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June 06, 2005
Refusing to Retire: What Can Be Done
Judge Richard Posner, who would prefer to repeal the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), is proposing that old folks take a test. You have to read the whole thing on The Becker-Posner Blog [here], but here's an extract:
I wish to make a suggestion that would achieve the principal benefits of mandatory retirement without the principal costs. It is simply this: beginning at age 70, require every life-tenured professor and every life-tenured judge to take a test of mental acuity every five years. (I use these simply as examples of "light" jobs from which the occupant is unlikely to be forced to retire by the demands that the job places on him.) The test results would be available to the members of the professor's department or the judge's court but to no others. The results would not be a basis for a determination of incapacity; they would not even be admissible in a competence hearing. The expectation rather is that a poor test result would persuade the individual, perhaps by persuading his colleagues who would in turn persuade him, or persuade members of his family to persuade him, to retire voluntarily.
My view: I'd be more interested if Judge Posner would give a better explanation of why the test should not be given to all judges and profs.
Posted June 06, 2005 by Ross Runkel, Editor at LawMemo, publisher of Employment Law Memo. Try it.
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