By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist
The legislative debate over tenure raged at the same time as the struggle over the ill-conceived proposal to dismember Rutgers University. The two issues seem unrelated. They were not.
Opponents of teacher tenure — such as Gov. Chris Christie — contended it was a guarantee of lifetime employment, a safe haven for the incompetent. Eliminating tenure, he said, would “give schools more power to remove underperforming teachers.” When the issue is framed that way, who could oppose it? Who is in favor of keeping “underperforming” teachers?
But the fight over the institutional integrity of Rutgers University provided a different view of tenure. The most consistent, most courageous advocates of maintaining the political independence of the state’s most prestigious public institution of higher education were school employees. Men and women who could be fired if they didn’t have tenure.
Looking at tenure through the lens of the Rutgers debate depicts it as protection for the freedom to speak out against wrong-headed policies fostered by the powerful, especially at a time when those institutionally responsible for the university’s independence — its administration and governing boards — were cowed by the undeniable political power of the governor and his ally on this issue, South Jersey political boss George Norcross.
Consider Kate Epstein, a first-year faculty member at Rutgers-Camden, a summa cum laude graduate of Yale with a master’s degree from Cambridge (in England) and a doctorate from Ohio State. At a time when most in positions of power at the university were ducking, she appeared at a joint meeting of the governing boards.
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