Texas Lt. Gov's plan to create right-wing university think tank blows up in his face

It was going to take Keith Schnakenberg a lot to leave his tenured position at Washington University in St. Louis, where he has worked in the political science department since 2016. Schnakenberg said tenure allows faculty “to pursue knowledge in a sort of uncompromised way” and take “intellectual risks.” He said Patrick’s assessment of universities as places where leftist ideology runs rampant didn’t mesh with his experience in higher education, though he said that academia could work to better earn the public’s trust in its work and mission. Many of Schnakenberg’s concerns went beyond the contract UT-Austin offered him, which would've allowed him to keep tenure even if the state bans the practice because he would’ve started before the bill’s proposed effective date. “When you go somewhere as a senior faculty member, you’ re thinking about, ‘OK … how am I going to build that department?” Schnakenberg said. “If I go there and I have tenure, but they don’t have tenure — and what I want to do is build a group in my field — that sounds very difficult because junior faculty wouldn’t want to come.” Schnakenberg isn’t the only person to decline a job offer for the fall at Texas’ top flagship.