Naomi Schaefer Riley, an editorial page writer and editor at the Wall Street Journal, questioned the premise of tenure during her talk, saying its protection is far too widespread.

“If professors don’t have a guaranteed job for life (or what usually amounts to it), the argument goes, ‘They will not be able to speak or write freely. Those with unpopular views — or views that upset the administration or the trustees or other members of the faculty — will be run off campus,’” Riley wrote in her conference paper. “But many Americans might wonder just why academic freedom is a principle worthy of defending anyway. Don’t some radical faculty members deserve to be run off campus?”

Riley identified three areas where she said there is no need for either tenure or academic freedom, including vocational majors such as business administration and hotel management, ethnic studies and for research scientists.

The vocational majors and ethnic studies, she said, have predetermined goals for their students. Hotel management is an example because students expect industry jobs at the end of their study and professors who teach such subjects do not contribute thinking that is “essential to civilization,” Riley said..

Taking the position that ethnic studies have political goals, Riley said “faculty members (in ethnic studies) are no longer simply engaged in teaching and learning and research.”

Taking exception to Riley’s position, Dr. Teresita Martinez-Vergne, a senior policy associate for the Public Education Network and former college professor, contended that all learning has social and political consequences.

“We are all involved in political work one way or another whether it’s in nutrition or physical science” Verne said. “Tenure is not a reward but a recognition and appreciation of someone who studied deliberately to become an expert in a particular field.”