It is true that tenure is there to protect professors engaging in the liberal project on unpopular topics. However, many do not pass the bar to receive tenure.
Nikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 project is not engaging in the liberal project tenure seek to protect. I've said elsewhere in this thread that the goal the 1619 Project is not, and never was, to improve our historical understanding. Rather, its goal was always to perpetrate a critical historiography that muddles and besmirches it (i.e. problematize). This includes undermining trust in the liberal ideas of individualism and human universality, wherein people are judged by the contents of their character and recognized for their common humanity, and forwarding identity-group thinking that is more useful for (radical) identity politics.
She is therefore in direct opposition to the liberal mission of the universities, and she does not deserve to receive tenure protection to continue subverting resources intended to further the university liberal mission to what is useful for (radical) identity politics. Protecting the universities liberal environment agains activists like her is a necessary precondition for continuing the liberal project.
