Part of the conventional wisdom about higher education concerns “adjunctification,” which is to say, the trend toward having college courses taught by adjunct faculty rather than full-time professors with tenure. This is assumed to be bad.

In this AIER essay, however, Phil Magness argues that “adjunctification” is actually on the decline and in any case, it’s not necessarily a bad thing — nor is tenure an unalloyed good.

To his argument, I would add that if you favor tenure because it protects faculty freedom of speech, it doesn’t do so any longer. When a professor has caused the academic mob to take up their pitchforks, tenure won’t provide protection.