What If Tenure Was Never Established?

The Actual History

Academic tenure, the system that grants professors permanent employment and protection from dismissal without just cause, emerged gradually in American higher education during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Before this period, most professors served at the pleasure of university presidents, boards of trustees, or political appointees. Their positions were precarious, particularly if their research or teachings conflicted with the interests of university donors, religious doctrines, or prevailing political sentiments.

The formal concept of tenure in the United States crystallized following several high-profile academic freedom cases at the turn of the 20th century. In 1900, economist Edward Ross was dismissed from Stanford University after criticizing the railroad industry and Chinese immigration—positions that displeased Jane Stanford, the university's patron and widow of railroad tycoon Leland Stanford. This case, among others, alarmed academics nationwide about their vulnerability to external pressures.

In response to these concerns, professors began organizing. In 1915, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was founded by John Dewey and Arthur O. Lovejoy, establishing the first significant professional organization dedicated to protecting academic freedom. The AAUP's 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure argued that tenure was essential to protect "the dignity and independence of the academic profession."

The watershed moment came in 1940 when the AAUP, in collaboration with the Association of American Colleges (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), issued the "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure." This document, eventually endorsed by over 250 educational organizations, established the modern conception of tenure: after a probationary period (typically seven years), professors should receive permanent appointments that could only be terminated for adequate cause or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency.

During the post-World War II expansion of American higher education, tenure became nearly universal at four-year institutions. The G.I. Bill sent millions of veterans to college, necessitating rapid growth in faculty. Universities used tenure as a recruitment tool during this period of unprecedented academic expansion. By the 1960s, tenure was firmly established as a cornerstone of American higher education.

Tenure spread internationally, although with variations. In the United Kingdom, permanent academic appointments became standard but with less formal protections than in the American system. Continental European countries developed civil service models for academic employment that offered similar security.

The system faced challenges beginning in the 1970s as universities confronted budget constraints and sought greater flexibility. The percentage of tenure-track positions declined as institutions increasingly relied on adjunct faculty and other contingent appointments. By 2021, only about 25% of U.S. college faculty held tenure or tenure-track positions, compared to approximately 57% in 1975.

Despite these trends, tenure remains a defining feature of elite institutions worldwide and continues to be defended as essential for academic freedom and the pursuit of knowledge unencumbered by political or commercial pressures. Critics, however, argue that tenure creates inefficiencies, protects underperforming faculty, and contributes to higher education costs.

The Point of Divergence

What if academic tenure had never been established as an institution in higher education? In this alternate timeline, we explore a scenario where the early 20th century movements to formalize tenure protections failed to gain traction, leaving university faculty without this distinctive form of employment security.

Several plausible points of divergence could have prevented tenure from becoming institutionalized:

First, the founding of the American Association of University Professors in 1915 might have taken a dramatically different direction. If key figures like John Dewey and Arthur O. Lovejoy had been less influential or had focused on different priorities, the organization might never have championed tenure as vigorously. Perhaps instead of creating a bold declaration on academic freedom and tenure, the nascent organization could have concentrated solely on improving salaries and working conditions without seeking special employment protections.

Alternatively, the pivotal "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure" might never have been formulated or widely adopted. If the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges had failed to reach consensus, or if university presidents and boards of trustees had mounted more effective opposition to these principles, tenure might have remained an aspiration rather than becoming standard practice.

A third possibility lies in the economic and political circumstances of mid-century America. During the McCarthy era (1947-1956), if academic institutions had uniformly capitulated to political pressure rather than defending faculty rights, tenure protections might have been abandoned as "protecting subversives." Simultaneously, if the post-WWII expansion of higher education had been managed differently—perhaps through greater reliance on short-term contracts from the beginning—the practical need for tenure as a recruitment tool might never have materialized.

In our alternate timeline, we'll explore a scenario where all these factors converged: the AAUP formed but focused on different priorities, the 1940 Statement failed to gain broad acceptance, and post-war academic expansion proceeded without tenure as its foundation. University teaching remained a respected profession but continued to function on renewable contracts without special employment protections, much like other professional occupations.

The ramifications of this divergence would profoundly reshape higher education across the 20th century and into the present day, affecting everything from knowledge production to institutional governance, academic career structures, and the very mission of universities themselves.

Immediate Aftermath

Academic Freedom Under Pressure: 1940-1960

Without the safeguards provided by tenure, American academia faced immediate challenges during World War II and the early Cold War. The McCarthy era became particularly devastating for academic freedom. Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into alleged communist infiltration extended deeply into universities, with far fewer institutional barriers to resist them.

In our actual history, many tenured professors did face scrutiny and pressure during McCarthyism, but universities often defended their tenured faculty's right to due process. In this alternate timeline, universities had no formal obligation to retain controversial faculty. As a result, hundreds of scholars in fields like political science, history, and physics lost their positions due to suspected communist sympathies or for refusing to sign loyalty oaths.

