied tenure.
posted by Kerwin | 6:03 PM
2 Comments:
Tenure goes back to the medieval universities and there is some thought that it is dated and no longer useful or relevant. Your source informs that less than half
of eligible professors at MIT are awarded tenure. I suspect you are correct regarding the 'adult stem
cell' connection: many in that field believe it a dead-end and there exist perceptions that NIH has been run politically rather than scientifically, since many appointments have been non scientific people with political connection. That aside, there are any number of factors that bear on tenure, including teaching excellence, research papers and the basic requirement of getting along with your peers. Regarding
liberalism in academia, it should be noted that the biological sciences tend that way, while other departments such as computer science tend more conservative. Figure that one out!
BB-Idaho,
I could guess. Biologist look at DNA like it is generated by chance while computer programmers view it as just another program in a language they do not know.
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