Tenure is under fire in SC. Defenders say it safeguards academic freedom and fuels the economy.

In the first couple years of her career, University of South Carolina historian Carol Harrison felt firsthand the fragility of academic freedom. She did not have tenure when someone called her a “feminist” and implied she ought to be disciplined for it. The experience scared her. "Accusing a professor of being a feminist, that's not actually a fireable offense, right?" she said. "Accusing a professor of believing in climate science should not be a firing offense. Accusing a professor of doing vaccine research. These are all things we should be free to do. They're important forms of knowledge." Harrison, whose research focuses on French history, Catholicism and women’s history, said the early sense of vulnerability underlined for her why tenure matters. It shields scholars from people who might not like their ideas, she and other proponents say. And it has a positive impact on South Carolina’s economy, drawing in cutting-edge researchers with promises of job security. But tenure increasingly is under attack in South Carolina and beyond. The percentage of tenured and tenure-track professors in South Carolina already had been in decline over the past two decades — following a nationwide trend of increasing part-time and adjunct faculty without tenure protections. Now, spurred on by the recent assassination of a popular GOP campus activist, a group of conservative South Carolina lawmakers — including the S.C. House speaker — have proposed doing away with tenure entirely at the state’s public colleges, claiming it encourages laziness and a lack of accountability. Two tenure-track professors at Clemson University were fired over online comments about the activist, Charlie Kirk, and many of the same lawmakers who called for their removal argued that, going forward, all faculty must be held more accountable for their actions inside the classroom and beyond.