In theory, university tenure is supposed to protect the freedom to research unpopular topics, not the freedom to be unproductive, however, I think it does confer that as a side benefit at least as you say "in the shortest term".
Tenure for non-research faculty might make sense if it protects the right to teach unpopular ideas.
It never made sense in the public schools, of course, and has always just been a way to transfer money from taxpayers' wallets to the Democrat party's coffers via a helpfully corrupt public sector union.
> tenure is supposed to protect the freedom to research unpopular topics, not the freedom to be unproductive, however, I think [tenure] does confer [low productivity] as a side benefit at least as you say "in the shortest term".
Perverse incentives are intense in the research community and they're getting worse as the supply/demand imbalance in the academic labor market continues to grow. My experience is that non-tenured professors tend to dramatically overproduce flashy media-bait ("scientific debt," if you will). Tenure is the only mechanism we have to balance that out, which means it's becoming more and more important every day.
> It never made sense in the public schools, of course, and has always just been a way to transfer money from taxpayers' wallets to the Democrat party's coffers via a helpfully corrupt public sector union.
I find teachers far less objectionable as money-funnling mechanisms than the defense and dirty-energy industries.
Tenure for non-research faculty might make sense if it protects the right to teach unpopular ideas.
It never made sense in the public schools, of course, and has always just been a way to transfer money from taxpayers' wallets to the Democrat party's coffers via a helpfully corrupt public sector union.