Oddbean new post about login | logout @5fff00cf - no, that's incredibly rare. People can fail to get tenure, but they're not "demoted" to adjuncts; that would be against the rules at my university. So I would like to understand in more detail what happened here.
@b4c50e1b Interesting, I figured it would be well known in academic circles. If you find anything I'd love to hear about it. Seems like they were less than gracious to her, even if demotion is a common thing; but if it isn't that's even worse.
@b4c50e1b have also never heard of it. I mean, sometimes very elderly tenured faculty get put into tiny offices or whatever to "encourage" them to retire, but demotion? I'd think it was very much against the rules. or even messing with somebody's research plan! maybe she had a weird niche appointment originally.
@2c46aa33 - it turns out that article was written by someone who doesn't quite know academia. I've now learned a few details and they seem a bit different: she was a research assistant professor paid for by soft money, apparently from other people's grants, and when her research seemed to not be going anywhere those people said she should work on something else or she'd have get a job as an adjunct. That's my impression, anyway.