"Emporia State University has just fired a group of faculty members, including those on the tenure track. It’s the latest example of what I’ve called a queen sacrifice."
"The source of the phrase is chess, where queens are the most powerful piece, as tenure-track faculty are, in theory, the most powerful members of an academic community. In the game giving up the queen is a desperate move, often an attempt to wrest victory from a very bad situation, and so it seems to be for colleges and universities axing people in those positions."
https://bryanalexander.org/higher-education/emporia-state-university-commits-a-queen-sacrifice/