The Ward Churchill affair has had variouspeoplewonder whether universities can maintain the concept of tenure. It occurs to me that what everyone is forgetting is the golden rule: namely that he who has the gold makes the rules
In private universities it is the benefactors and trustees who make the decisions. If they begin to feel that certain departments or faculties are failing to reflect well on the university and are failing to pul in sufficient paying students then their funding, whether tenured or not, is likely to be cut. If a private university decides that it no longer needs to support "Ethnic Studies" then then entire department will be axed. In the publically funded area it is more complex but one suspects that a sufficiently motivated grass roots campaign could cause the political heads of the university to consider whether they should fund a controversial department.
I suspect it will take time but I am also rather certain that many alumni, donors and taxpayers are unaware of what "research" and "teaching" is done with their money. A simple informational campaign could easily indentify the worst parasites and cause their funding to be cut or withdrawn. There will undoubtedly be howls of protest from the ivory towers, but a good campaign would be able to split the towers nicely by making it clear that the total amount of money would not be cut when certain departments were stopped. One suspects that once other professors realize what they stand to gain the complaints will be rather pro forma. Certainlyit has been my experience that academics will do almost anything for an increase in a faculty budget....