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Academics who are alarmed by the suggestion that their index-linked final-salary pensions might be unsustainable ("Gold standard reassessed", 15 May) can do something useful to protect their own interests. They ought to give active support to UK Academics for Continuing Employment, a group that is campaigning against age discrimination in general and the compulsory retirement of academics at 65 in particular.

If pensions are experiencing a financial squeeze, then forcing senior academics to retire when they could and should be continuing to work is hardly helpful. The pension fund will obviously be better off if they are permitted to continue contributing towards it rather than being forced to draw from it.

Andrew M. Colman, Professor of psychology, University of Leicester.