Harvard physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who in our timeline retained his academic position despite losing his security clearance in 1954, instead found himself unemployed across American academia. Many other scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project faced similar fates, creating a significant brain drain from American universities to industrial laboratories or foreign institutions.

University administrators, without the counterbalance of a tenured faculty, gained unprecedented power over academic affairs. Presidents and deans could reshape departments by simply not renewing contracts of faculty whose research directions, teaching methods, or political views they disapproved of. This led to a more conformist and conservative academic culture in the 1950s, with scholars avoiding controversial research topics.

Alternative Professional Organizations: 1940-1965

Without tenure as its central cause, the American Association of University Professors developed differently. Rather than focusing on academic freedom protections, it evolved into something more resembling a traditional labor union, concentrating on salary negotiations, teaching loads, and benefits.

By the mid-1950s, several competing faculty organizations emerged:

The American Federation of Academic Workers (AFAW) adopted explicit union tactics including strikes
The Society for Academic Professionals (SAP) emphasized professional standards and qualifications
The Academic Freedom League (AFL) specifically advocated for free inquiry protections without tenure

These organizations competed for membership and influence, fragmenting faculty political power compared to our timeline's more unified AAUP.

Acceleration of Publish-or-Perish: 1950-1965

Without tenure's job security, university faculty quickly developed an intense focus on demonstrable productivity metrics to secure contract renewals. The "publish-or-perish" mentality, which in our timeline emerged more gradually, became entrenched by the early 1950s in this alternate world.

Universities adapted by implementing formal evaluation systems emphasizing publication counts, teaching evaluations, and external funding. Faculty members worked under constant pressure of periodic comprehensive reviews, typically occurring every 3-5 years. This created different research incentives, with scholars preferring shorter, less risky projects with quick publication timelines over longer, more speculative work.

The Research Institute Model: 1955-1965

By the late 1950s, a separate institutional model emerged to address limitations of contract-based university employment. Privately endowed research institutes began offering extended appointments (typically 10-15 years) to distinguished scholars, providing greater freedom to pursue long-term research projects.

The Institute for Advanced Research in Princeton (similar to our timeline's Institute for Advanced Study) pioneered this approach, followed by the establishment of similar centers at major urban centers and university-adjacent locations. These institutes became havens for scholars pursuing theoretical work requiring longer timelines, though they remained accessible only to elite academics.

International Divergence: 1960-1970

While American higher education solidified around a contract-based model, international systems developed differently. Several European countries, viewing America's experience during McCarthyism as cautionary, moved in the opposite direction by integrating academic positions more firmly into civil service systems with strong employment protections.

France and Germany in particular established systems where professors became state civil servants with permanent appointments after rigorous initial selection. This created a significant divergence between American and European academic cultures, with European institutions offering greater job security but often less flexible and more hierarchical structures than their American counterparts.

Long-term Impact

Transformation of Academic Careers: 1970-1990

By the 1970s, academic career patterns in the United States had evolved dramatically from our timeline. Without tenure as the defining professional milestone, universities developed more graduated career ladders with multiple advancement stages. The binary divide between "tenure-track" and "non-tenure-track" positions never emerged; instead, faculty advanced through series of renewable contracts with increasing duration and security.

A typical career progression in this alternate timeline might include:

Assistant Professor: 2-3 year initial contracts, renewable once
Associate Professor: 3-5 year contracts, renewable multiple times
Full Professor: 5-7 year contracts, with presumption of renewal
Distinguished Professor: 7-10 year contracts with reduced teaching loads

This system created more frequent evaluation points but also more opportunities for advancement. Mid-career transitions between institutions became significantly more common than in our timeline, as faculty regularly sought better contract terms. By 1990, the average professor had taught at three to four institutions over their career, compared to the one or two that became typical in our tenured system.

Institutional Adaptation and Governance: 1975-2000

Without tenured faculty serving as a stable institutional core, university governance structures evolved dramatically. Faculty senates, which in our timeline derived authority partly from the permanent status of senior professors, held less power. Instead, professional administrators gained greater control over curriculum, academic programs, and institutional priorities.

However, this shift prompted countervailing developments:

Contractual Governance Rights: Faculty unions and professional associations successfully negotiated for governance participation rights to be explicitly included in employment contracts.
Department-Level Democracy: Departmental voting rights were extended to all full-time faculty regardless of rank, creating broader participation in hiring and curriculum decisions.
Professional Administrators from Faculty: Universities developed tracks for faculty to transition into administration while maintaining return rights to teaching positions.

The most elite research universities mitigated these governance challenges by offering very long-term contracts (up to 15 years) to distinguished scholars, creating a quasi-tenure system that preserved some institutional memory and faculty governance power.

