[nmrm2]

>I'm surprised it isn't working.

Remember this next time someone suggests getting rid of tenure or cutting federal research funding. Especially for areas of research that are politically or economically hot (climate/environment, privacy, etc.)

[Fomite]

Yep. This is the answer to "why do we need tenure".

[IndianAstronaut]

This is actually the main reason for tenure. It is to protect intellectual freedom. Granted, nowadays due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole system is likely to die a slow death.

[BrainInAJar]

> due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole system is likely to die a slow death.

That's true of a lot of systems; Tenure, unionization, welfare. It becomes easy to stir people in to a frenzy to eliminate the freeloader problem while the question of whether the institution is too important to care about freeloaders remains ignored. In all the cases, perhaps freeloaders are just part of the price for a valuable system, and we should accept it.