I read the whole article and it's very hard to judge the correctness of most of the article's claims. Most importantly, it's hard to judge the most important thing: the author's own research.
However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were granted tenure, the process is mostly fair, but of course most people are going to want to do everything they can to maximize their chances. What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.
As someone in industry, I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge, that cannot be done elsewhere, but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so. Outside of academia there is very little opportunity to do research. Industry is conservative, and prefers to implement and refine known techniques.
However, I can say that there are different ways to interpret things. The author sees tenure as a way to establish obedience to the unwritten rules of the department. Based on my knowledge of academia, including friends who were granted tenure, the process is mostly fair, but of course most people are going to want to do everything they can to maximize their chances. What the author interprets as proving obedience, I interpret as not wasting time on things the committee can't measure objectively, or doing things that might piss off people on the committee.
As someone in industry, I see academia as somewhere where people can make immense contributions to human knowledge, that cannot be done elsewhere, but they have to jump through certain hoops to do so. Outside of academia there is very little opportunity to do research. Industry is conservative, and prefers to implement and refine known techniques.