Research and Knowledge Production: 1980-2010

The absence of tenure fundamentally altered research incentives and knowledge production patterns. Without the "protected period" that tenure provides for pursuing risky or long-term research, academic work evolved to favor:

More collaborative, team-based projects that distributed risk among multiple scholars
Greater emphasis on applied research with clearer short-term deliverables
Closer alignment with external funding priorities
More interdisciplinary work as scholars diversified their expertise to remain employable

Certain academic fields developed differently as a result. Theoretical mathematics and philosophy—fields requiring extended focus on difficult problems—became concentrated in the research institutes that could offer longer appointments. Meanwhile, computer science, economics, and other fields with both academic and industry applications flourished under the contract system, as scholars could leverage outside opportunities.

The humanities underwent the most profound transformation. Without tenure protection for work that might not yield immediate publications, humanities scholars shifted toward more frequent publication of shorter works and greater public engagement. Digital humanities emerged earlier in this timeline, as scholars sought to demonstrate relevance and impact through technological applications of their expertise.

Institutional Diversity and Stratification: 1990-2020

By the 1990s, higher education institutions had diversified their employment models more significantly than in our timeline. While most universities operated primarily on the contract model, several alternative approaches emerged:

Fellowship Universities: Elite institutions like Harvard and Stanford developed endowed fellowship systems that funded faculty for 5-10 year periods with minimal teaching obligations
Teaching-Focused Institutions: Many regional universities emphasized teaching excellence, offering longer contracts based primarily on classroom performance
Enterprise Universities: Some institutions adopted profit-sharing models where faculty received shorter base contracts supplemented by shares of research grants, patent revenues, or program tuition

This diversity created a more stratified academic labor market but also more varied career opportunities. Faculty could choose institutions aligned with their priorities rather than conforming to the relatively standardized tenure expectations of our timeline.

The absence of tenure also changed university financial structures. Without long-term faculty salary obligations, institutions gained flexibility in budgeting and program development. However, they also faced higher recruitment and retention costs as faculty regularly renegotiated contracts or moved between institutions. Universities allocated significantly more resources to hiring and retention bonuses than in our timeline.

Academic Freedom and Political Engagement: 2000-2025

By the 21st century, this alternate academic world had developed different mechanisms to protect intellectual freedom. Rather than relying on individual tenure protections, the system evolved more robust:

Professional Standards Bodies: Discipline-specific associations established peer-review procedures for contested dismissals
Academic Freedom Insurance: Faculty unions negotiated wrongful termination insurance and legal defense funds
Portable Reputations: Digital academic profiles and metrics helped scholars maintain professional standing independent of institutions

These mechanisms proved partially effective but were tested during periods of political polarization. The post-9/11 era and the culture wars of the 2010s and 2020s saw more frequent dismissals of controversial faculty than in our timeline. This created a more cautious approach to politically sensitive topics, especially among junior scholars.

Interestingly, the contract system produced more politically engaged faculty in some ways. Without tenure as a goal, many academics felt freer to engage in activism, public intellectualism, and political campaigns, knowing their academic reputation was already built on more portable achievements rather than institutional affiliation.

By 2025, this alternate academic world features more mobile faculty, more diverse institutional models, more frequent publication of smaller research contributions, and more porous boundaries between academia and other sectors—but also less protection for heterodox thinking and long-term, high-risk research agendas.

Expert Opinions

Dr. Sophia Hernandez, Professor of Higher Education Policy at the University of California, offers this perspective: "Without tenure, American higher education would likely have evolved into a much more market-responsive system than what we see today. The lack of long-term faculty commitments would have given universities greater flexibility to reallocate resources as student interests and societal needs changed. However, this would have come at a significant cost to certain forms of scholarship—particularly foundational research in theoretical fields where progress is slow and contributions aren't immediately recognizable. Fields like theoretical physics, pure mathematics, and philosophy would have developed differently, likely concentrated in specialized research institutes rather than being distributed across universities."

Dr. James Wilson, Historian of American Education and author of "The Ivory Tower Transformed," provides a contrasting view: "It's a mistake to assume that academic freedom would have disappeared without tenure. Professional norms and alternative institutional protections would have evolved to fill the gap—perhaps more effectively than tenure has in our world. The contemporary claim that tenure protects controversial scholarship is belied by evidence that even tenured professors self-censor on controversial topics. An alternate system might have developed more explicit content-neutral protections for scholarly expression tied to professional standards rather than employment status. The greatest loss would have been the sense of institutional commitment and community that tenure fosters, as universities would have become more transactional workplaces."

Dr. Mei Zhang, Labor Economist specializing in professional employment structures, argues: "A tenure-less academic world would have developed more sophisticated contract structures than we might initially imagine. I envision a system with cascading terms of increasing duration as faculty demonstrated their value, culminating in something resembling 'de facto tenure' for established scholars—perhaps 10-15 year contracts with presumptive renewal. The most fascinating aspect would be the different incentives for risk-taking: without tenure as a safe harbor, faculty might paradoxically engage in more entrepreneurial and applied research earlier in their careers, potentially accelerating innovation in certain fields while diminishing contributions to others. Labor mobility would be higher, creating more efficient matching between faculty talents and institutional needs, but possibly at the cost of the deep expertise that develops when scholars spend decades at a single institution."