Tenure is not compensation. I'm really bothered by all the social media posts where tenure is being (to me) not so subtlety defined as some kind of reward, some kind of currency, something of value - it is something about the conferral of some kind of power or some kind of authority that is a result of working hard.
Maybe I'm off base, but this capitalistic understanding of tenure tends to play into the hands of the far right and the conservatives in general. When people come for tenure, this presentation makes it easier to think of tenure as a kind of compensation that has no peer in any other job, career, or role in the economy. The only things that are close are things like U.S. Federal judges, Supreme Court Justices, and so on.
Tenure should be rhetorically constructed to be necessary equipment for the researcher. This is pretty easy to do – once you prove you can do effective research and that you can communicate the basic insights of the field to undergraduate students in a meaningful way, you should then be given the equipment of tenure so you can pursue inquiry where it leads you. You now have the authorization to look into whatever matters you think are worth writing and speaking about, from the perspective of your field.
Too often on social media, particularly Facebook and Bluesky, we see academics using tenure in a way I find to be Trumpian – that is, they use it as an excuse to speak down to their commentors, use offensive language without strategic considerations, and dismiss detractors without reasoning, rationality, or any consideration for reaching them. I don’t think this is a good use of tenure, to prove you are an expert who can say what they want however they want about whatever issue they want.
Rarely do we see the power of academic fields on social media. We don’t see the power of the rationality of a field, or links to the things to look deeper at that kind of thinking. We often see “get f-ed loser, I’m a tenured professor,” which doesn’t address the criticism, is a weird kind of ad hominem/appeal to authority – and often fuels the distrust and now rising hate of higher education professionals.
Tenure should make one feel comfortable sharing perspectives that are rooted in one’s field – the rationality of the field is what I would call it – to show people reading that there is a system of reasoning and logic here although it might be unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and unpredictable by the general public. This is the best way to respect it – to say “I am tenured” means I am an expert in the methods my field has determined to produce ‘good’ knowledge and understanding.
The other problem might be the nature of social media. Even if you are a scholar with tenure and can handle quite a bit of tedium from either the text you are studying, the sample you are analyzing, or the university grants office you are dealing with, social media tends to reward visible anger in short bursts, the rhetoric of “lashing out,” which is quite Trumpian – the move of “owning the libs” but on the side of higher education.
Trump’s rhetoric and the rhetoric of his circle works because it makes us feel instantly rewarded for schooling the dumbasses. It’s great fun to tell someone off, and that rush of pleasure is like no other. Social media keeps us coming back for more and more of that. Perhaps the best thing to do is for scholars to abandon it, or perhaps use it as a way to publicize longer pieces that can engage politics in the way that they might find valuable. Of course the trick there is to write in such a way that your detractors or your opponents (Whoever they might be to you) are going to be willing to read the longer piece.
Tenure is an incredible tool. I’m fortunate to have it. But it certainly doesn’t mean I know more than you. It means I’m authorized to conduct whatever research I would like to do and I can’t be stopped by the university or other authorities where I work. This is definitely an accomplishment, but it means I don’t have instant answers that school my opponents. It means I have a method of inquiry and that I can inquire about unpopular ideas. The scholar should determine scholarship, not the political, not the popular or entertaining/exciting. Sometimes these things overlap of course, but that is another thing to bring up when discussing this issue.
Social media has a lot of photos and excited people getting tenure. I sure hope they are excited about the license, not the reward, and I certainly hope we can craft a rhetoric around it where we can distinguish it from capitalist reward or workplace reward. It’s more like a proper set of safety equipment for a welder than it is an annual bonus because your division did well.