65 doesn't mean incapable

For the past 60 years, IU staff faced mandatory retirement at age 65. When administrators meet with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officials Wednesday to reconsider IU's mandatory retirement policy, they should discard this outdated policy entirely.\nIt implies that a person who fills a position adequately at 64 years and 364 days old becomes somehow unfit for the same position the next day. That's simply ridiculous. On the contrary, an older person's experience may make him more qualified for the position than a green, new employee.\nFurthermore, mandatory retirement is an unacceptably arbitrary policy. For example, IU may decide to retain one administrator past the age of 65, yet force the retirement of another administrator turning 65, in which case the policy as a whole comes into question. Additionally, mandatory retirement only applies to staff. What is the distinction between the fitness of a faculty member older than 65 and the fitness of an administrator over 65? If IU plans to retain this flawed policy, it should, at the very least, make clear why it believes that staff becomes unfit at 65 and professors do not become unfit at 65.\nIt should be a fundamental principle of all employers to make hiring and firing decisions based on job performance. The need for change and vitality is important in any workplace. But the assumption that employees lose their capacity for innovation once they reach a certain age is false. Employees older than 65, with their experience and wisdom, can undoubtedly continue to contribute to an academic environment. Staff should not be fired without a factual showing of incompetence. \nThe rest of academia seems to agree with these arguments. A study by Harvard's Graduate School of Education revealed that, since 1994, most universities have abolished mandatory retirement practices. IU is behind the times; it should be more progressive. \nThere are also indications that mandatory retirement has little support at IU.\n"I have never met one person in the University who has defended it and said it made any sense," said linguistics professor Paul Newman in a Jan. 17 IDS story. "I can't believe I'm the first person to bring this up."\nFormer athletics director Clarence Doninger, himself a victim of mandatory retirement, told the IDS "I did not contest the policy because I've supported IU for years. I did disagree with the policy, and I think it is appropriate that the University now reverse itself on that."\nIU needs to consider the message it is sending when it fires an employee on the basis of age. Such employees may be at the top of their careers; they may have given the most productive years of their lives to IU. To fire them at 65, even though they may perform their job at a high level, shows disrespect to their contributions and capabilities.