Think-tanker: Tenure needed for what?

Most people claiming that tenure protects their radical ideas from censure by malevolent outside forces appear to be flattering themselves with the conceit that anybody knows what their ideas are in the first place.

-- Kevin Carey, policy director for Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

(Note: Carey does go on to discuss how the attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, has been harassing a professor over his research on climate change.)

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