[enum]

This isn't true right? You really can bring in zero dollars in grants and phone it in in the classroom. (Now, literally on Zoom!) I don't think it helps to pretend that everyone keeps pushing hard post tenure.

But, I think most people do. The system is deliberately designed to push an assistant professor so hard, that when they get a permanent contract, they're conditioned to keep pushing. It typically succeeds.

[whakim]

Yes; you can phone it in post-tenure. But just because it is possible doesn't mean (in my experience) it is common; and I don't think it's helpful (as TFA claims) to equate this possibility with "a total scam." To get tenure anywhere doesn't just require a huge amount of work as an Assistant Professor; it also requires a huge amount of work as a PhD student and potentially multiple rounds of post-doc'ing or other non-tenure-line work. In my experience, tenured professors have spent nearly two decades distorting their work-life balance beyond all recognition to the point that grinding insanely hard in pursuit of publications just feels normal.