We’ve discussed the capriciousness of the academic hiring system before, particularly with regard to political discrimination. With that in mind, it seems interesting to consider the effects of blogging on academics – particularly with regard to tenure decisions.
I bring this up now because one of my favorite academic bloggers, Dan Drezner, who was an assistant professor of political science at U. of Chicago, was just denied tenure – and the speculation is that it may have been due to his blogging.
See here: danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: So Friday was a pretty bad day....
and here: http://www.nysun.com/article/21296
From all I can see he was well qualified in the manner I expect professors up for tenure at big schools to be qualified, which is to say he published (in what I think are good journals) and he had a rep as a good teacher.
Does anyone with more experience in academia think it likely he was denied tenure due to blogging, or even more specifically, due to the fact he expressed libertarian political opinions in his webblog?
I guess the lesson for anyone in academics - or really in any profession in which people making decisions based on hazy and undefined criteria have power over whether you can advance - is that if you are going to blog, do it anonymously…