ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the two striking and very fundamental attributes of the academic dogma and the academic community: tenure and freedom, taking each in the distinctive sense it possess. Tenure was never regarded by academics as properly belonging to any other professional or occupational group in society. Academic freedom has or had the same aristocratic overtones that lie in tenure. Tenure is— or was— the bond of protection for individuals possessed of knightly honor who gave faithfully and fully their services to the academic community. Without commenting on the rightness or propriety of all such claims, it is nonetheless important to emphasize that the historic concept of academic freedom was limited to faculties and to faculty members. Rightly were many reasons found to justify, in the name of academic service, a privilege that was not enjoyed anywhere else in American society.
