CONSIDER THIS scenario. Twice a year, a prominent university sends alumni a shiny magazine filled with upbeat articles designed to open hearts and checkbooks. One recent article portrays Ruthellen Williams.

The article tells alumni that Ruthellen Williams is a remarkable teacher. Her classes are “packed, every term,” and her “career holds many decorations, including top teaching awards, and many letters from students expressing her impact on their lives.” She loves teaching and loves her students. “Nevertheless, Williams says, it’s time to take her leave.” Thirty-seven and newly married to a prosperous surgeon, she is resigning her professorship to free up a post for men who have families to support. “If I hold onto my post, they can’t have a post, not this one,” she says.

The article does not ask why the onus of freeing up jobs to serve the greater good should fall on married women. Nor does it ask whether the greater good is truly served when such an outstanding teacher resigns.

Add to this scenario that many colleges and universities encourage women faculty to bow out upon getting married. Some even offer buyouts to induce tenured women to leave within their first year of marriage.

Of course, the entire scenario seems preposterous. Colleges and universities don’t treat women this way, do they?

That’s right; they don’t. They treat old people this way. The article about 37-year-old Ruthellen Williams is imaginary. It is based on a recent real article about Ralph Williams, a 67-year-old professor at the University of Michigan. All the passages I have quoted appear in that article, except that I have substituted “her” for “his.” The buyout for newly married women faculty is also imaginary. It is based on the real practice of giving elderly professors financial incentives to retire.

Why suppose that elderly professors should accept Ralph Williams’s view that it is time to take their leave? Here are some answers I have encountered.

“When elderly professors hold onto their jobs, there are fewer jobs for young faculty.” But when women and minorities hold onto their jobs, there are fewer jobs for white male faculty. Does this mean that women and minorities should resign? Obviously, the departure of some people can increase job opportunities for others. Why single out elderly professors as expendable?

“Young people need jobs to support themselves and their families, while the elderly can live on their pensions.” People old enough to be the target of this argument may recall the similar argument about married women who could live on their husbands’ incomes. But a pension generally provides less money than a salary, just as a single income provides less money than a double income for a family. Furthermore, money is scarcely the only reason people may want to practice their professions.

“Elderly professors have difficulty keeping up with new ideas and new technology.” Elderly professors should have no difficulty recalling the equally unflattering stereotypes that once prevailed about women and blacks.

“Age-related cognitive decline is not just a stereotype; studies find it in substantial proportions of the elderly.” What bearing does this have on old professors whose minds are still sharp?

“Most elderly professors are white men; so their departure promotes diversity.” Why should the onus of making room for “diversity” fall on the elderly? Moreover, why should diversity in age be less important than the fashionable forms of diversity? Of course, there is no perfect correlation between viewpoint and age, just as there is no perfect correlation between viewpoint and race or gender. But I have attended academic conferences where no one (except me) favored high-tech life-extending care for the old and ill and no one appeared to be much, if at all, over 70. What would academic administrators think of a conference of white men who assured one another of the wrongness of affirmative action?

What will academic administrators think of me? I am 61. I do not expect to be ready to retire at 67, 77, 87 — or 97, an age I have every hope of reaching with mental abilities intact, as will my mother next June.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a monthly contributor, is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.