Texas lawmakers are considering legislation to abolish tenure at all public state colleges and universities. The plan was originally proposed last year by Lt. Governnor Dan Patrick as a way to hold woke professors accountable for their out-of-control influence on campus. So far, it has predictably met with strong opposition from administrators and professors across the state. But not all of that opposition is coming from the left. At least one vocal conservative is warning against a ban on tenure. Adam Kolasinski, associate professor of finance and faculty senator at Texas A&M's Mays Business School, warns in a new piece for the Federalist that abolishing tenure will actually hinder efforts to rid campuses of wokeness and result in fewer conservative faculty.
Kolasinski tells KTRH he understands the intentions of the Lt. Governor wanting to ban tenure. "But that's going to have the exact opposite effect of what he wants, because what's going to end up happening is far-left administrators are going to do everything they can to eliminate the last remaining conservatives on college campuses," he says.
While left-wing professors are a problem, Kolasinski points out the bigger issue is left-wing administrators...and ending tenure will do nothing to get rid of them. "As someone who has been highly critical of the wokeness at Texas A&M, the elimination of tenure worries me greatly," he says. "Because that's going to make it much, much easier for the administration to retaliate against conservatives."
Further, he argues that ending tenure would not only threaten the few conservatives now on campus, but keep others away. "No conservative would ever take a job knowing that an administrator could simply cancel him because of his opinion," says Kolasinski.
To drive that point home, Kolasinski points to his own university and its 'woke' leadership. "Simply put, no conservative would ever take a job at Texas A&M if he didn't know he could get tenure."
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