_________ Without Tenure

Verity raises the question -- I guess age-old isn't the right term, but the by now well-worn question -- of whether one should blog without tenure.  It's a perfectly fair question, and all of us (at least all of us without tenure) have thought about it from time to time.  Some thoughts:

1) I think the comments were wonderful, and Orin's advice in particular is good: when blogging, think about what you're saying and write thoughtfully and carefully.

2) I think it's important to put that advice, and the issue in general, in a broader context.  I know I've said this kind of thing before, but it seems to me that, if you have formed the right habits of mind, this advice will apply naturally to everything you do as a scholar and writer, whether tenured or untenured.  Of course a junior scholar should be humble about what he or she doesn't know, and both junior and senior scholars should do their best to write carefully and well, with special care taken on subjects that are further outside their area of expertise.  That applies to everything one does. 

 

3) Given that, if you observe the golden rules of scholarship and writing in all things, why should we treat blogging as any different from any other activity -- panel participation, writing op-eds, teaching, community service -- that you might engage in?  The only reason I can think of is that, because it's new and because we suspect that some senior scholars may have doubts about blogging, it might hurt your career.  But, without wanting to sound too righteous about it, I don't think this is an acceptable concern.  If you are doing what you believe to be the right thing, tenure ought to be the last thing on your mind.  After all, one of the things we ought to value in tenure candidates is integrity and independence of mind.  (Equally or more important, of course, is that you meet or exceed the standards of your profession and promise to do so well into the future.  But I am treating this as a given.) 

I don't think tenure should be for cowards.  As I've said before, in my view, assuming that all the professional criteria have been met, those folks who most deserve tenure are the ones who are scholars and teachers for their own sake, and who do not act with tenure in mind. On the other hand, those who conform their behavior prior to tenure and for tenure's sake are also those about whom we should be most concerned when it comes to tenure determinations.  Why assume that someone who has truckled to his colleagues and tailored his work to garner approval prior to tenure is suddenly going to act as a genuinely worthy, and independent, scholar and member of the academy just because he or she has been handed a golden ticket?  If anything, surely such people will pass on all the wrong lessons to the next generations of junior scholars.  So I would say of blogging the same thing I would say of anything else: do it well, do it thoughtfully, and do it for yourself. If you do those things, try not to give a damn about the consequences. Your privileged role as an academic demands no less.  (Of course, this advice isn't aimed at Verity.  It's general advice.)

4) The last point is that, with both the blogging-without-tenure question and all other without-tenure questions, we shouldn't be so quick to fix the burden on the untenured individual.  I think junior scholars should act with integrity and independence of mind regardless of who their colleagues are.  (This is usually easy advice to follow, since most of our colleagues are great, and also because, as Orin notes, tenure is not a very high bar in most of the legal academy.) But we should keep in mind that senior scholars, no less than everyone else, bear the burden of acting with the same integrity and independence of mind.  That means they should approach tenure questions with only the relevant questions -- does this person meet appropriate standards as a scholar, teacher, and member of the academic community -- in mind.  Blogging, like the cut of your suit, your politics, and so on, ought to be off the table, unless it demonstrates beyond peradventure your unfitness in the pertinent categories. 

Perhaps, then, instead of asking what junior scholars ought to be doing, we should be doing a better and louder job of asking how senior scholars ought to be behaving.