The Review: Are there too many elderly professors?

On whether academe has become a gerontocracy. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. Late last year, the cartoonist and illustrator Barry Blitt raised some hackles with a New Yorker cover, “The Race for Office,” [depicting]( Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Joe Biden shuffling along in running clothes while leaning on wheeled walkers. Blitt’s illustration, one angry reader [wrote]( “makes an unexamined connection between physical condition and mental capability. On the contrary, walkers enable many people to pursue their work and interests.” Whatever one thinks about the ethics of Blitt’s kind of caricature, though, the advanced age of our political leadership has become impossible to ignore. The most recent fait divers: The special counsel Robert K. Hur declined to bring charges against Biden over mishandled classified documents in part because, as Hur [said]( Biden appeared to be a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Samuel Moyn, in an acerbic [squib]( for Granta, puts the situation bluntly: “The presidential contest in the United States this year is likely to pit two decrepit men against each other.” This drift into gerontocracy, Moyn says, represents a betrayal of the ideals of enlightenment modernity, in which, for instance, “the French revolutionaries explicitly targeted the empowerment of the elderly.” He goes on: “If modernity has meant challenging the elderly, demanding that they share their power and resources, then our postmodern age is one of their most successful re-enthronements.” Along with government, academe is Moyn’s exemplary gerontocracy in the modern United States. “Universities,” he writes, “have become senior centers and care homes, while a whole generation of younger scholars and intellectuals have been blocked from progressing in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.” SPONSOR CONTENT | Squiz [Redefining Digital Experiences: The Power of Composability]( NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Charges that academe is a gerontocracy are quite old; the sociologist Robert K. Merton said so in 1943. But contemporary demographic trends have intensified the concentration of power and privilege among the old, as Kyle Siler argues in a 2023 article in Science and Public Policy, “[Gerontocracy, Labor Market Bottlenecks, and Generational Crises in Modern Science]( One result, Siler says, is “stunted scientific productivity and innovation, both in the present and future.” He offers a few tentative strategies for ameliorating the situation, including “earmarking larger proportions of funding for younger scholars"; “incentiv[izing] earlier retirements from less-committed senior scholars” by limiting salary increases after a certain age; and “forcing out older, less-productive faculty hired in bygone ages with softer labor markets and lower standards.” (Mandatory academic retirement has been legally [prohibited]( since 1994.) Would any of that work? Is any of it equal to the scale of the problem? Not without some larger change in politics, says Moyn. “Age maxima for political office, mandatory retirement in the professions, forced transfer of property and wealth: All have been proposed as ways to blunt our descent into deeper gerontocracy,” Moyn writes. But “because old people — through voting patterns and parties and organizations that cater to them — have outsized authority to block such changes, only intensified organization among the young will make such changes possible.” In some fields, especially in the humanities, there’s no guarantee that earlier retirements will in fact result in greater opportunity for younger scholars. As Jonathan Zimmerman [wrote]( a few years ago in our pages, “A mass retirement by senior professors wouldn’t derail the adjunctification train; if anything, it would speed the train up.” I have spoken to aging scholars who would in fact like to retire but are reluctant to do so because they know their tenure line will not be replaced. Even decrepitude is better than death. ADVERTISEMENT SPECIAL OFFER FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for less than $20 and get unlimited access to essential reporting, data, and analysis. And as a special bonus, you'll get the 2024 Trends Report, our annual issue on the major trends shaping higher education — coming in March. The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [The Santa Barbara Museum’s Hypocritical Attack on Art]( By Todd Cronan and Charles Palermo [STORY IMAGE]( In the art world, symbolic politics trump real politics. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | OPINION [How Sociology Can Save Itself]( By Philip N. Cohen [STORY IMAGE]( The recent political attacks in Florida represent a threat to the discipline — but also an opportunity. THE REVIEW | OPINION [The New Campus McCarthyism]( By Jeffrey C. Isaac [STORY IMAGE]( On a scandalous suspension at Indiana University. 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In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis was equally impressed by Stone’s performance, but [disappointed]( by the film in general — “a movie that’s so deeply self-satisfied there really isn’t room for the two of you.” Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. Yours, Len Gutkin FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Research Driven University - The Chronicle Store]( [The Research Driven University]( Research universities are the $90-billion heart of America’s R&D operation. [Order this report today]( to explore the scope of the American academic-research enterprise and how institutions can contribute to tomorrow’s revolutionary innovations. JOB OPPORTUNITIES [Search jobs on The Chronicle job board]( [Find Your Next Role Today]( Whether you are actively or passively searching for your next career opportunity, The Chronicle is here to support you throughout your job search. Get started now by [exploring 30,000+ openings]( or [signing up for job alerts](. 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