Tenure for college faculty is a unique benefit. You don’t find it in other professions. Tenure is supposed to protect faculty members from dismissal because they espouse ideas that the higher-ups don’t like. Is it effective in doing so? And what about the costs?

In today’s Martin Center article, Mark McNeilly of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School addresses those questions.

He writes:

I have long been intrigued by the question of whether tenure truly works as a means of promoting academic freedom and intellectual curiosity. As a fixed-term professor in a professional school, I’ve had my doubts about tenure’s value, based mainly on the fact that I know plenty of professors with tenure who still self-censor on important topics.

While tenure isn’t a perfect defense against freedom of speech attacks, it appears to make them less likely and successful. Read the whole thing.