Academic tenure

Tenure is a type of academic appointment that offers its holder a semi-permanent position at an institution, protecting them from being fired or laid off for their personal beliefs and practices. Academic tenure originated in the United States in the early 20th century, and several other countries have since adopted it. Tenure is a means of defending the principle of academic freedom, though tenured staff can still be fired under just cause laws or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation.

History

Tenure was introduced into American universities in the early 1900s in part to prevent the arbitrary dismissal of faculty members who expressed unpopular views.

Before Nazism, Germany had been a leader in academic tenure, but free speech and tenure were severely curtailed under the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler called universal education "the most corroding and disintegrating poison". He appointed Education Minister Bernhard Rust, to ensure Nazi racial theories were integrated in university curriculums. This caused a purge of 1500 professors, and by 1939, nearly half of all faculty posts were occupied by Nazis.

In the late 1940s, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign fired several untenured economists, all of whom subsequently had distinguished careers, for teaching the "heresy" Keynesian economics.

By country

Denmark

Danish universities in advertisements for faculty positions usually state that professor positions are tenured.