Tenure System no Scapegoat of the Decline of Higher Education in the US

There was a story in a US University. A senior professor, who was not satisfied with performance of a junior female professor, told her that she would not be granted tenure as long as he sat on the personnel board, unless she went to bed with him. The pissed-off junior professor went to the school administrators, where she was given the advice to turn in physical evidence. So she went back to the old man, and asked him to write down his threat. The senior professor without hesitation wrote it down. The school administrators then discussed possibly to terminate old man's tenure. However, school lawyers stopped them, 'We can't do that because there had been worse offenses in the history while the accused were allowed to keep tenure. If the school act this time, it will be the base for a lawsuit.'

A tenured professor is practically untouchable. In a recent incident, many scholars and colleagues of Law professor John Yoo of UC Berkeley believed he crossed the ethics bottom line when he gave legal advice to the Bush Administration that torture was legal. Many believed Yoo did it to please his employer while knowingly misinterpreted law as White House Legal Council. Consequently, many innocent persons suffered, and the image of US government was tarnished. However, the school came to the conclusion that the alleged offense did not amount to the level of tenure termination.

Rights and privileges associated to tenure may brings a clue on the motivation behind one Alabama professor Amy Bishop gunned down 5 of her colleagues in a heated discussion when informed her tenure application was denied.

Problem of the US's higher education could be traced deeper than the tenure layer, which was illustrated in an Ohio University case.

An assistant professor was accused of harassment, physical intimidation and professional retaliation against his fellow professors. A faculty ethics committee found the professor guilty of 6 accounts of charges, which were well documented with evidence and third party testimony. His tenure application passed narrowly in the department, but was denied on both School and College levels. Still Ohio University granted him tenure.

Berkeley Defends Torture

Christopher Edley Jr., the Dean of the Berkeley School of Law defends John Yoo's employment by saying, 'a tenured professor can be dismissed only for "commission of a criminal act which has led to conviction in a court of law and which clearly demonstrated unfitness to continue as a member of the faculty."'.

Dean Edley's arguments are wrong.

John Yoo as a lawyer was the hired gun for the Bush administration in writing up the CYA memos for the DoJ in which he redefined the torture as used in war.

Had the US lost the war, Yoo would have been tried and executed as a war criminal. Yoo got away from the international court not because he was innocent, but because he put the United States as shield. Consequently the image of the United States was permanently ruined. Many people suffered, and some died. More will suffer and die as a result. John Yoo knowingly and consciously performed this as a cheap hired gun for then DoJ leaders, consciously at the cost of the Country. The act and the harm it caused mounted to the level of treason.

In addition, Yoo is not suitable for continuing teaching at any capacity. As Scott Horton of Columbia Law School wrote, '.. Lawyers who act on the public stage can have an enormous impact on their society and the world around them....can also be vessels of horrendous injustice and oppression. Indeed they can formant and advance a criminal design....a generation of Berkeley grads to think that writing up CYA memos for political friends is an honorable and proper thing -- or at least something you can get away with, suffering no negative repercussions?...do little credit to the students and faculty at Boalt Hall.

Timothy Burke of Swarthmore College wrote, '.. Shouldn't this kind of approach to knowledge and scholarship disqualify someone for an academic post?'

Koreans are known for cruelty in war time. Civil protests in Korean constantly have items such as machetes, rocks and Molotov cocktails involved. Although Korean military hadn't won a battle in a long time, their army fought along the Japanese Imperial Army and the US army committed the most despicable war crimes against civilian in WWII as well as the Vietnam War.