Retire Already! Why?

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Laurie Fendrich, a professor of drawing and painting at Hofstra University, charged that anyone who holds on to a university appointment beyond age 65 is selfish and greedy. What upsets her most are senior professors who have no intention of retiring. The longer they hang on, she argues, the fewer opportunities there are for new junior faculty to be hired. Moreover, she asserts, senior faculty are staying on just because they can. (Federal law not only outlawed mandatory retirement in the academy, it made it impossible for university administrators to even inquire about the retirement plans of individual faculty members.)

There are so many wrong-headed elements to Professor Fendrich's argument,  I don't know where to begin. First, she doesn't say that faculty who are no longer effective should retire; she assumes that anyone over 65 (70 at most!) should quit; that anyone over 65 is no longer a capable teacher or scholar.  That's age discrimination at its worst.  Second, she assumes that the departure of senior faculty will lead to the hiring of new full-time junior faculty, by their departments. Given the tendency of many colleges and universities to switch, whenever they can, to adjunct and part-time appointments, students have no guarantee that the departure of a senior faculty member will result in a new full time appointment. Thus, the department of all faculty members of 65 is likely to lead to the rapid loss of quality in academic programs.  Third, it's not clear who is going to mentor all the new junior faculty she assumes will be joining the university ranks.  Anyone who thinks that excellent college instructors and researchers are born and not made, doesn't know what they are talking about. Every department and every field needs a mix of senior and junior faculty to ensure the on-going development of a highly skilled professoriate.

This brings me to the program recently adopted by my university.  When I reach 70, I can switch
to part-time status, yet still remain a member of the tenured faculty.  I can begin to receive my retirement benefits, but still receive a half-time salary.  This does not require that I switch to emeritus
status (which would basically strip me of my privileges and responsibilities).  Emeritus faculty may be assigned a group office (so they visit the campus every day), but in most cases they do not play a part in hiring, promotion, admission, or continuing teaching their courses, supervising graduate students or serving as principal investigators on research grants and contracts.  Under the new system I am talking about, senior faculty can continue to do all these things.  By switching to a multi-year (renewable) contract, and reducing my draw on departmental resources, my department has the money it needs to hire a new junior faculty member (with the half of my salary that is released).   While there is no guarantee this will happen  -- because the central administration may want to hold the "head count" constant --  if there is a new hire, I will be on hand for several years (at least) to mentor the new hire, and perhaps teach together or jointly manage a research project.

There was a reason that mandatory retirement was forbidden in American universities in 1994.  Too much experience and brain power were being arbitrarily jettisoned. Now, people like Laurie Fendrich want to go back to that system by arbitrarily shaming faculty over 65 into retiring early.  I have no doubt that many 65 year old faculty members are no longer as productive or skilled as they once were. I hope anyone who falls in that category will decide to retire and make way for a new generation of college instructors. But, that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. I would also point out that there are younger faculty who are equally unproductive or incapable.  I have no problem with a system of peer review that provides feedback to all faculty members every few years after they have been granted tenure. If,  after several negative reviews, a faculty member who has been warned (and given the help required to re-establish their bona fides) is asked to reduce their paid time and revise their responsibilities, that would not be unreasonable.  A fair, evidenced-based peer review process (such as we use to make promotion and tenure decisions) is fine. It is the arbitrary assumption that everyone over 65 is washed up, selfish or greedy that is unfair and repugnant.

The Sovereignty Claims of Indigenous Peoples

Think about it from their perspective. Assume you are part of a group that has inhabited a place for at least a thousand years. Your ceremonies and traditions date back a lot farther than those of the interlopers who now control every aspect of your life.  Your people have been connected to that particular place for all of recorded history.  Yet, now, the national government that surrounds you wants to dictate what you can and cannot do with your land and how your children should be educated.. That national government has sold the mineral rights out from under you (and kept all the money), polluted the waters you depend on, and stripped the forest that has always been your primary source of food. Wouldn't you be angry?

There are more than 300 million indigenous people in the world in this situation. There are at least 5000 different first nations in more than 70 countries. Most of these groups are fighting for their survival -- arguing that they should have control over their ancestral lands and be allowed to decide what happens within their borders.  In most instances, though, their sovereignty claims have been rejected.  In the United States, many Native Americans live in the worst economic conditions in the country.  They do not control what happens in their lives. While some Americans blame the tribes for their current circumstances, there can be no question that the American government has refused to allow the Indians to control their land and water and has not lived up to the promises that the American government has made over the past several hundred years.  In Australia, Latin America, Asia and in parts of Europe, First Peoples struggle for recognition and fair treatment.  While the United Nations has, after 25 years of discussion, finally passed a non-binding Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all with significant indigenous populations voted against it.  While the Declaration talks about recognition, it provides no imperative for the recognition of  the sovereignty claims of First Nations.

In Canada, First Nations control the land (reserves) on which they live.  They have rights of various kinds (both through treaties and constitutional mandates) that fall short of sovereignty, but guarantee greater independence than almost anywhere else in the world.  The Sarayaku in Ecuador, the Mapuche in Chile, the Amerindians in Guyana, the Adivasi in India, and the Yonggom in Papue New Guinea have far fewer protections.  In Israel, the 46 Bedouin communities in the Negev are not even listed on official government maps and their long-standing  land claims have never been addressed by the Israeli Supreme Court. 

Sovereignty (i.e. full recognition of their status as independent states) may be beyond what

First Nations can hope for in this era, but greater autonomy -- and perhaps even independence with regard to a range of resource, education, and justice issues-- ought to be negotiable.  

I don't see, though, how the sovereignty claims of First Peoples can be resolved in the courts of the very countries that have preempted their rights.  And, I don't think it is very likely that existing national governments will agree to have these claims adjudicated in international courts. To do so would mean allowing international bodies to contravene national sovereignty. (We've heard that argument a lot in the United States whenever questions of the World Court's jurisdiction are raised). That leaves the entire burden on individual First Nations to mobilize political support (both locally and globally). Given their lack of financial resources and their unwilling to engage in domestic politics (which would put them in the same position as any other interest group in a country when what they want is recognition of their sovereign rights), this is not a promising strategy. An international mediation approach might be worth considering.  In the same way that mediation has been used to resolve war and peace issues between contending nations as well as among waring factions within a country, it could be used to provide an in informal context in which national governments and First Nations could explore alternatives to full sovereignty.   

See Lawrence Susskind and Isabelle Anguelovski, Addressing the Land Claims of Indigenous Peoples published by the MIT Program on Human Rights and Justice for case studies of efforts by 14 indigenous peoples around the world to pursue their land claims.

(This can be downloaded for free at http://mit.edu/phrj/publications-phrj/indigenous-peoples.pdf)