John comments below regarding a new AFT report on higher ed that the decline of tenured faculty is a good thing, but the growth in administrators is a bad thing. But it may be that the two are connected. Without tenure, the university will be run completely by people who take degrees in things like diversity management and multicultural affairs, and who don’t even have the minimal contact with the liberal arts that someone who has studied a subject can have even in today’s debased climate. And without tenure, no one will demur from the reigning orthodoxies. I know many conservatives think the end of tenure would be a great thing, but as culpable as tenure sees to be in a lot of ills, it may be like democracy: the worst form of government until you consider the alternatives.