To the editor:
Although I am forced Within Higher Ed reader, I somehow missed James Wetherbe’s recent argument against tenure (“Perhaps My Last View of the Tenure Problem,” April 29, 2026)—or, rather, I didn’t read some words he used because I encountered those arguments ad nauseam. They are understandable, but they are flawed.
Let’s break it down.
Wetherbe writes, “Tenure makes US colleges less competitive on the world stage.”
Although our institutions are hurting right now, that is not the fault of tenure. If anything, American institutions began to dominate the global higher education market in the 20th century, when tenure became the industry norm. As many of us have argued, tenure is widespread because it serves as a recruitment and retention tool. The “brain drain” that we are experiencing now is itself partly a response to the reduction in job security caused by job attacks.
He writes, Tenure “mak[es] It is difficult … to reallocate workers from less popular sectors to those with increasing demand.”
This is true, but beside the point. As I explain in Chapter 8 of The War on Tenureit takes time to develop educational technology. Firing a tenured professor today (because computer science is like that in 2015) doesn’t mean you can replace them tomorrow (with an AI expert), because there hasn’t been enough time to train experts in that new sexy topic-and, by the time we’ve done that, we’ll have moved on to the next topic. Moving too fast can destroy things, but it cannot build knowledge.
He writes, “Tenure makes many professors less innovative than they need to be now.”
Ah, this is a perennial favorite. Everyone—politicians, senior academics and even professors like Wetherbe who have lived their principles by refusing tenure—thinks that job security makes people lazy. Why? Because it only makes sense. (Thanks, classic economics.) Thanks to Joe down the hall who hasn’t published since the Reagan administration. (Heuristic discovery comes to all of us.) But as I explain in Chapter 14, empirics do not include this.
He writes, “Professors are not under the gun to adjust their beliefs, curriculum, and teaching methods.”
This is definitely Rubin’s vase: Wetherbe sees dysfunction and old habits where others see protection from negative external pressures. But as critics of education can point to evidence of unchanged practices (disciplinary boundaries, course structures, the Socratic method), supporters can point to change (flipped classrooms, flexible learning, experiential methods). What Wetherbe assumes—and therefore should prove (but doesn’t)—is that anyone creates great things out of fear.
I saved this for last because it depends on my work. Wetherbe writes, “It can be difficult to revoke the tenure of even professors who are found to have misbehaved.”
If the professor found to have made a mistakeall that stands in the way of the university is one. As with all just cause contracts, the leased activities can be terminated. University recruiters are free to make bad decisions, but they shouldn’t be free to blame you for staying.
I am not saying that the administration period is perfect, and I am not saying that we are not criticizing you in this difficult time. But at least let’s think of something new, or something based on public opinion, to say against it.
