When it's emotionally compelling for your students, they will value what you and our colleagues do. They will support it personally, philosophically, politically and economically. Teaching passionately is just enlightened self interest. The price of liberty and the role of tenure. It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Students, both undergrad and grad, are shockingly unaware of the purpose of tenure. Stats class is a great venue for explaining tenure. Students first need to be reminded that the reasonably pursued truth is not always flattering to people in power, and that some people in power will suppress their detractors. Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot are good dramatic examples of ruthless power wielders. Remind students that United States Supreme Court Justices have tenure so that they can interpret the Constitution as they see it, without threat of losing their position by the capricious decision of someone in power.