Editor Norman Boucher's claim that "Many college professors don't really retire; they just slow down. The best of them try to arrange things so they still get to work with students without fully occupying jobs that the young Turks who will eventually replace them are eager to take on" is dismayingly typical of the ageism that infests academia (Here & Now, March/April). If we urge old professors, even when "the mind is still sharp," to reduce their role in order to make way for young faculty who are eager to replace them, then why not urge women professors to reduce their role in order to make way for male faculty who are eager to replace them?

Felicia Nimue Ackerman
Providence
felicia_ackerman@brown.edu

The writer is a Brown professor of philosophy.